Lowest core count but highest clock speed CPU (2025)

[nicky9499]

Gday gents,

 

I recently piecemeal upgraded a rig for Microsoft Flight Simulator although by the time I was done it might as well have been an entirely new rig save for the tower case. Flight sims, especially of the Microsoft variety, have been long-known to run better on higher clock speed cores over many slower ones, with its modern roots tracing back to when NetBurst was still a thing. Anyway it seems even in its latest iteration, not much has changed, and despite a hefty GPU just strolling along even at Ultra, the CPU is just barely keeping up. I had to use Process Lasso to shepherd everything except MSFS onto the last 2 cores to stop it from banging off the limiter.

 

I bought a 5600G (my last AMD chip was a Phenom X3) for its high clock speed and power efficiency and so far it has lived up to expectations. Disabling SMT dropped power consumption by ~30W and temps by 10-15*C, under a Noctua NH-D14. The last chips to run my sims were 7700K 4.7Ghz (P3D, NH-D14) and 3770K 4.8GHz (FSX, Alphacool 560mm). The current 5600 runs at about 4.2-4.3Ghz sustained, which isn't shabby at all, considering just a few years the 4.2GHz 10100 was considered a good (if not the best) budget upgrade in FS circles.

 

Which brings us to today's topic, because I'll need to build another FS rig for another location soon. I've taken a gander at what's available out there, and most "enthusiast" or mid-level chips are 10-12 cores now and ambling along at 2.8 to 3.something GHz. It's the complete opposite of what FS needs. I know simply looking at Gigahertz is not a holistic way of determining CPU performance, but the reality is there are guys with 14900Ks getting the same crap performance in FS because their clockspeed won't go any higher and most of their 2 dozen cores are just twiddling their thumbs. MSFS is a very modern game but it still contains lots of the old code and behaves much the same way when it comes to taking advantage of many cores.

 

Is there a chip out there today that fulfills most if not all of the below criteria?

• 2 to 6 physical cores
• Stock speed 4.5Ghz or above
• Overclockable
• Under US$200

This is a very niche and targeted application. Pure clock speed for one type of program only.

I'm sure the rig will run other games well enough, but its front and center designed for MSFS.

[Blue4130]

16 minutes ago, nicky9499 said:

 most "enthusiast" or mid-level chips are 10-12 cores now and ambling along at 2.8 to 3.something GHz.

Except in reality, they aren't. That is the base clock, which they will never really run at.

[Jurrunio]

Under $200, nah. You cant even get the bottom of the barrel 225F and 9600X with that money. 

 

Quote

• Stock speed 4.5Ghz or above
• Overclockable

Why care about stock speed if you are gojng to overlcock it?

 

The cheapest you can go for a new overclockable CPU is the 245K at nearly $300 or 9600X at $213. If you are willing to go used, a 5800x3d might make more sense if you can reuse most stuff in the 5600G build for the upgrade.

[nicky9499]

31 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Except in reality, they aren't. That is the base clock, which they will never really run at.

 

Yes, they will have Turbo Boost and the AMD equiv. But even in the bestttt case scenario (giant air cooler or water), sustained all-core clocks will top out at around another 1Ghz on top of base clock. And if you're on a normie chip and board, that's as far as you go. No further OC for you.

 

24 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Under $200, nah. You cant even get the bottom of the barrel 225F and 9600X with that money. 

 

Why care about stock speed if you are gojng to overlcock it?

 

The cheapest you can go for a new overclockable CPU is the 245K at nearly $300 or 9600X at $213. If you are willing to go used, a 5800x3d might make more sense if you can reuse most stuff in the 5600G build for the upgrade.

 

Stock speed is important if its a lower-end chip which low-core-count SKUs typically are these days because those usually can't be multiplier overclocked.

 

Actually, the 9600X is very ideal, and not much of a budget stretch. Thanks for this suggestion.

Will be interesting to see how fast it can go if I pull the old Alphacool rad out of storage and find a good AM4 block to go with it.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, nicky9499 said:

 

Yes, they will have Turbo Boost and the AMD equiv. But even in the bestttt case scenario (giant air cooler or water), sustained all-core clocks will top out at around another 1Ghz on top of base clock. And if you're on a normie chip and board, that's as far as you go. No further OC for you.

No man, take the 13900k as an example. It can sustain an all core boost of 4.9 ghz. (according to techpowerup). In Tom's hardware review, at 4k, the 13900k is THE best cpu for MSFS2024. That CPU is a far cry from a low core count chip.

[ki8aras]

didn't x3d cpus perform really well in msfs?

[Mark Kaine]

Yeah newer CPUs have higher sustained clocks than you think, and probably cost more that you'd want .

 

14 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

didn't x3d cpus perform really well in msfs?

Yeah pretty sure I read that too. 

[Blue4130]

25 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

didn't x3d cpus perform really well in msfs?

They did at resolutions under 4k, but at 4k the 13900k pulled (a very slight) lead.

[ki8aras]

10 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

They did at resolutions under 4k, but at 4k the 13900k pulled (a very slight) lead.

 

21 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Yeah newer CPUs have higher sustained clocks than you think, and probably cost more that you'd want .

 

Yeah pretty sure I read that too. 

so the budget way to get the best performance is a 5700x3d ig(?)

[nicky9499]

Hi guys, thanks for the input and correcting some of my misconceptions.

 

I agree a 13900K or 9800X3D would run MSFS great (and even then, you'll probably still get the odd stutter from server/streaming issues), but that's literally a case of "throw enough money at any problem and it'll go away". And that's just the chip, for which you are practically obligated to buy a big honkin' OC board to run it on. All this just to have the majority of my 24 cores sitting idle.

 

All this is to say the ideal chip for an "average" flight sim application is probably something like a 4- or 6-core version of the 13900K that will hit the same clocks. I was already hitting 4.8GHz on Ivy Bridge with water, ideally the new rig should have sustained all-core OC of at at least 5. The lowest-spec K chip in that family is the 13600K that will Turbo to 5.1GHz. Great, but it is still a monstrously overkill 14-core part and priced accordingly.

 

The rig I'm building at the new house will feed a 1080p projector for low and slow VFR flights vs my current 1440p monitor for IFR long-hauls. So resolution-wise the requirements are lower, but made up for with higher level-of-detail settings for that type of flying. And high TLOD settings in MSFS just hammer at most...the first 3 cores of the CPU.

 

 

[PDifolco]

3 minutes ago, nicky9499 said:

Hi guys, thanks for the input and correcting some of my misconceptions.

 

I agree a 13900K or 9800X3D would run MSFS great (and even then, you'll probably still get the odd stutter from server/streaming issues), but that's literally a case of "throw enough money at any problem and it'll go away". And that's just the chip, for which you are practically obligated to buy a big honkin' OC board to run it on. All this just to have the majority of my 24 cores sitting idle.

 

All this is to say the ideal chip for an "average" flight sim application is probably something like a 4- or 6-core version of the 13900K that will hit the same clocks. The lowest-spec K chip in that family is the 13600K that will Turbo to 5.1GHz. Great, but it is still a monstrous overkill 14-core part and priced accordingly. I was already hitting 4.8GHz on Ivy Bridge with water, ideally the new rig should have sustained all-core OC of at at least 5.

 

The new rig I'm building at the new house will feed a 1080p projector for low and slow VFR flights vs currently 1440p G-sync monitor for IFR long-hauls. So resolution-wise the requirements are lower, but made up for with higher level-of-detail settings for that type of flying. And high TLOD settings in MSFS just hammer at most...the first 3 cores of the CPU.

 

 

Are you sure?

X3D chips are quite superior to faster Intel chips in sim game, and don't need hi end boards nor cooling 

[nicky9499]

9 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Are you sure?

X3D chips are quite superior to faster Intel chips in sim game, and don't need hi end boards nor cooling 

 

The lowest-end X3D part I could find so far is the 6-core 7600X3D at 4.1/4.7Ghz. Not as fast as I'd like, and you still have to contend with all the costs associated with an AM5 build. The AM4 5700X3D is much slower. My average-joe takeaway for X3D is the newer ones cost too much and the older ones run too slow.

[Echothedolpin]

1 hour ago, nicky9499 said:

 

The lowest-end X3D part I could find so far is the 6-core 7600X3D at 4.1/4.7Ghz. Not as fast as I'd like, and you still have to contend with all the costs associated with an AM5 build. The AM4 5700X3D is much slower. My average-joe takeaway for X3D is the newer ones cost too much and the older ones run too slow.

What do you mean too slow? Pure clock speed is meaningless if you’re not accounting for IPC.

 

Theres a reason no one uses Bulldozer chips these days.

 

Edit: I will also gently question some of your prior judgement. A 5600g may technically be more efficient than a 5600x, but there are almost zero applications on the planet that would run better on a .2ghz core increase versus a doubled L3 cache. Unless of course you require the IGPU!

[nicky9499]

1 hour ago, Echothedolpin said:

What do you mean too slow? Pure clock speed is meaningless if you’re not accounting for IPC.

 

Theres a reason no one uses Bulldozer chips these days.

 

Edit: I will also gently question some of your prior judgement. A 5600g may technically be more efficient than a 5600x, but there are almost zero applications on the planet that would run better on a .2ghz core increase versus a doubled L3 cache. Unless of course you require the IGPU!

I mean too slow as in literally by any metric its still too slow to keep up with FS. The 5700X3D struggles to even reach 4.1GHz. Not a Bulldozer at 4.1GHz, not a Pentium at 4.1GHz. This is not one of those discussions where IPC from 30 years ago is relevant or the point, unless you're telling me the IPCs of that and my 5600 are somehow widely different.

 

I got the 5600G because the X wasn't in stock at the time and having an iGPU is always useful for troubleshooting or wtv. Without even touching it in BIOS it's already doing 4.2+ GHz. Based on how FS runs on it right now, I'm trying to find another balanced chip for the next FS build, that's all.

[Jurrunio]

4 hours ago, nicky9499 said:

something like a 4- or 6-core version of the 13900K that will hit the same clocks

That's the thing, Intel's lower core count part overclocks worse. No one buys i3s and i5s for single core overclocking competitions (nor do you see those up in the charts). A few years back there are people selling guaranteed OC Intel CPUs and made pie charts showing how i9 > i7 > i5.

If you don't need extra cores, just disabled those. 

[PDifolco]

5 hours ago, nicky9499 said:

 

The lowest-end X3D part I could find so far is the 6-core 7600X3D at 4.1/4.7Ghz. Not as fast as I'd like, and you still have to contend with all the costs associated with an AM5 build. The AM4 5700X3D is much slower. My average-joe takeaway for X3D is the newer ones cost too much and the older ones run too slow.

On a x3D chip the cache advantage more than offset the loss of clock speed in gaming, especially flight/racing sims

You can see below that the 7800X3D beats or at least equals the 13900K, even running like 1GHz slower (and not suiciding itself at the same time lol)

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/microsoft-flight-simulator-2024-pc-performance-testing-and-settings-analysis-we-tested-23-gpus-the-game-is-even-more-demanding-than-its-predecessor#section-flight-simulator-2024-cpu-benchmarks

 

Anyway your budget is fully incompatible with any hi end CPU, i9 and i7 are as costly as x3D chips, min $400, and Intel eats way more power

Decent boards are in the $150-$250 range anyway, DDR5 is less expensive for AM5 as you don't need anything faster than 6000CL30 (plus x3D chips are way less RAM bandwidth dependent)

In addition AM5 will still be compatible with at least 1 new gen, maybe 2, while Intel 1700 is dead, and 1851 is already eol....

So it's at least a $650 investment

[nicky9499]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

That's the thing, Intel's lower core count part overclocks worse. No one buys i3s and i5s for single core overclocking competitions (nor do you see those up in the charts). A few years back there are people selling guaranteed OC Intel CPUs and made pie charts showing how i9 > i7 > i5.

If you don't need extra cores, just disabled those. 

 

Yeah I'm beginning to see it now unfortunately. The last time I went this in-depth researching hardware was upgrading the FS rig from 3770K to 7700K, the latter actually still running 24/7 in a media server to this day albeit now underclocked and on air. Disabling cores def works but you're essentially still paying for the Presidential Suite and sleeping on the floor and I'm just not prepared to spend that much for a seldom-used 1080p machine.

 

If we were to rethink this a little, instead of the absolute fastest chip available for FS core count notwithstanding, in your various opinions what would be the best sensible "high-ish clockspeed" CPU for $200-$300? My 5600G was about US$140 so there's still some room for improvement.

 

[Jurrunio]

59 minutes ago, nicky9499 said:

 

Yeah I'm beginning to see it now unfortunately. The last time I went this in-depth researching hardware was upgrading the FS rig from 3770K to 7700K, the latter actually still running 24/7 in a media server to this day albeit now underclocked and on air. Disabling cores def works but you're essentially still paying for the Presidential Suite and sleeping on the floor and I'm just not prepared to spend that much for a seldom-used 1080p machine.

 

If we were to rethink this a little, instead of the absolute fastest chip available for FS core count notwithstanding, in your various opinions what would be the best sensible "high-ish clockspeed" CPU for $200-$300? My 5600G was about US$140 so there's still some room for improvement.

 

5800X3D on old board and RAM v.s. 9600X on new board and RAM really, depends on what you paired the 5600G with. Intel's not price competitive if you buy new, while 13th and 14th gen used means risk on silicon health.

[xg32]

at that price range ur looking at 5700x3d/12700kf/9600x