Upgrade advice

Bracpasuk · 14 Sep 2018 at 12:15

Hi,

Considering whether I need an upgrade/new PC. Used for gaming and non gaming. Gaming things like FSX/Xplane 11, BF1, other less resource intensive games.

Current spec (from overclockers)

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i5 2500K @ 3.30GHz 30 °C
Sandy Bridge 32nm Technology
RAM
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. Z68X-UD3P-B3 (Socket 1155) 30 °C
Graphics
T27B551 (1920x1080@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (NVIDIA) 27 °C
Storage
232GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB ATA Device (SSD) 25 °C
465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0 ATA Device (SATA) 26 °C

Optical Drives
ATAPI iHAS122 ATA Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

Any advice appreciated, particularly around whether a simple upgrade would suffice or isn't worth it. Not a PC tech, so any advice to overclock would need a link to simple instructions please!

Thanks

orbitalwalsh · 14 Sep 2018 at 12:37

@Brackish

other members on the forum post up somewhere of performance of 4 core intel's on BF:V and finally starting to show 4/8 threads aren't cutting it - also know games like WOW have listed i7 3*** as recommended for 1080p 60hz along with gtx 960 we are finally seeing more cores being used .
Still most games are speed bound , specially at 1080p and intel does have the advantage here, going up the scale in resolution ryzen claws it back .

only problem, you've might of seen is intel messed up moving to small die node and now makes EVERYTHING on 14nm and chips are low in stock, as well as 9th Gen 8 core intels coming around about Week 40 this year... i5 8400 has gone up £50 and i7 8700k up £70 odd ...

cheapest easiest method is to slap in i7 K CPU for your board and overclock it hard! should see some gains with the speed increase and extra 4 threads. And add another 8 GB of ram

Xplane 11 seems to like RAM! a lot and 4 cores at speed!

lifted from their site

CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K at 3.5 ghz or faster

Memory: 16-24 GB RAM or more

Video Card: a DirectX 12-capable video card from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel with at least 4 GB VRAM (GeForce GTX 1070 or better or similar from AMD)

to be honest, was going to say keep the 970 gtx but there is quite a jump from 970 to 1070 in power , but still think it should hold its own

what would be in theor your max budget ?

****jezzz reading threads... the XP game hammers hardware! - old thread though

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/127143-x-plane-11-computer-specs/

On a side note, seems the game ca also eat VRAM like no tomorrow if you enable lots of settings..

Bracpasuk · 14 Sep 2018 at 12:52

Hi, thinking £1k max

orbitalwalsh · 14 Sep 2018 at 12:58

not sure if you've gone through the XP forum.. quite a lot to pick through but posts about Thread Optimisation and such being on vs off and Hyperthread/SMT being on off .

seems in a nut shell running 6 core Intel, overclocked without HT on and games TO on leads to gains or just using i5 8600 instead of 8700 can save cash .

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.ph...eaded-optimization-actually-increases-my-fps/

though depends, do you spend more time on flight sims then say FPS like BF titles ?

^^honestly that game and depending on settings and rendering tools/packages added can only make 30fps 1080p.....on a GTX 1080TI and i7 7700k @ 4.7ghz ...damn

2nd post on the Thread, OP system is basically yours... worth a read

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.ph...7-3770k-fps-etc/&tab=comments#comment-1395742