News Microsoft Flight Simulator Performance and Benchmarks: Your PC May Need an Upgrade

[gyeltsen]

Jarred,
This article is very helpful. I am in process of building gaming PC almost exclusively for MSFS2020. I saw some leaks about upcoming Ryzen Zen 3 5900x which indicate performance could exceed the I9-10900k. Would be great if you could please run a comparison between the two, with RTX3080 and even RTX3090.

Re: RAM, an YouTuber named Buildzoid seems to recommend 4x8 rather than 2x16 configuration. I suppose there are a number of variables but I would appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

 

[InvalidError]

Re: RAM, an YouTuber named Buildzoid seems to recommend 4x8 rather than 2x16 configuration. I suppose there are a number of variables but I would appreciate your opinion.

More DIMMs mean more bus loading, which usually translates into lower stable memory clocks and also no room to add memory later if you ever need more than 32GB without tossing your existing memory away. For performance, more DRAM banks to split read/writes between means more chances that read/writes won't get stalled by a bank being in the middle of a refresh cycle. Some workloads favor bandwidth more than latency or concurrency.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

More DIMMs mean more bus loading, which usually translates into lower stable memory clocks and also no room to add memory later if you ever need more than 32GB without tossing your existing memory away. For performance, more DRAM banks to split read/writes between means more chances that read/writes won't get stalled by a bank being in the middle of a refresh cycle. Some workloads favor bandwidth more than latency or concurrency.

Yeah, I'd be curious as to Buildzoid's reasoning. Is he going for higher clockspeed RAM? Because if so, 4x8GB means you can (relatively) easily find DDR4-4800 kits that would work ($380 per kit for G.Skill Royal with 18-22-22 timings), whereas 2x16GB you end up with DDR4-4400 and 19-19-19-43 timings for $500. It's still cheaper to go 2x16 in that case, but potentially lower performance. Alternatively, there's DDR4-5000 kits from Corsair that cost $1300 for 2x16GB 18-26-26 timings.

My experience is that higher speeds are almost always with the 8GB DIMMs, but from cost and 'realistic' component choice perspective, 2x16GB is now best.

 

[area52a]

I just bought my 13 year old son the 10 DVD version of Flight Simulator 2020 & quickly realized his PC was not good enough. I want to buy a new PC with the following specs:

Dell Optiplex 9020 Gaming Computer PC

• Great for Casual- Mid-End Gaming BTO GeForce 4K Certified Video Card GT1030 2GB, 4K HDMI, 1080P Display Port, 2 Monitor Support.
• Specification: Powered By Intel's Core i5 3.2GHz High Performance Processor, New 16 GB Ram & 2 TB Hard Drive Space.
• (4) USB 3.0, (6) USB 2.0 RJ-45, Serial Port, VGA, (2) Display Port, (2) PS/2. BTO Wireless Wifi And Bluetooth Adapter.
• MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10 Home LATEST RELEASE - A brand new installation of the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Operating System, free of bloatware commonly installed from other manufacturers.

Will we be able to get by with this system? Someone please help!

 

[RTX 2080]

I just bought my 13 year old son the 10 DVD version of Flight Simulator 2020 & quickly realized his PC was not good enough. I want to buy a new PC with the following specs:

Dell Optiplex 9020 Gaming Computer PC

• Great for Casual- Mid-End Gaming BTO GeForce 4K Certified Video Card GT1030 2GB, 4K HDMI, 1080P Display Port, 2 Monitor Support.
• Specification: Powered By Intel's Core i5 3.2GHz High Performance Processor, New 16 GB Ram & 2 TB Hard Drive Space.
• (4) USB 3.0, (6) USB 2.0 RJ-45, Serial Port, VGA, (2) Display Port, (2) PS/2. BTO Wireless Wifi And Bluetooth Adapter.
• MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10 Home LATEST RELEASE - A brand new installation of the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Operating System, free of bloatware commonly installed from other manufacturers.

Will we be able to get by with this system? Someone please help!

I'll be completely honest, that is a horrible system for running almost any modern game, let alone MSFS 2020. Keep in mind that MSFS 2020 is one of the most demanding games available today. Your hardware requirements need to match that.

Spoiler alert: it's going to be hard to run MSFS on anything less than a proper mid-range gaming PC.

Pretty much the only good piece of hardware in the system you quoted is the 16 GB of RAM; everything else isn't nearly powerful enough.

Here is what you need:

• CPU: It needs to have at least 6 cores and 12 threads. CPUs with fewer cores and threads will cause the game to stutter and function poorly. Examples of good 6 core 12 thread processors include the Intel i5-10600k and the AMD Ryzen 5600X.
• RAM: 2 sticks of RAM, 8 GB for each stick.
• GPU: The GPU in the PC you linked is absolutely garbage, it's barely capable of even the simplest of free-to-play games. Not only is it super underpowered, but MSFS needs GPUs with at least 6 GB of graphics memory to run well; the 1030 only has 2 GB. I'm assuming your son is aiming to play on a 1080p monitor at a locked 60 frames per second. For this, you'll need something like a Nvidia RTX 2060. He might be able to get by with a GTX 1660 Super, but anything less powerful than that is going to disappoint.
• Storage: Your son needs a SSD. Running MSFS from a 7200 rpm hard drive will result in loading times measured in minutes. A 256 GB SSD is absolute minimum, but MSFS is more than half of that all by itself, so it should really be a 512 GB drive.

Last suggestion: I would recommend you and your son build a PC together rather than buying a pre-built one. He'll learn a lot more that way, its not that hard, and that way it's easily upgradable in the future. (Many pre-built PCs have limited upgradability)

 

[InvalidError]

Not only is it super underpowered, but MSFS needs GPUs with at least 6 GB of graphics memory to run well

That depends heavily on the minimum details you are willing to to play at. On lowest details, the GTX1650S can manage ~80fps at 1080p.

 

[spongiemaster]

That depends heavily on the minimum details you are willing to to play at. On lowest details, the GTX1650S can manage ~80fps at 1080p.

Sure, but I have to be honest. I was underwhelmed by the visuals at their lowest settings.

 

[RTX 2080]

Sure, but I have to be honest. I was underwhelmed by the visuals at their lowest settings.

^This 100%^

One of the biggest selling points of MSFS 2020 are the visuals; turning down the settings all the way negates those visuals.

 

[InvalidError]

One of the biggest selling points of MSFS 2020 are the visuals; turning down the settings all the way negates those visuals.

Well, 52x wanted to buy a "great casual gaming PC" with a GT1030 in it to run MSFS on and if that's the best his budget will allow, then "the biggest selling point" is a very distant secondary or even tertiary concern to being able to run it in the first place.

 

[RTX 2080]

Well, 52x wanted to buy a "great casual gaming PC" with a GT1030 in it to run MSFS on and if that's the best his budget will allow, then "the biggest selling point" is a very distant secondary or even tertiary concern to being able to run it in the first place.

Quite right; he didn't say what his budget is though, and he only said that his current machine "was not good enough." So I was giving him an example of a build that would play the game at a level that I perceived to be "good enough."

He's free to buy the PC he listed, I just don't want him to spend that money thinking that it'll run the game well and then realize only afterwards that he was completely off the mark.

 

[area52a]

How about the following? Is it true that an i5 processor is better than an i7?

3.6GHz i7-4790 Quad Core
NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB
32GB RAM
480GB SSD + 2TB HDD

 

[RTX 2080]

How about the following? Is it true that an i5 processor is better than an i7?

3.6GHz i7-4790 Quad Core
NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6GB
32GB RAM
480GB SSD + 2TB HDD

That is a huge improvement, although the CPU (which is old, having been released back in 2014) is still lacking somewhat.

Within a generation of CPUs, the performance ladder goes i3, i5, i7, and then i9, so the i7 is faster than the i5 due to having more cores and threads. However, when comparing different generations of CPUs, a new i5 processor might outperform an older i7 processor. As the years go by, more cores are added to every CPU and the clock speeds go up. Thus, the i5-10600k that I mentioned vastly outperforms the i7-4790. As a matter of fact, the new i3-10300 (a $150 part) outperforms the 6 year old i7-4790 ($300 back in 2014), boasting the same number of cores and threads, but with higher clock speeds.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

That is a huge improvement, although the CPU (which is old, having been released back in 2014) is still lacking somewhat.

Within a generation of CPUs, the performance ladder goes i3, i5, i7, and then i9, so the i7 is faster than the i5 due to having more cores and threads. However, when comparing different generations of CPUs, a new i5 processor might outperform an older i7 processor. As the years go by, more cores are added to every CPU and the clock speeds go up. Thus, the i5-10600k that I mentioned vastly outperforms the i7-4790. As a matter of fact, the new i3-10300 (a $150 part) outperforms the 6 year old i7-4790 ($300 back in 2014), boasting the same number of cores and threads, but with higher clock speeds.

Yeah. I mean, Core i3-10100 today is basically going to match that old Core i7-4790. Maybe even beat it, considering architectural updates.

If he can manage it, I think Ryzen 5 3600 or maybe Core i5-10400 are the best overall values that would handle MSFS okay. Ryzen is a bit more expensive on the CPU, cheaper on the mobo, so it's mostly a wash. Still, that's...

$200 CPU
$100 mobo
$55 RAM (16GB)
$230 GPU
$100 SSD / storage
$75 PSU
$60 case
Total: ~$820

That's just a quick estimate, but obviously $800 to play MSFS is hard to justify. What's his current PC like? Maybe it just needs a new GPU? Probably not, but obviously running at ultra settings isn't happening without a potent PC. I'd aim for medium quality 1080p, which should be viable on something like the i3-10100 with a GTX 1660 Super.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Jarred,
This article is very helpful. I am in process of building gaming PC almost exclusively for MSFS2020. I saw some leaks about upcoming Ryzen Zen 3 5900x which indicate performance could exceed the I9-10900k. Would be great if you could please run a comparison between the two, with RTX3080 and even RTX3090.

Re: RAM, an YouTuber named Buildzoid seems to recommend 4x8 rather than 2x16 configuration. I suppose there are a number of variables but I would appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

Been lurking a while due to all the MSFS2020 hype and I just built my PC yesterday (specs in sig) for MSFS2020 as well as CP2077... video editing/encoding for my photography habit (4K camera and a 6K drone) plus I also work with Solidworks and AutoCad. Basically I wanted a PC that will do it all. I chose Intel over AMD due to price and availability. I will not cater to scalpers.

The build is 12 hours old and I quickly loaded up MSFS2020 last night after the download... capped every 4K setting at ultra max however high it would go... and...

... my initial takeoff training flight in the Cessna I was getting a very smooth 35 fps which is about what I expected.

The article was right... this game will be bringing both CPUs and GPUs to their knees for years to come.

More DIMMs mean more bus loading, which usually translates into lower stable memory clocks and also no room to add memory later if you ever need more than 32GB without tossing your existing memory away. For performance, more DRAM banks to split read/writes between means more chances that read/writes won't get stalled by a bank being in the middle of a refresh cycle. Some workloads favor bandwidth more than latency or concurrency.

Yeah, I'd be curious as to Buildzoid's reasoning. Is he going for higher clockspeed RAM? Because if so, 4x8GB means you can (relatively) easily find DDR4-4800 kits that would work ($380 per kit for G.Skill Royal with 18-22-22 timings), whereas 2x16GB you end up with DDR4-4400 and 19-19-19-43 timings for $500. It's still cheaper to go 2x16 in that case, but potentially lower performance. Alternatively, there's DDR4-5000 kits from Corsair that cost $1300 for 2x16GB 18-26-26 timings.

My experience is that higher speeds are almost always with the 8GB DIMMs, but from cost and 'realistic' component choice perspective, 2x16GB is now best.

I filled 2 of the 4 slots with G. Skill Ripjaws V64 GB (2x32 GB) DDR4-4000 CL18. It was $30 more than the 3600 so I got it. When you are already spending this kind of money on a PC you don't say no to $30... plus I read that MSFS2020 likes higher speed ram anyway.

Not that I'll ever do it... but I also wanted to the option open of upgrading the other 2 slots for a total of 128GB.

 

[Starwars007]

Thank you very much Jarred for this article. It was very useful for me to build the system, as my main goal was to be able to use MFS2020.

I was focused on running a system at 1080p, particularly due to all accelerated improvements and better competition on GPUs, I really did not want to invest much on it yet.

I built my system with a AMD 5600X and a Asus GeForce RTX 2060 dual evo, and has been and incredible combination, keeping an average of 47 fps in Ultra configuration.
I'm guessing the advantages the new AMD Ryzen 3 over Intel is very positive on MFS2020, at least comparing my results versus the average shared in the article, reaching a top of 39.9

 

[JMutley]

Hi All, just spent far too long reading through this whole thread! (sort of wish I'd done that before ordering a new PC for MSFS)!

I've just bought a new PC for my dad who really wants to get back into Flight Sim (arriving next week so can't provide stats):
CPU: i5 9600kf
GPU: 3060 ti
Ram: 32gb 3000hz
Drive: 2400 read NVMe M2 (not performance but should help with loads?)

I understand now that the CPU will bottleneck the above and I rather stupidly didn't shell out for the 10th gen i5/i7 as I was focused on GPU and keeping price around £1.2-1.3k (10th gen would have pushed over £1.4-5k). I understand I can't easily just upgrade this later either due to combability of motherboard sockets and that changing to a 9th gen i9 would be throwing money away for the meager gains.

Questions:
1: Will overclocking the CPU to 4.6gz~ provide a worthwhile improvement from the 3.6gz standard? I know someone who can reliably do this for me.
2: Would it be worth also overclocking the Ram/GPU or is this pointless with the CPU bottleneck?
3: Will I just have to accept that I've left 10-30% performance on the table because I didn't research enough about 10th gen benefits (threads) for MSFS or is there any other way to claw this back even if I throw money at it besides buying a whole new computer?
4: Is the CPU bottle neck applicable to VR as well or is VR more focused on GPU?

Note: I've seen enough videos/threads to understand that performance WILL be totally fine and probably better than a lot of machines but just annoyed as for a small amount more I am worried I've lost a lot of performance.

Suffering some serious buyers remorse, especially as this is a really expensive present for my dad (can't return the PC at this point) so any advice here is hugely appreciated. Hindsight is 2020 🙁

Thanks in advance!

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Questions:
1: Will overclocking the CPU to 4.6gz~ provide a worthwhile improvement from the 3.6gz standard? I know someone who can reliably do this for me.
2: Would it be worth also overclocking the Ram/GPU or is this pointless with the CPU bottleneck?
3: Will I just have to accept that I've left 10-30% performance on the table because I didn't research enough about 10th gen benefits (threads) for MSFS or is there any other way to claw this back even if I throw money at it besides buying a whole new computer?
4: Is the CPU bottle neck applicable to VR as well or is VR more focused on GPU?

Note: I've seen enough videos/threads to understand that performance WILL be totally fine and probably better than a lot of machines but just annoyed as for a small amount more I am worried I've lost a lot of performance.

Suffering some serious buyers remorse, especially as this is a really expensive present for my dad (can't return the PC at this point) so any advice here is hugely appreciated. Hindsight is 2020 🙁

Thanks in advance!

OCing will give you a little boost... but MSFS will still bring any and all PCs to their knees... just the way it is. I can't speak for VR... waiting on my G2 headset to arrive. I have heard good things about it though from YouTube pilots. As for performance I can tell you that on a beefed up 10 core 20 thread 10900k/3090 system with 64GB 4000 ram on 4K ultra max settings I get a very smooth 35-40fps.

My prior system (4 core 8 thread 7700k with 1080 Ti) I got a jittery 25-30 fps with the same settings. Obviously turning the resolution down to 1080p/1440p will yield better results as will dropping some settings.

Your system will be fine and I wouldn't stress about leaving performance on the table. MSFS2020 needs to be optimized so we can all see better performance.

 

[RodroX]

Hi All, just spent far too long reading through this whole thread! (sort of wish I'd done that before ordering a new PC for MSFS)!

I've just bought a new PC for my dad who really wants to get back into Flight Sim (arriving next week so can't provide stats):
CPU: i5 9600kf
GPU: 3060 ti
Ram: 32gb 3000hz
Drive: 2400 read NVMe M2 (not performance but should help with loads?)

I understand now that the CPU will bottleneck the above and I rather stupidly didn't shell out for the 10th gen i5/i7 as I was focused on GPU and keeping price around £1.2-1.3k (10th gen would have pushed over £1.4-5k). I understand I can't easily just upgrade this later either due to combability of motherboard sockets and that changing to a 9th gen i9 would be throwing money away for the meager gains.

Questions:
1: Will overclocking the CPU to 4.6gz~ provide a worthwhile improvement from the 3.6gz standard? I know someone who can reliably do this for me.
2: Would it be worth also overclocking the Ram/GPU or is this pointless with the CPU bottleneck?
3: Will I just have to accept that I've left 10-30% performance on the table because I didn't research enough about 10th gen benefits (threads) for MSFS or is there any other way to claw this back even if I throw money at it besides buying a whole new computer?
4: Is the CPU bottle neck applicable to VR as well or is VR more focused on GPU?

Note: I've seen enough videos/threads to understand that performance WILL be totally fine and probably better than a lot of machines but just annoyed as for a small amount more I am worried I've lost a lot of performance.

Suffering some serious buyers remorse, especially as this is a really expensive present for my dad (can't return the PC at this point) so any advice here is hugely appreciated. Hindsight is 2020 🙁

Thanks in advance!

To better answer all this question the first thing we should ask is, at what resolution are you going to play the game?

1. The 9600KF should be able to go up to 4.3~4.4GHZ all core (and 4.5~4.6 GHz on 1 or two cores depending on the type of load) without any overclocking, provide that you have the right cooler, something that you didn't mention. Have you got a good cooler?, K and KF don't come with one.

2. RAM at 3000MHz, why did you got this, when you could have gotten 3200MHz fior the same price, or even 3600 for just a abit more?. Now that I think about it, What motherboard have you got?, cause unless is a "Z" chipset series, you wont be able to OC CPU, and wont be able to even enable the RAMs XMP. If that happends to be the case, and you got a H or B chipset mobo, your RAM probably wont run much higher than 2666MHz.
As for OC the 3600TI, I would not even try it. Two reasons why, first you probably wont get a considerable gain, and second your going to put more stress on your PSU. About that, what brand and model of PSU have you ordered?

3. The only cpu worthwhile of the 9th gen (at least for me) is the 9900/K/KF. In fact I would have gotten the i5 10400/10500 or 10600K instead of that old 9th gen. If you wana spend the extra for the i9 9900/K/KF go ahead, but I would first try the game for a few weeks to see how the performance is with the 9600K you got.

4. Usually you may hit a GPU limit before a CPU one, but it may chnage from game to game.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Questions:
1: Will overclocking the CPU to 4.6gz~ provide a worthwhile improvement from the 3.6gz standard? I know someone who can reliably do this for me.
2: Would it be worth also overclocking the Ram/GPU or is this pointless with the CPU bottleneck?
3: Will I just have to accept that I've left 10-30% performance on the table because I didn't research enough about 10th gen benefits (threads) for MSFS or is there any other way to claw this back even if I throw money at it besides buying a whole new computer?
4: Is the CPU bottle neck applicable to VR as well or is VR more focused on GPU?

1 - Your CPU, depending on the motherboard, should run at close to the boost clock speed of 4.6GHz by default. If you have an enthusiast Z390 motherboard, there should be a setting that's called All-Core Boost, Performance Enhancement, or something similar. Basically, it will run all the cores at the maximum boost if you enable it (and you can almost certainly do so without much worry for temps -- unless you have a really low-end cooler).

2 - You'll also need a Z390 motherboard to be able to run the RAM at higher than spec (DDR4-2666 in this case) speeds. If you have a Z390 board, just enable XMP and you're set. You could try to further OC the RAM, but depending on the kit that can be very iffy.

3 - How much performance you lose by having a 6-core/6-thread CPU varies by many factors, including resolution and GPU. My CPU scaling charts were done with RTX 2080 Ti, which is still a bit faster than the RTX 3060 Ti, and you can see the i5-9600K was pretty darn close to matching the i9-9900K.

4 - I haven't tested anything with VR lately, and haven't tried MSFS with VR, so no comment.

Given the current state of finding new hardware, I wouldn't worry too much about the CPU being an i5. Sure, it would have been nice to get the newer i5 with 12 threads, or a Ryzen 5 5600X, but it's not the end of the world. Your PC should do just fine, and a 4.9-5GHz overclock should be possible.

 

[JMutley]

Thanks so much for your rapid responses here! I think long story short = should have got a 10th gen but didn't and will have to live with it and my extra £££ I'm not an enthusiast AT ALL so I'm glad to see such a helpful community (if you want to know anything about Ad-Tech let me know !)

Some clarity and answers:

• Ram is 3200hz (typo from me on initial post)
• MoBo = MSI Z390-A PRO (sounds like I'm in the right place there for RAM), thanks for the note about XMP, I'll make sure to do that. (double checked and not compatible with 10th gen but nvm)
• Boost = Didn't realise that, I'll definitely try this before looking into OC then, I do thankfully have a well reviewed aftermarket CPU cooler fitted (COOLER MASTER WATERCOOLING MASTER LIQUID LITE 120 UNIVERSAL). Should give enough room for OC but I'll keep an eye on temps with Boost mode on first.
• PSU = COOLERMASTER 550W = this should be fine even if CPU is on boost mode?
• Resolution = Have a 1440 curved monitor on the way as well, so very likely that but dad is late 60s so not sure if he can even tell so can maybe lower this depending on this preference/performance

I think that clarifies all points from those three posts

You have all allayed my buyers remorse quite a bit so I'll sleep a bit better now and with the information above I know which directions to head in if I do want a few more FPS. Here's hoping further optimisations will give me more performance without spending anything extra over the months.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Thanks so much for your rapid responses here! I think long story short = should have got a 10th gen but didn't and will have to live with it and my extra £££ I'm not an enthusiast AT ALL so I'm glad to see such a helpful community (if you want to know anything about Ad-Tech let me know !)

Some clarity and answers:

• Ram is 3200hz (typo from me on initial post)
• MoBo = MSI Z390-A PRO (sounds like I'm in the right place there for RAM), thanks for the note about XMP, I'll make sure to do that. (double checked and not compatible with 10th gen but nvm)
• Boost = Didn't realise that, I'll definitely try this before looking into OC then, I do thankfully have a well reviewed aftermarket CPU cooler fitted (COOLER MASTER WATERCOOLING MASTER LIQUID LITE 120 UNIVERSAL). Should give enough room for OC but I'll keep an eye on temps with Boost mode on first.
• PSU = COOLERMASTER 550W = this should be fine even if CPU is on boost mode?
• Resolution = Have a 1440 curved monitor on the way as well, so very likely that but dad is late 60s so not sure if he can even tell so can maybe lower this depending on this preference/performance

I think that clarifies all points from those three posts

You have all allayed my buyers remorse quite a bit so I'll sleep a bit better now and with the information above I know which directions to head in if I do want a few more FPS. Here's hoping further optimisations will give me more performance without spending anything extra over the months.

The only potential worry in that list is the PSU. I think it will be fine for i5-9600K and RTX 3060 Ti (that should be about 350W peak power draw I'd estimate), but there's not much headroom for future upgrades. I definitely wouldn't try running a 3080 or RX 6800 XT on that PSU. But that's only an issue for upgrades in the future, and if you do jump to a higher end GPU at some point you can swap PSU as well.

Resolution should be native if at all possible. I am getting old and don't have great eyesight, but I know people that if you buy a 1440p monitor and run at 1080p, they'll notice the difference. 1080p scaled up to 1440p will look a bit blurry. But 1440p I think is well within reach for the 3060 Ti, so don't worry too much about it.

 

[RodroX]

Thanks so much for your rapid responses here! I think long story short = should have got a 10th gen but didn't and will have to live with it and my extra £££ I'm not an enthusiast AT ALL so I'm glad to see such a helpful community (if you want to know anything about Ad-Tech let me know !)

Some clarity and answers:

• Ram is 3200hz (typo from me on initial post)
• MoBo = MSI Z390-A PRO (sounds like I'm in the right place there for RAM), thanks for the note about XMP, I'll make sure to do that. (double checked and not compatible with 10th gen but nvm)
• Boost = Didn't realise that, I'll definitely try this before looking into OC then, I do thankfully have a well reviewed aftermarket CPU cooler fitted (COOLER MASTER WATERCOOLING MASTER LIQUID LITE 120 UNIVERSAL). Should give enough room for OC but I'll keep an eye on temps with Boost mode on first.
• PSU = COOLERMASTER 550W = this should be fine even if CPU is on boost mode?
• Resolution = Have a 1440 curved monitor on the way as well, so very likely that but dad is late 60s so not sure if he can even tell so can maybe lower this depending on this preference/performance

I think that clarifies all points from those three posts

You have all allayed my buyers remorse quite a bit so I'll sleep a bit better now and with the information above I know which directions to head in if I do want a few more FPS. Here's hoping further optimisations will give me more performance without spending anything extra over the months.

The following is my personal and humble opinion


- Ok, so RAM will be able to run at the XMP which should be 3200MHz, thanks to the z390 mobo.

- About you cooling solution, is not a bad cooler, but is not awesome either. If you see temps are too high when using the Performance Enhancement option in BIOS, then you may need to dial back the option.

- PSU, 550Watts may be just enough for such parts, I agree with Jarred theres not much room to grow. That for me is another reason to stick to both CPU and GPU stock operation. Also one thing to keep in mind not all 550Watts units are the same. CoolerMasrter, as any other brands, have a few quality levels, so without knowing the right model is imposible to know if you got a medium-top model or a basic one.

- If you stick at 1440p for MSFS then the load will be higher on the GPU, meaining you wont see such a "bad" CPU limiting issue. Also keep in mind you can use diferent Windows settings to fix the characters on the screen, the size of the icons, etc. But yeah, is something your father will have to test when he gets in front of the system.

- I haven't played MSFS, so Im not sure if theres a way to make the UI bigger. Or easier to read all those little controls and indicators.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Hey all... I just wanted to chime in and say if you haven't tried MSFS2020's new VR content... you should. It's absolutely amazing. I first set it up on the Quest 2... and actually bought a Reverb G2 for the added visuals. Everyone said that headset is THE headset for VR sims.

I honestly don't know if I'm gonna fly MSFS2020 in any other setting but VR ever again... it's that good. 👍