PC build advice

I am considering building a new PC to support my flight simulator addiction. The PC will need to significantly outperform my current set up below in order to achieve more FPS and to be able to take on the add-on software that I have had to downgrade on my current set up. The PC has been fully optimised and overclocked including Windows 10 performance tweaks where appropriate. Despite downgrading some addon programs and tweaking Prepar3D for performance the CPU is running at between 80-100% and the GPU is 95-100% utilised on task manager in flight.

If there is an obvious issue with my current set up that I can upgrade then great! More likely, what kind of motherboard CPU/RAM/GPU combination is actually going to get me 30+ consistent FPS with the add ons I have operating correctly.

My current set up is:

Asus PZ877 - LX2 motherboard with liquid cooled Pentium i5 3770 overclocked to 4.1Ghz

Vengence 16Gb 2400MHz (optimised)

NVidia GTX 980 G1 gaming overclocked 20% to 1540MHz

Two touchscreen 60Hz monitors at 1920 x 1080 and Dual head 2 Go set to 3840 x 1080 running two 1920 x 1080 projectors

Projected to a Warped (curved) screen with Elise Immersive Display software

Prepar3D v4 - optimised

Rex Skyforce 3D

FSPS Booster software (adds about 5 FPS extra)

FSPS 3D cockpit software

Orbx Global

Orbx Vectors (currently disabled costs 5 FPS)

Orbx England (currently disabled costs 10 FPS to run!)

Orbx Scotland

Orbx Wales

Orbx Europe LC

UK2000 VFR scenery vol 1-3

Ulitmate Traffic (currently set to 5% costs 10 FPS if at 100%)

Vox ATC

SPAD - managing three Saitek control panels

Total of 14 devices (Dual Yokes; Dual rudders; Dual Touchscreens; Dual throttle quads; dual Headsets; wireless keyboard and three Saitek flight panels) connected through USB ports (some 2.0 some 3.0)

Background noise speakers; Buttkicker for vibrations

Currently get 25- 30 FPS on current set up which I believe is the most I can get from this arrangement.

The problem with Prepar3D, FSX and FS2004 is that they are largely CPU dependent. Think of it as 75% CPU and 25% GPU. To make matters worse they are largly single threaded to boot. You could get the latest and greatest i7 CPU which would have more single threaded passmark scores, but I doubt it will increase the FPS by much. I could be wrong though. I think the biggest factor are the game's setting its self. Like the mesh detail, LOD radius, autogen amount of AI, etc.

For me in FSX, I set everything modesty. My AI is set to 35%, no shadows, no airport vehicles, medium setting for autogen, etc.

If you're getting 25-30 FPS, then you're doing better than I am on my CPU. Sometimes at airports that I have upgraded with paid airports like FFSDreamTeam's Las Vegas, I get 15 to 25 FPS. Although, I have the FPS locked to 25. And it should be locked to 25 or 30.

The problem with Prepar3D, FSX and FS2004 is that they are largely CPU dependent. Think of it as 75% CPU and 25% GPU. To make matters worse they are largly single threaded to boot. You could get the latest and greatest i7 CPU which would have more single threaded passmark scores, but I doubt it will increase the FPS by much. I could be wrong though. I think the biggest factor are the game's setting its self. Like the mesh detail, LOD radius, autogen amount of AI, etc.

 

For me in FSX, I set everything modesty. My AI is set to 35%, no shadows, no airport vehicles, medium setting for autogen, etc.

 

If you're getting 25-30 FPS, then you're doing better than I am on my CPU. Sometimes at airports that I have upgraded with paid airports like FFSDreamTeam's Las Vegas, I get 15 to 25 FPS. Although, I have the FPS locked to 25. And it should be locked to 25 or 30.

Thanks that’s helpful. Today I added a second graphics card just because I had one lying around. The cpu loaf dropped to about 35% and graphics load on two Nvidia cards was shared out at 60% and 50%. FPS still just under 30 though. Advantage seemed to be I could add more Ai traffic as I suppose that’s more cpu effort and I expect I will be able to upgrade orbs vectors as well. I’ll try that tomorrow .