Microsoft FlightSimulator 2020 cpu

[VDV Kane]

Hi.

Longtime reader, but new to these forums.

My question is this:

I'm looking to upgrade soon and as I decide on a new CPU I need it to run the new FlightSimulator (and I'm also jumping into DCS) as good as possible.

Should hyperthreading be a concern? I'm basically deciding between going with an AMD part (either the Ryzen 9 3900X or Ryzen 7 3700X) and an Intel i7 9700K (which doesn't use hyperthreading).

I don't stream or do anything like editing that will tax my CPU.

Thanks,

Kane

 

[Oussebon]

The best answer anyone can give you is to not buy anything yet.

We simply don't know what the best CPU will be.

FSX might have preferred the 9700k due to raw frequency etc. FS 2020 might well not.

Indeed, because a lot of the work is being done on MS's Azure servers, it could be that an R5 3600 or even R5 1600 is just as good as anything else.

As for DCS World, you'd want a recent performance review.

Specs posted by developers are often best taken with a big shovel of salts. However, the developers here actually go as far as to recommend 32gb RAM for "heavy missions" and are happy to recommend GPUs at GTX 1080 level - but only recommend an FX series or basic i5. Which indicates that at least they think the CPU is not particularly limiting to performance. A quick browse of forum threads suggests there's not much in it between CPUs, and that old and fairly basic CPUs are fine.

So the conclusion is probably to not upgrade your CPU. DCS probably doesn't care, and we've no idea about FS 2020 - though given what it is (heavily cloud based?) I expect it may care even less...

 

[VDV Kane]

Thanks. I agree that waiting is the best course of action, and I'm not ready to pull the trigger now anyway.

I do think that I'm gonna go with 32gb of RAM when the time comes.

The PC I'm using now is surprisingly doing great for me right now. I was given an old PC from a friends office. It has an i5-3570 @ 3.4 GHz, with 8gb RAM.

A couple of months ago I added a 1 tb Samsung SSD, and an XFX RX 570 (8gb) graphics card.

I'm thrilled that I can run just about everything I play at very high settings.

I will be ready to build a new rig in the next 6 months though. One of the things I enjoy about building rigs myself is scouting out and researching the components. I'll keep looking around.

Thanks again!

 

[Oussebon]

The main things to watch between now and then are Intel's new CPUs coming out April/May (well.. "new"...) and AMD's Zen 3 CPUs expected September onwards.

We may also start hearing things about new Nvidia and AMD GPUs.

It's hard to say for sure with the pandemic, but we were expecting new GPUs from both teams before the end of the year originally.

 

[zSCHIZOz]

As a DCS simmer I would have to urge you to spend a bit to get good results. Eagle Dynamics is constantly pushing out updates for the base game for visuals and stability. Heck, they're going to update the A-10C module for 4K texture packs soon so keep that in mind.

Depending on your preference, any recent Intel i7 or Ryzen 7 will preform well and for RAM you are going to want 32GB or more. As for as GPU, it depends on your resolution. For 1080p I'd recommend a 1080Ti or better. 1440p 5700XT or 2080S. And for 4K you are going to want to go all out on a 2080Ti.

I'm also waiting to see how FS2020 will require. I don't know much about it besides their video releases on YouTube. Hopefully it will be well optimized because if it isn't... "can it run FS2020?"