I may be pushing my PC

[jayvee43]

Hi Guys
Just a quick question. I seem to be good to fly at good frame rates in the first few flights. Then at times I loose something. I have a transparent dash, or the outside view is transparent. frames drop a bit too.

Am I pushing my PC. I have a new Video card, but my CPU is still the same.

I took a pic of the performance report for you guys to look at. Is my CPU being pushed too much to keep up with the GPU? Is it time to look for another cpu? What do you guys think?

[addman]

If that's FSX you are running then your CPU will ALWAYS be the limiting factor no matter how powerful it is. I have a mere GTX 1050 (non-Ti) coupled with an overclocked AMD Ryzen 1200 and the GPU is maxing out at about 40-60% utilization (with very heavy AA settings in Nvidia inspector) whilst the CPU is pegged at 100% on core 1 (I have affinitymask 14 set so core 0 is masked for from FSX). This tells me that FSX is heavily CPU, single thread bound since it is working it's *ss off to feed the GPU which is just whistling along wishing it had a higher clocked friend.

If you primarily use FSX, get yourself the latest unlocked coffee lake i3, k-variant and overclock the snot out of it. IMO, anything more than a 4-6 threaded CPU is a waste for FSX. What you need is that high-frequency/high-IPC combo and the i3-8350k is probably the best for that IMO. P3D is a bit of another story though.

[jayvee43]

Sorry, I forgot to mention. I am using FSX and the A2A Cessna. I fly from ORBX airports at max slides all the way and with real weather.

My thaughts while reading your comment brings me to this next question: Is it normal to have the CPU running most of the time at 100% while flying. I could limit my frames to 20 FPS and give my little I5 Chip a break if this is normal. I would not want to fry it out.

How do you guys find out at what temperature it runs? I do not have a way of telling

Thanks

Jesse

[bullfox]

Both FSX and P3D benefit from the fastest possible CPU you can get. At 3.5 ghz you are probably a little underwhelmed. The really interesting problem is that as computers get faster and faster it makes it possible to run with the sliders farther to the right, but then OOM problems start cropping up. Ending that problem seems to be the main benefit of 64 bit sims.

[addman]

Sorry, I forgot to mention. I am using FSX and the A2A Cessna. I fly from ORBX airports at max slides all the way and with real weather.

My thaughts while reading your comment brings me to this next question: Is it normal to have the CPU running most of the time at 100% while flying. I could limit my frames to 20 FPS and give my little I5 Chip a break if this is normal. I would not want to fry it out.

How do you guys find out at what temperature it runs? I do not have a way of telling

Thanks

Jesse

Yes, running FSX it is normal for the CPU, or at least the first core of the CPU, to run at 100%. Your i5 will never fry since it isn't overclockable and even if it were overclocked your PC would simply shut down before any harm would be done, it's a built-in safety feature in any modern motherboard/CPU. The only thing that could happen if you don't have decent airflow in your PC case is that the CPU reaches it's maximum TDP (Thermal Design Power) and throttles down to a lower clock-frequency to stay within the TDP. However, you should have pretty poor airflow in your PC for this to happen with a locked i5 CPU. You can use hwmonitor to see all the heat parameters of your system, it's a very popular tool and free!: https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

[jayvee43]

OK, Thanks guys. I will probably get a I3 that runs above 4 GHZ.

Thanks Addman, I'll check into this.what you said.

If you primarily use FSX, get yourself the latest unlocked coffee lake i3, k-variant and overclock the snot out of it. IMO, anything more than a 4-6 threaded CPU is a waste for FSX. What you need is that high-frequency/high-IPC combo and the i3-8350k is probably the best for that IMO. P3D is a bit of another story though.

[jayvee43]

OK, New question. (sorry I'm full of stupid questions)

Here is a picture of the details of the CPU, Notice it says 100% max high. That is what I see while flying, on all 4 (cores?) is that also normal?

[addman]

OK, New question. (sorry I'm full of stupid questions)

Here is a picture of the details of the CPU, Notice it says 100% max high. That is what I see while flying, on all 4 (cores?) is that also normal?

Everything looks totally normal, most games and a lot of applications will demand 100% of your CPU capacity at one point or another during usage. Temps on the CPU looks very good too, max 55c during full load is nowhere near any limit whatsoever. Cool as ice!

[jayvee43]

OK, Thanks Addman for your help. I guess I'll stay on these numbers. In the spring, I'll get me a fast I3 like you suggested.

[crippy]

Temps look very good if those screen shots were from 30+ min of FSX. I usually strive to keep temps under 60C for longevity and people call me obsessive for that

[jayvee43]

If that's FSX you are running then your CPU will ALWAYS be the limiting factor no matter how powerful it is. I have a mere GTX 1050 (non-Ti) coupled with an overclocked AMD Ryzen 1200 and the GPU is maxing out at about 40-60% utilization (with very heavy AA settings in Nvidia inspector) whilst the CPU is pegged at 100% on core 1 (I have affinitymask 14 set so core 0 is masked for from FSX). This tells me that FSX is heavily CPU, single thread bound since it is working it's *ss off to feed the GPU which is just whistling along wishing it had a higher clocked friend.

If you primarily use FSX, get yourself the latest unlocked coffee lake i3, k-variant and overclock the snot out of it. IMO, anything more than a 4-6 threaded CPU is a waste for FSX. What you need is that high-frequency/high-IPC combo and the i3-8350k is probably the best for that IMO. P3D is a bit of another story though.

Great Idea, no go. I purchased a I3-8350K and installed it very carefully, it does not seem to work. I put the old CPU back in. It works. I guess this brings me to another question all together. IS it my motherboard? I took out an I5-6400 and tried updating with an I3. Did I do something wrong??? I simply followed your suggestion. Yikes!!!!

Jesse

[addman]

If that's FSX you are running then your CPU will ALWAYS be the limiting factor no matter how powerful it is. I have a mere GTX 1050 (non-Ti) coupled with an overclocked AMD Ryzen 1200 and the GPU is maxing out at about 40-60% utilization (with very heavy AA settings in Nvidia inspector) whilst the CPU is pegged at 100% on core 1 (I have affinitymask 14 set so core 0 is masked for from FSX). This tells me that FSX is heavily CPU, single thread bound since it is working it's *ss off to feed the GPU which is just whistling along wishing it had a higher clocked friend.

If you primarily use FSX, get yourself the latest unlocked coffee lake i3, k-variant and overclock the snot out of it. IMO, anything more than a 4-6 threaded CPU is a waste for FSX. What you need is that high-frequency/high-IPC combo and the i3-8350k is probably the best for that IMO. P3D is a bit of another story though.

Great Idea, no go. I purchased a I3-8350K and installed it very carefully, it does not seem to work. I put the old CPU back in. It works. I guess this brings me to another question all together. IS it my motherboard? I took out an I5-6400 and tried updating with an I3. Did I do something wrong??? I simply followed your suggestion. Yikes!!!!

Jesse

I did not advice you to install an 8th gen CPU in to a 6th or 7th gen motherboard. Hope that i3-8350k isn't fried.

[jayvee43]

If that's FSX you are running then your CPU will ALWAYS be the limiting factor no matter how powerful it is. I have a mere GTX 1050 (non-Ti) coupled with an overclocked AMD Ryzen 1200 and the GPU is maxing out at about 40-60% utilization (with very heavy AA settings in Nvidia inspector) whilst the CPU is pegged at 100% on core 1 (I have affinitymask 14 set so core 0 is masked for from FSX). This tells me that FSX is heavily CPU, single thread bound since it is working it's *ss off to feed the GPU which is just whistling along wishing it had a higher clocked friend.

If you primarily use FSX, get yourself the latest unlocked coffee lake i3, k-variant and overclock the snot out of it. IMO, anything more than a 4-6 threaded CPU is a waste for FSX. What you need is that high-frequency/high-IPC combo and the i3-8350k is probably the best for that IMO. P3D is a bit of another story though.

Great Idea, no go. I purchased a I3-8350K and installed it very carefully, it does not seem to work. I put the old CPU back in. It works. I guess this brings me to another question all together. IS it my motherboard? I took out an I5-6400 and tried updating with an I3. Did I do something wrong??? I simply followed your suggestion. Yikes!!!!

Jesse

I did not advice you to install an 8th gen CPU in to a 6th or 7th gen motherboard. Hope that i3-8350k isn't fried.

No you didn't. Don't sweat it. I looked up the I3-8350K and liked the price and verified it fit my socket type. I never even read anywhere where it says there is different voltages with different generations. I never even thaught twice about generations. To me, Generations means the latest version of something. I made sure the sockets were the same, and it was.

LESSON LEARNED.