build Advice on components for X-Plane 11 and MFS2020

[zephirus]

Hi,

 

I play flight simulators for a long long time and now that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is around the corner I want to upgrade my "old" PC to prepare it for the new sim and also get a boost in Xplane 11 performance.

 

At the moment I'm getting around 20-25fps on a 1440p monitor but at the cost of only getting medium graphics settings and getting below 15fps or less in some scenarios.

 

So what I have now is:

Motherboard: Asus p8z68-v gen3

CPU: i5 2500k

RAM: 2x8Gb DDR3 1600 (from what I remember...)

GPU: GTX 1660 6Gb

 

What I'm thinking to buy:

Motherboard: Asus Prime B450-Plus

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

RAM: Corsair 32Gb Vengance LPX (2x16Gb) DDR4 2666MHz PC4-21300 CL16

Cooler: Noctua NH-D15

 

I will keep my case, Power supply and Graphics card for now.

 

My monitor is a Dell 1440p 27'' 1ms 144Hz with FreeSync.

 

I also want to buy new storage. I think an M.2 SSD would be the way to go but I don't know nothing about that.

 

So, what do you think? Any changes that I should do?

 

The budget is around 700€ (~772$) but I'm open for suggestions.

 

Thank you.

[Mateyyy]

I would suggest going for a less expensive cooler, something like a Dark Rock 4 or NH-U12S will do for the 3700X, as long as you don't plan on doing heavy manual overvolting.

When it comes to B450 boards, MSI's are about the best you can get, my suggestions would be the Tomahawk, Gaming, Mortar and A Pro, and particularly the "Max" version of either board, as those come ready for Ryzen 3000 out of the box.

Ryzen loves fast memory, so I'd grab a 3200MHz kit, or 3600 if it's not much more expensive.

Also, if all you do is gaming on your PC, you could go for a Ryzen 3600 and not really lose much gaming performance, and save a bit of money.

[zephirus]

Thanks Mateyyy,

 

From your advices I got this:

 

My First Choice
Motherboard:	Asus Prime B450-Plus	97,90 €
CPU:	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X	348,70 €
RAM:	Corsair 32Gb Vengance LPX (2x16Gb) DDR4 2666MHz PC4-21300 CL16	145,90 €
Cooler:	Noctua NH-D15	89,90 €
	TOTAL	682,40 €
Option 1
Motherboard:	MSI B450 Tomahawk Max	115,90 €
CPU:	Ryzen 7 3700X	348,70 €
RAM:	RAM Team Group 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200MHz Dark Z Red CL16	120,82 €
Cooler:	Noctua NH-U12S	57,90 €
	TOTAL	643,32 €
Option 2
Motherboard:	MSI B450 Tomahawk Max	115,90 €
CPU:	Ryzen 5 3600X	231,23 €
RAM:	RAM Team Group 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200MHz Dark Z Red CL16	120,82 €
Cooler:	Noctua NH-U12S	57,90 €
	TOTAL	525,85 €

 

Changing the RAM to a "RAM G.Skill 32GB Sniper X (2x16GB) DDR4-3600MHz CL19 Urban Camo" will increase 32€.

 

From what I see, the Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 7 3700X are very similar with a big difference in price so maybe your're right about going for the 5.

 

[boggy77]

3 minutes ago, zephirus said:

Noctua NH-U12S

A bit overpriced. Similar performance can be had from arctic freezer 34 esports duo or coolermaster hyper 212 rgb black edition or even a gelid phantom if you can find one. All these will be cheaper with similar cooling performance (maybe a bit louder).

[zephirus]

4 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

A bit overpriced. Similar performance can be had from arctic freezer 34 esports duo or coolermaster hyper 212 rgb black edition or even a gelid phantom if you can find one. All these will be cheaper with similar cooling performance (maybe a bit louder).

Thanks. I will definitely go for the Noctua just because after trying others I really like this brand. It's indeed very quiet. But thanks for the suggestions! Really appreciate all the help I can get.

[boggy77]

3 minutes ago, zephirus said:

Thanks. I will definitely go for the Noctua just because after trying others I really like this brand. It's indeed very quiet. But thanks for the suggestions! Really appreciate all the help I can get.

Noctua NH-D14 should be 5 euros or so more expensive than the u12s with much better performance, then

[zephirus]

@Mateyyy I think I will go for the Ryzen 5 3600X as you suggested. I will get more or less the same performance right?

 

About the motherboard, it's a good choice for the future? I mean, if I want to update later I will be good with this one?

 

Thanks

[Mateyyy]

1 minute ago, zephirus said:

@Mateyyy I think I will go for the Ryzen 5 3600X as you suggested. I will get more or less the same performance right?

 

About the motherboard, it's a good choice for the future? I mean, if I want to update later I will be good with this one?

 

Thanks

Always quote so we can be notified whenever you reply (for example I wasn't aware that you responded yesterday haha).

The Tomahawk Max should be good for up to a 3900X, so yes, it is a good option. 

If you plan on running an aftermarket cooler anyway, you could just go for the 3600, unless you can get the X for the same price, as they will be almost identical in performance when running with good cooling.

 

[zephirus]

19 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Always quote so we can be notified whenever you reply (for example I wasn't aware that you responded yesterday haha).

The Tomahawk Max should be good for up to a 3900X, so yes, it is a good option. 

If you plan on running an aftermarket cooler anyway, you could just go for the 3600, unless you can get the X for the same price, as they will be almost identical in performance when running with good cooling.

 

Thanks!

 

So, 3600X if it's same price as 3600 with a good cooler. 3700X is definitely not worth the difference.

 

Thanks to all that helped out!

[zephirus]

On 1/25/2020 at 3:41 PM, Mateyyy said:

Always quote so we can be notified whenever you reply (for example I wasn't aware that you responded yesterday haha).

The Tomahawk Max should be good for up to a 3900X, so yes, it is a good option. 

If you plan on running an aftermarket cooler anyway, you could just go for the 3600, unless you can get the X for the same price, as they will be almost identical in performance when running with good cooling.

 

I asked a friend about what he thinks about this upgrade and of course now I'm more confused.

Currently, my motherboard is the Asus p8z68-v gen3 and it only supports DDR3 RAM but in fact I can put a more recent CPU, either i5 ou i7.

This way I could keep my current board and save some money.

 

So, as an alternative to the Ryzen 5 3600, is there a better option going to intel? Should the RAM support being only DDR3 be a bootleneck?

[Mateyyy]

16 minutes ago, zephirus said:

I asked a friend about what he thinks about this upgrade and of course now I'm more confused.

Currently, my motherboard is the Asus p8z68-v gen3 and it only supports DDR3 RAM but in fact I can put a more recent CPU, either i5 ou i7.

This way I could keep my current board and save some money.

 

So, as an alternative to the Ryzen 5 3600, is there a better option going to intel? Should the RAM support being only DDR3 be a bootleneck?

I mean, if the games you play don't require 6+ cores to run without issues, an i7-2600 or 3770 could improve your experience by a decent bit because of the extra 4 threads. Single-core performance won't improve by much, if at all, though.

I would only suggest you go this route if you find a particularly great deal on either of the CPUs I've mentioned, and if you think 4C/8T will be enough for you until you go for a full platform upgrade. 

[zephirus]

40 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

I mean, if the games you play don't require 6+ cores to run without issues, an i7-2600 or 3770 could improve your experience by a decent bit because of the extra 4 threads. Single-core performance won't improve by much, if at all, though.

I would only suggest you go this route if you find a particularly great deal on either of the CPUs I've mentioned, and if you think 4C/8T will be enough for you until you go for a full platform upgrade. 

For X-Plane I will not get a better performance because it mainly uses 1 core. Maybe for the next Microsoft simulator it would be noticable but I start to notice that, unless I go to oither CPU values, I will not see great changes in performance.

[zephirus]

On 1/27/2020 at 3:04 PM, Mateyyy said:

I mean, if the games you play don't require 6+ cores to run without issues, an i7-2600 or 3770 could improve your experience by a decent bit because of the extra 4 threads. Single-core performance won't improve by much, if at all, though.

I would only suggest you go this route if you find a particularly great deal on either of the CPUs I've mentioned, and if you think 4C/8T will be enough for you until you go for a full platform upgrade. 

 

After some thinking and advices from friends, I got to the components attached.

 

Any thing that I can/should change?

 

EDIT: I can get everything for 522,51€

 

Thanks!

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by zephirus
Change in price

[Mateyyy]

10 hours ago, zephirus said:

 

After some thinking and advices from friends, I got to the components attached.

 

Any thing that I can/should change?

 

EDIT: I can get everything for 522,51€

 

Thanks!

 

 

Looks good! 

[zephirus]

2 hours ago, Mateyyy said:

Looks good! 

Thanks Mateyyy and boggy77 for your comments. Really appreciate.