Upgrade Advice

nath818

nath818

nath818

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Joined
8 Nov 2020
Posts
2
Hi guys,

Its been a good few years since I built my pc and frankly I'm a bit out the loop with regards to pc hardware now so I have come here for some advice.

I am looking to upgrade my pc to cope with MSFS a bit better as I'm struggling with FPS in the larger cities.

Current spec is as follows:
MB - ASUS - Z97-P
Processor - Intel I5 - 4690K 3.50 GHZ + Coolmaster cooler
RAM - HYPER X 8GB
Corasair - 600 PSU
SSD - 120 GB samsung EVO for booting windows.
hd 1TB
Graphics - Nvidia 970GTX

I think the PSU will be fine, do you guys think the best option would be a new MB/ processor and more ram ?

would just replacing the processor on the same board be of benefit?

I think a new nvme SSD would help a lot as currently MSFS is installed on the HD rather than SSD, not for frame rates but certainly for load times which are pretty slow just now.

Budget probably £300 which wont get me much to be fair, can be increased. Im not looking for a top spec machine as i wont be getting it for that budget frankly.
 
It is a miracle that you run MSFS at playable framerates and those loadtimes...., especially installed on HDD....

For less than £300 you can go for M.2 SSD which will be like night and day for you. The remaining £150 you should really think about more RAM
 
Hmm...

£50 for a 500gb ssd

hunt around for a used cpu/mobo/ram bundle. I have seen a few (just had a browse) that were 8700k + mobo + 16gb of ram for £200-£250

So £300, and you'll get a much better cpu plus ram plus the necessary motherboard.

You may then be able to get a little back by selling your own cpu/mobo/ram bundle. Taking another browse, it seems like you could maybe get £115 for it, if it's in decent condition.

Edited while writing - Do the same with your GPU, you can get £150 for the 970 it seems.


So if you're thrifty and patient -

Spend £250 for a cpu, motherboard, mobo, ram, 500gb ssd
Recover £115 selling your existing spares
= £135 spent (call it £150 cos of fees etc), and so £150 remaining from your budget of £300.

You can sell the 970 for £150 it seems, so you're back up to £300 remaining budget.

You could get a 1080 for £350 (you can also get 1070 or 1070ti, but they also seem to sell for about £285-£350 so I'd probably just aim for the 1080, up to you though).


Soooo... For a total spend of £350, you end up with a 6 core / 12 thread cpu, a 500gb ssd (plus your existing 120gb ssd), and a 1080.

(This is what I would do anyway. But then I also keep all my boxes for equipment, because it makes it much easier to sell them when I decide to upgrade. I upgrade quite often. Selling things makes it relatively affordable.)
 
Check the 11400F + B560 combo as that seems to be the current bang for your buck option, obviously a new GPU wouldn't go a miss either so maybe save up and try snag a 3060ti FE which goes for around £370.
 
Joxeon said:
Check the 11400F + B560 combo as that seems to be the current bang for your buck option, obviously a new GPU wouldn't go a miss either so maybe save up and try snag a 3060ti FE which goes for around £370.
Click to expand...
This gets my vote as well. £150 for the CPU, see what motherboards are available and at what price. I got a crucial 3200 16gb kit off Amazon for £60, so if you can find a motherboard for £90 you're golden
 
olegnewman said:
It is a miracle that you run MSFS at playable framerates and those loadtimes...., especially installed on HDD....

For less than £300 you can go for M.2 SSD which will be like night and day for you. The remaining £150 you should really think about more RAM
Click to expand...

If you're only after faster load times I would personally go for SATA SSD rather than M.2. It will be twice as big for the same price (or just much cheaper if same capacity) and load times difference is negligible, only few seconds, if that. What you save on SSD you could use for RAM, or CPU upgrade.
 
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