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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

FSX Upgrade Dual to Quad Core Worthwhile ?

M

marklaur

Charter Member
Currently I have an Intel E8500 dual core processor 4 gig ram and a Nvidia GTX280 video card.
Running XP SP3 32 bit. (and will be for the forseable future)

I still find FSX to run too poorly for my liking with this setup and are considering upgrading to a quad core. For my budget I think the best I could afford would be a i7 960 (3.2 gig) processor and one of the latest ATI HD 5870 single core cards.

If I load any fancy scenery I often get out of memory messages then FSX crashes. Also AI traffic at the levels I like in FS2004 slow down FSX to the point I do not use it any more.

Would I get any realistic performance increases with the above upgrade. I would be running at stock speeds, no over clocking.

I recently looked at some bench marking statistics in an Atomic PC magazine I get and it indicated only a few FPS increase would be obtained. The article was about 6 months old.
Is this correct? Or would there be any other benefits like scenery load any better?

I am not really a settings tinkerer, so I only rely on my hardware.

Just not sure if would get any value for money with the upgrade. But I would like to use FSX a little more as well.

Regards MarkL
 
marklaur said:
Currently I have an Intel E8500 dual core processor 4 gig ram and a Nvidia GTX280 video card.
Running XP SP3 32 bit. (and will be for the forseable future)

I still find FSX to run too poorly for my liking with this setup and are considering upgrading to a quad core. For my budget I think the best I could afford would be a i7 960 (3.2 gig) processor and one of the latest ATI HD 5870 single core cards.

If I load any fancy scenery I often get out of memory messages then FSX crashes. Also AI traffic at the levels I like in FS2004 slow down FSX to the point I do not use it any more.

Would I get any realistic performance increases with the above upgrade. I would be running at stock speeds, no over clocking.

I recently looked at some bench marking statistics in an Atomic PC magazine I get and it indicated only a few FPS increase would be obtained. The article was about 6 months old.
Is this correct? Or would there be any other benefits like scenery load any better?

I am not really a settings tinkerer, so I only rely on my hardware.

Just not sure if would get any value for money with the upgrade. But I would like to use FSX a little more as well.

Regards MarkL
Click to expand...

Mark,

I rebuilt my system a few weeks ago. Aside from a different processor, I installed many of the components you listed:

OS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU i7 Extreme 980X @ 3.33GHz
RAM 16.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 667MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard ASUSTeK Computer INC. Rampage III Extreme (LGA1366)
Graphics VT2430-M ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Hard Drives
244GB Hitachi HDT722525DLA380 ATA Device (IDE) 29 °C
488GB Seagate ST3500320AS ATA Device (Unknown Interface) 27 °C
488GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2 ATA Device (IDE) 29 °C
488GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-00V1A0 ATA Device (IDE) 29 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH08LS20 ATA Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

This thing screams now. I set my framerates to about 40, and it rarely wavers from that....

NC
 
The i7 960 and up are absolutely awesome! You would also benefit with one of the new Nvidia GTX470 FERMI or ATI 5850 or above series video cards as icing on the cake!
Ted
 
Hi Mark,

The i7 will definitely help keep FPS high with lots of AI and autogen. It will not however stop the out of memory problems you are having. For that you need a 64 bit OS. If you are going to the trouble of building a new system I would recommend Win7 64 rather than sticking with XP 32.
 
I build my own rigs when I have the money. For a gamer specifications, which also works with FSX, I usually go to the Alienware webpage and see the details of their machines and then I go and buy the components, that way I know that I have a machine that will perform as I want.
 
txnetcop said:
The i7 960 and up are absolutely awesome! You would also benefit with one of the new Nvidia GTX470 FERMI or ATI 5850 or above series video cards as icing on the cake!
Ted
Click to expand...
Ted, anyway to find out the limits of current mobo to accept upgraded i7 processors? I have a Dell 730X with a i7 940 processor. While certainly no slouch, have been watching the Extreme processors dropping in price. Thanks

Matt
 
Hi Guys,

Speaking of quad cores, what kind of performance would one get out of an AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz Black Edition processor with four gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM and an EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1Gb superclocked graphics card?

Regards,
Stratobat
 
strykerpsg said:
Ted, anyway to find out the limits of current mobo to accept upgraded i7 processors? I have a Dell 730X with a i7 940 processor. While certainly no slouch, have been watching the Extreme processors dropping in price. Thanks

Matt
Click to expand...

That motherboard has the standard Intel chipset and should handle any i7 processor upgrade. There are amplified chipsets with the ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards but I would stay with what you have and just upgrade the processor when you consider price/performance. You will not see as much of a performance upgrade however just going to the i7 960. Your best bet would be upgrade to a Nvidia FERMI video card
 
Stratobat said:
Hi Guys,

Speaking of quad cores, what kind of performance would one get out of an AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz Black Edition processor with four gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM and an EVGA GeForce GTX 460 1Gb superclocked graphics card?

Regards,
Stratobat
Click to expand...


The 965 unlocked Black Edition is a good processor but I would go with the new six core especially since you are not talking about that much more money.
 
Hi Ted,

Thank you for the reply.

txnetcop said:
The 965 unlocked Black Edition is a good processor but I would go with the new six core especially since you are not talking about that much more money.
Click to expand...

Which Hexacore are you talking about and why would you go with it?

Regards,
Stratobat
 
I wonder if an upgrade from four to six cores would be worth it. It's to more cores for scenery loading after all...
 
ryanbatc said:
Your main problem is the 32bit OS

That's why you're getting OOMs....

HAve you tried adding the 3GB switch?
http://forums.flightsim.com/fswiki/index.php/OOM_Error
Click to expand...

I started getting the OOM error after installing Active Sky X. The 3GB switch, with userva=2560, seems to have helped. Obviously a single, uninterrupted 2 hour flight is not a conclusive test, but seeing as how the previous three 2 hour flights ended with a OOM error, it's an encouraging sign.

I've considered a "cheap" upgrade to a Q9650, but I'm not sure if that would be all that great of an improvement since I'm running a 800 MHz FSB and RAM.
 
Just curious...
Is there a huge difference between the i7 930 and the i7 960 other than the operating frequency? Is it worth almost double the price for the 960 over th 930?

Thanks,
Mike
 
1) Get rid of XP. There is no good reason to run XP in 2010, and your PC will become more and more of a security risk as time goes by. (If you're playing some ancient game that can't be made to run in DosBox or a virtualization app, then set up a dual boot.) Win 7 64-bit will use your entire 4GB of RAM, and you should find things run smoother.

2) The Q9650 isn't going to give you anything like the speed increase you'll get from an i7. The new architecture speeds things up significantly.

3) MikeW, if you're willing to futz around with overclocking, and you have decent RAM (since overclocking sometimes pushes memory speed up a bit), that i7 930 can run at i7 960 speeds.
 
DennyA said:
1) Get rid of XP. There is no good reason to run XP in 2010, and your PC will become more and more of a security risk as time goes by. (If you're playing some ancient game that can't be made to run in DosBox or a virtualization app, then set up a dual boot.) Win 7 64-bit will use your entire 4GB of RAM, and you should find things run smoother.

2) The Q9650 isn't going to give you anything like the speed increase you'll get from an i7. The new architecture speeds things up significantly.

3) MikeW, if you're willing to futz around with overclocking, and you have decent RAM (since overclocking sometimes pushes memory speed up a bit), that i7 930 can run at i7 960 speeds.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking, better to put the cost of a Q9650 towards a new system. I agree, today Win XP is no longer the best, Windows 7 rules and the 64 bit version is the best route.
 
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