The A2A Simulations Community

Hi everybody

I am planing a PC upgrade. Based one the advice I got here on the forum, I've come up with a draft.
Since I'm not that much of an expert I would greatly appreciate some feedback about my plans.

Currently I am limited by my old CPU which runs at 3.8ghz. As soon as i hit urban areas with lots of buildings, the performance suffers a lot.
I'am running P3D v4, A2A aircraft, orbx scenery and active sky.

The plan is to go for an i7 7700k with
- Gigabyte GA Z270-Gaming K3 ATX LGA 1151 Motherboard
- Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler
- 16 GB DDR4 RAM

From my current system, I would keep
- the case (a maxi tower)
- the power supply
- the GPU (Radeon R9 390 with 8GB DDR5 VRAM)
- the hard drives (ssd and hdd)

I am planing a bit of an overclock with the CPU (maybe up to 4.5 GHZ).

Does this all make sense?
Do the chosen parts fit together?
The i7 7700k is on the market for quite some time now? Regarding the future development: does it make sense to invest in this CPU architecture or is there something around the corner to wait for?

Thanks & Cheers, Mike

Hi Mike

I'm still running FSX but plan to move to P3D when A2A updates the P-51 for that sim.

I bought my system in June from Jetline Systems and am VERY happy. I had them add 2 more
GPU cards as I needed enough connections for my 6 monitors. You can see my cockpit build in
the P-51 Mustang (Military & Civilian) section listed as "P-51D cockpit build".

They list 4.7GHz on their ordering page but when I picked up mine it was cruising along at 4.8GHZ!

From past experience I know the power supply can be critical for a system. You didn't list your current
PSU so you may want to make sure it will handle the load.

I hope this helps.
Ed


Here are those specs:

Gravity GT2 × 1
Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit)
Chassis: Cooler Master Storm Scout II
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Z270x Gaming 5, LGA 1151
Processor: Intel 7th Gen Core i7 7700K (4.8GHz Overclock) Quad Core
CPU Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H60 Liquid Cooling
System Memory: 16GB Kingston DDR4 SDRAM 2400MHz
Graphics Processor: 8GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, PCI Express 3.0
2 extra Graphics Processor: GTX 730 to run three 7 inch LCD; 1 for O2 and 2 for fuel
System Power: 750 Watt Corsair RM Series Power Supply
Sound Card: 7.1 High Definition Integrated Audio
Primary SSD: 500GB Samsung EVO 850 (SSD)
Secondary Hard Drive: 1TB WD Black 7200 RPM
Optical Drive: 20x DVD/CD Burner Drive
Networking: Integrated High Speed Network Ready (10/100/1000)

Thanks Ed, I'll have a look at the components of your system.

Whats your full current system?

Remember P3D can use and will use more GPU, esp some of the fancy new stuff so i'd be careful keeping your old GPU.

thanks,
Lewis

Hi Lewis

My current System is:
P3D V4.1 @ 1440p
i7 950 OC @ 3.87 GHZ on a Rampage Formula III mainboard
16 GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon R9 390 (8 GB DDR5)
Win 10

Fair point about my GPU, thanks!

My thoughts about the GPU are:
- It is not that old It handles P3D v4.1 at 1440p with 4xSSAA pretty easily. I might have to turn shadows and reflections down a bit.
- After the CPU upgrade, my GPU will be the new bottleneck, yes.
- The GPU has the advantage of being upgradable independently of other components (I could do this later on).
- I currently can't spend enough money to get a new CPU and a new GPU.
- A new GPU alone won't improve my performance since the CPU bottleneck still cuts me down.

That's the reasons for my current plan.
Does it make sense under the described circumstances?

Cheerio, Mike

Spot on Mike, sounds like you know what your issue will be right away which is great. So you are planning to stick to current res after the upgrade?

thanks,
Lewis

Yes, I will stick with 1440p after the CPU upgrade.
4k will be dealt with later on - monitor and GPU together. But that might take some time. We are looking for a house to buy for our family -> not much financial room for flight simming
All in all, I am thinking about posponing the whole PC upgrade to a point in time where I can go for a whole new PC. If I only could try out my current GPU with an overclocked 7700k, that would allow me to decide whether or not the upgrade is worth it.

The R9 390 is comparable to a GTX 970 (i think) - only that it has 8GB of VRAM. Does this allow to judge the situation a bit better?

What settings are more CPU resp. GPU demanding?
Is the following correct?
- Autogen -> CPU
- Autogen shadows -> GPU
- Terrain shadows?

Cheers, Mike

I heard that Intel had a newer CPU the i7-8700K so you might want to check that one out

a review here

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/int ... 252-3.html

I got a i7-7700K system earlier this year though

Looks good for your plan, best of luck on the new build

Thanks for helping out guys!

Got the part list togeter:
Intel Core i7-7700k 4.2 GHz Quad Core
Gigabyte GA-Z270-Gaming K3 ATX
Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Team Dark 16GB DDR4-2400 Memory

Will order these in a few days and then assemble over christmas

Bump this up and wish you well on the build!

By now I have built it all together. It was the first PC that i assembled all on my own - I enjoyed every minute of it! Astonishingly, the thing booted up successfully at the first attempt and I haven't encountered any major problems so far.

Got the CPU up to 4.9 GHZ (will probably push some more - temps still under 80°C with prime 95).

Now I will have to see, what it can do in P3D ^^
I'll post some results / pics when I'm done.

Cheers an

Congratulations on your new great build

Good stuff, hope everything loads onto it all ok but in theory you should be past the hard parts now

It's working pretty well so far

Autogen and draw distances almost maxed out.
1440p with 4xSSAA.
Only compromises are: no dynamic reflections and only cloud shadows.

In extremly dense areas it drops down to 18-20 fps, everywhere else, it is locked at 34 fps.
A new GPU will be necessary, to get the most out of it - but that will have to wait...

Are there overclocking experts around that can help with the settings of my main board (Gigabyte Z270 Gaming K3)?
I am facing problems with the core CPU voltage - my settings are not consequently applied (some kind of optimization is probably interfering with my settings).






Thanks for all the support - so many nice and smart people around here!

Cheers, Mike