How much improvement to expect for graphics card upgrade

I now have this system

CPU Haswell 4770K @4.5 GHz RAM 16 Gb 2200 MHz Graphics card GTX970 4Gb

if I upgrade my video card to a

RTX 2060 Super 8Gb

like this one

https://www.inet.se/produkt/5410265/asus-geforce-rtx-2060-super-8gb-rog-strix-gaming-advanced

How much improvement can I expect in DCS ?

I did a very similar upgrade about a year ago.

My fps went from 30 to 60+. You may also want to look into upgrading your RAM as well.

I now have this system

CPU Haswell 4770K @4.5 GHz RAM 16 Gb 2200 MHz Graphics card GTX970 4Gb

if I upgrade my video card to a

RTX 2060 Super 8Gb

like this one

https://www.inet.se/produkt/5410265/asus-geforce-rtx-2060-super-8gb-rog-strix-gaming-advanced

How much improvement can I expect in DCS ?

Are you on a Z87 or later? I had a very similar system up to late last year. It seems you have a golden silicon CPU there. I couldn't push mine 4770k farther than 4.3GHz, especially not for VR. Usually kept at 4.2GHz. Later on, I replaced my GTX970 for a 1070TI and had quite a performance boost. Don't have the numbers but it went from 'VR barely played' at low to very very smooth at low-med.

I did a very similar upgrade about a year ago.

 

My fps went from 30 to 60+. You may also want to look into upgrading your RAM as well.

Upgrading my RAM further is not an option. I recently upgraded from 8 Gb to 16 Gb. 32 Gb memory for my system is extremely expensive if it is sold at all.

Are you on a Z87 or later? I had a very similar system up to late last year. It seems you have a golden silicon CPU there. I couldn't push mine 4770k farther than 4.3GHz, especially not for VR. Usually kept at 4.2GHz. Later on, I replaced my GTX970 for a 1070TI and had quite a performance boost. Don't have the numbers but it went from 'VR barely played' at low to very very smooth at low-med.

Yes I have a Z87 mobo. Why should lowering the CPU freq improve things ?

How does VR at low med look like compared to monitor ?

Yes I have a Z87 mobo. Why should lowering the CPU freq improve things ?

How does VR at low med look like compared to monitor ?

I was forced to reduce it to 4.2 because, unlike with all the other games I had (DCS, Steel Beasts Assetto Corsa, Squad, Arma 3..., Oculus app was constantly crashing until I figured out that it didnt like much overclock.

The Z87 was the #1 reason why I switched to my current system. It doesnt support SSD booting. Back then, I even tried upgrading to a Z97, which I found used on ebay, but when it arrived I noticed that some of the pins in the CPU slot were slightly bent; I didnt risk it and just sent it back along with a bad feedback. That was a difficult decision for me. The 4770k is a ****ing great cpu, even today after all these years and I would have kept it if I could get SSD booting with it. But there seem to be no way of getting a Z97s these days, not for a reasonable price. I mean, I paid almost the same price for that borked used Z97 as I paid for my current B450 Gaming Pro Carbon (new)!

On low-med or low in VR looks about the same. It looks like VR after all. I'm not there because of the graphics but because of the incredible immersion that it provides. The difference between low-VR and med-high monitor is pretty wide. The terrain and lighting look a whole lot better in the monitor; even if my monitor is just a simple 24" 1080p 144hz: nothing fancy there. How many fps are you getting with the 970? IMO, your case is a difficult one. Unless you're getting pretty bad fps, if I was you, I'd switch to a new system altogether (motherboard, CPU and RAM) with SSD native support, even if that means keeping that 970 of yours. The reason are the loading times. You might not get a noticeable fps boost, but the loading times are a world apart and for it me made all the difference specially because I mainly play in VR and the wait while you're in the headset during loading is pretty shyt and very long with HDDs. It's constantly desyncing and while it loads its badly stuttering, freezing and performing at very low fps which sometimes even causes me headaches. So in the end I chose better loading times instead of the better fps. I paid about 450 pounds for my B450 + R5 3600 + RAM + SSD.

I usually tell people to underclock a component to get an idea of how much that component is bottle necking them (if you underclock cpu or gpu or ram by 50% and barely notice a difference, doubling that components speed isnt gonna help you either, if performance scales close to linear, increasing that components performance will also yield close to linear increases), but that strategy doesnt really work if there is a "capacity" bottleneck, and that 4GB vram almost certainly is just that. If you set everything to low, maybe 4Gb is enough, and a 2060 will not yield massive better frame rates at those low settings, but it will allow you to increase those settings without performance falling off a cliff.

Im not the biggest fan of the 2060 though, you pay for the RTX stuff you have no need for (for DCS at least). The GTX series doesnt have that problem but they are limited to 6GB, and if you are buying a new gpu, you really want at least 8GB for DCS. Maybe you can look for a used 1070 (or 1080 if you get lucky) or consider a radeon 5700.

Im not the biggest fan of the 2060 though, you pay for the RTX stuff you have no need for (for DCS at least). The GTX series doesnt have that problem but they are limited to 6GB, and if you are buying a new gpu, you really want at least 8GB for DCS. Maybe you can look for a used 1070 (or 1080 if you get lucky) or consider a radeon 5700.

With RTX stuff do you mean hardware ray tracing ? It is not a problem that it exists and can come to use in other cases.

Having at least 8 Gb is very important from what I understand so I see no better option than a RTX 2060.

I don't like the idea to buy an expensive component like a video card as used.

I went from a 970 to a 2080 purely for VR, I still have my 3770K and TBH if it wasn't for VR, I would have probably kept my 970. I got way better frame rates with the 2080 in VR at the settings I had set in DCS for my 970, (mainly low). With the 2080 though I can turn on a lot more eye candy and keep the same frame rates. I haven't played much at all since the 2.5.6 update as the frame rates have dropped through the floor, but my driving sims are also a lot better with the 2080 in VR. Other flat screen games like FPS, playing on a 1080p monitor, my 970 would still be good enough.

You will see improvements with a 2060s and the RTX is great for other games too, as long as you don't enable it if playing a FPS online.

With RTX stuff do you mean hardware ray tracing ? It is not a problem that it exists and can come to use in other cases.

Well, the problem is you pay for it,and are unlikely to use it. Even in games that support it, the 2060 is usually not fast enough to actually enable it. I think its a gimmick for now.

Having at least 8 Gb is very important from what I understand so I see no better option than a RTX 2060.

A 2060 will give you that 8GB, and yes, its important, but it wont give you a lot more raw horsepower than what you have now. I think its quite an expensive upgrade for what I expect it to deliver.

If you want cheap way to get 8GB, and you dont want to buy second hand, RX590 is actually great value. Its not massively faster than what you have now, but a 2060 wont be either, and the RX is ~50% cheaper.

If you want a more significant upgrade, Id save up for a 2070.

 

A 2060 will give you that 8GB, and yes, its important, but it wont give you a lot more raw horsepower than what you have now. I think its quite an expensive upgrade for what I expect it to deliver.

 

If you want cheap way to get 8GB, and you dont want to buy second hand, RX590 is actually great value. Its not massively faster than what you have now, but a 2060 wont be either, and the RX is ~50% cheaper.

 

If you want a more significant upgrade, Id save up for a 2070.

I also find the cost for the 2060 Super a high investment. I found RX590 being sold here. It seem almost to good to be true.

I have had the impression that for flightsims (I use DCS XPlane 11 FSX SE P3D 2.5 consider getting P3D 5) Nvidia is the way to go

Ive had the RX580 for a while, I was impressed by it to be honest. I mean it was quite a cheap card even when I got it, but I only upgraded to a 1070 because I needed cuda and it felt more like a sidegrade than upgrade.

nVidia is clearly the way to go if you want top end performance. But bang for buck? Id need to see some benchmarks in those apps. For most games, I think AMD is at least very competitive in midrange segments, and for DCS they have the big advantage of offering 8GB in their low midrange cards. How it actually performs in DCS, i couldnt tell you.

Ive had the RX580 for a while, I was impressed by it to be honest. I mean it was quite a cheap card even when I got it, but I only upgraded to a 1070 because I needed cuda and it felt more like a sidegrade than upgrade.

 

nVidia is clearly the way to go if you want top end performance. But bang for buck? Id need to see some benchmarks in those apps. For most games, I think AMD is at least very competitive in midrange segments, and for DCS they have the big advantage of offering 8GB in their low midrange cards. How it actually performs in DCS, i couldnt tell you.

Did you mean that you first had a RX580 and then upgraded it to a 1070 and was it the 1070 that was the sidegrade ?

yeah. But dont read too much in to that, basically the only game I played then was condor and some rise of flight.

Ive also seen some xplane benchmarks and AMD cards do quite poorly in it. Even with the vulkan upgrade. prepar3d seems to have serious issues, at least with the 5700 series but using the same driver, it may also affect lower end cards. So yeah.. I dont think they are bad cards but if the sims you care about suck on them, its not the best plan is it.

Many developers says Vulkan on AMD cards is a mess.

Nvidia enabled full 1.2 Vulkan on their new drivers. (Vulkan on Nvidia were allready well implemented and easy to work with before that 1.2 release).

Now ED can work on that. It will take time.

On VR Nvidia is taking the lead over AMD too. (It´s just I will want to see fierce competition on the AMD side of the equation, but on the premium segment, that not happens actually). Maybe Intel will surprise all. You never know.

The Z87 was the #1 reason why I switched to my current system. It doesnt support SSD booting.

 

On low-med or low in VR looks about the same. It looks like VR after all. I'm not there because of the graphics but because of the incredible immersion that it provides. The difference between low-VR and med-high monitor is pretty wide. The terrain and lighting look a whole lot better in the monitor; even if my monitor is just a simple 24" 1080p 144hz: nothing fancy there. How many fps are you getting with the 970? IMO, your case is a difficult one. Unless you're getting pretty bad fps, if I was you, I'd switch to a new system altogether (motherboard, CPU and RAM) with SSD native support, even if that means keeping that 970 of yours. The reason are the loading times. You might not get a noticeable fps boost, but the loading times are a world apart and for it me made all the difference specially because I mainly play in VR and the wait while you're in the headset during loading is pretty shyt and very long with HDDs. It's constantly desyncing and while it loads its badly stuttering, freezing and performing at very low fps which sometimes even causes me headaches. So in the end I chose better loading times instead of the better fps. I paid about 450 pounds for my B450 + R5 3600 + RAM + SSD.

What do you mean I boot my system from SSD drive. I use 1440p. Getting a whole new system would mean a very expensive upgradew. And I spent a lot money on expensive components seven years ago when I built that system

I spent a lot money on expensive components seven years ago

That almost unintentionally funny. I bit like me telling me GF I dont need a haircut, I got an expensive one only a year ago :)

Im not saying you have to buy a new system, but 7 years is forever in this world, and its amazing you still get by with it.

That doesnt mean buying top of the line is smart though. It rarely is. You are better off buying more mainstream components and upgrading them more regularly. As you move from mid range to top end, prices tend to go up exponentially and their performance increases are often only marginal. To get 10% better cpu performance you may need to spend twice as much. Better to not do it, and upgrade twice as often.

Cant tell you how to spend your money best, as I dont even know what your problem is. Frame rates even at low settings, load speeds, stutters, VR, inability to dial up eye candy,..?

Yeah what he said. Think like this. Your system, as was mine before, is on a dead end now. There's no SSD support and only DDR3 memory.

That almost unintentionally funny. I bit like me telling me GF I dont need a haircut, I got an expensive one only a year ago :)

 

Im not saying you have to buy a new system, but 7 years is forever in this world, and its amazing you still get by with it.

 

That doesnt mean buying top of the line is smart though. It rarely is. You are better off buying more mainstream components and upgrading them more regularly. As you move from mid range to top end, prices tend to go up exponentially and their performance increases are often only marginal. To get 10% better cpu performance you may need to spend twice as much. Better to not do it, and upgrade twice as often.

 

Cant tell you how to spend your money best, as I dont even know what your problem is. Frame rates even at low settings, load speeds, stutters, VR, inability to dial up eye candy,..?

Yes I still get by with it. I have fairly high setting and usually no stutters or low fps (apply to DCS P3D 2.5 Xplane 11 FSX SE). I have not yet but has been thinking about VR.

Problem with upgrading individual components are that you rarely can do it you often need to replace more components. For example newer CPU than haswell require new mobo. But I do have recently upgraded 8 Gb RAM to 16 Gb.

Yeah what he said. Think like this. Your system, as was mine before, is on a dead end now. There's no SSD support and only DDR3 memory.

Again what do you mean ? Of course I can and do have SSD in my system. I recently upgraded my system with a 1 Tb SSD.

I now have this system

CPU Haswell 4770K @4.5 GHz RAM 16 Gb 2200 MHz Graphics card GTX970 4Gb

if I upgrade my video card to a

RTX 2060 Super 8Gb

How much improvement can I expect in DCS ?

This week-end I finally upgraded my old gtx-970 to a gtx-1070ti and the performance on VR is almost double, I went from an average of 25-30 fps to 45 fps.

Problem with upgrading individual components are that you rarely can do it you often need to replace more components. For example newer CPU than haswell require new mobo. But I do have recently upgraded 8 Gb RAM to 16 Gb.

You managed to live this long with a CPU because really, CPU performance hasnt really increased substantially - except for parallel performance which DCS doesnt care about. Im really hoping neither of these statements remain true.

But also because you bought pretty high end, even today cpus or gpus that are substantially faster may cost you pretty penny. If you had 960 or something, I wouldnt have second guessed your desire to buy a 2060. Now I fear it may not provide you enough bang for your buck compared to what you have.

Hence my suggestion to save a buck and pick up a used 1070(Ti) or something. Or wait for ampere and get a 2070 at a discount or whatever 3xxx card nvidia will sell at that performance level later this year.

except for parallel performance which DCS doesnt care about. Im really hoping neither of these statements remain true.

 

Hence my suggestion to save a buck and pick up a used 1070(Ti) or something. Or wait for ampere and get a 2070 at a discount or whatever 3xxx card nvidia will sell at that performance level later this year.

I didn't know that DCS don't use multiple cores.

1070(Ti) is not sold where I live and I feel uncomfortable about buying such an expensive component as used.

My memory tells me that a new series video card means that the old ones are quickly removed from the stores. But I am not certain.

A 3000 card would mean four generations later than my haswell system. Could that be a problem ?

DCS is essentially single thread. It may spawn a few more threads, but only one is performance critical. A dual core cpu should actually handle it just as well, if you could still buy them and if they had similar clocks and caches.

Buying second hand or not is of course your choice, but I do it often, from sites I know that have seller reputation ratings, and gamers that are constantly upgrading their system. My current 1070 is even an ex bitcoin mining card, I knew that when I bought it, dont care, it works fine and cost me peanuts. It was so cheap I expected to have to buy new fans or an aftermarket cooler, but 18 months later, its still totally fine, and I bet its performance is on par with a 2060 in DCS. For < 1/3 the price of a 2060 when I bought it. Pay with paypal and I dont see the problem. Ive done so many purchases that I can afford to get shafted several times and still end up having saved money. But like I said, its your choice.

generations dont matter. I see no reason a 3xxx card wouldnt work in your system.