CPU for DCS VR: new AMD or 9900K

~4.5 GHZ on Ryzen is about as capable as Intels 5 GHZ in real world performance output.

Oh jeez, so those 10s of millions AMD spent on marketing in last 6 months are paying out

Oh jeez, so those 10s of millions AMD spent on marketing in last 6 months are paying out

you can’t really use 4K benchmarks to judge VR performance.

the api’s are different, the render pipelines are different, the number of times the cpu has to calculate and generate the geometries is different.

if you want to compare cpu performance in VR, you can really only do the comparison in VR.

I will say I am very pleased with my system I built in Jan along with having the Rift S now.

i9 9900k @ 5.1 GHz all cores. No AVX offset.

Z390 Motherboard

RTX 2080 Ti GPU.

( all specs in sig).

Oh jeez, so those 10s of millions AMD spent on marketing in last 6 months are paying out

Hold your horses, time will tell. But AMD gaining more market share is certain.

Oh jeez, so those 10s of millions AMD spent on marketing in last 6 months are paying out

The 3600 and 3600x seem to be universally highly recommended by benchmarkers-in games .

you can’t really use 4K benchmarks to judge VR performance.

the api’s are different, the render pipelines are different, the number of times the cpu has to calculate and generate the geometries is different.

 

if you want to compare cpu performance in VR, you can really only do the comparison in VR.

True that , and even further VR in DCS . But we have to work with what we can get , and that-at best- is 4k . There is a synthetic benchmark "blue room" but the synthetics don't seem to predict very well actual gaming or simming experiences .

The 8600k never gets any love... A 8600k @ 5ghz another great option for DCS. Single core performance is King in DCS and a 8600k at 5ghz basically has the same SC performance as a 9900K minus a bit of cache. But I guess the same could be said for the now dated 4 core 7600k @ 5ghz but I think 6 cores is the sweet spot when terrain loading is considered.

It's a really clear decision for me, I can spend $250 and go from 3.9Ghz to the equivalent of 4.8GHz. For a new build it's a different equation, kind of revolves around the Mobo I think. Most of us are angling for the upgrade path and that is paying off big time. Whether it'll pay off in the future is another question. Clearly with an unlimited budget Intel is King and I imagine they will do what it takes to stay there. And amd will probably continue to stay focused on the margins.

Eh happy as I am with my AMD system, it's a budget build. I got in cheap with a B450 and R5 2600, I'll slap a 3600x in there when I get around to it, not gonna bother to overclock, and it's all close enough, considering it's a game and all. Not everybody looks at it that way.

If i was to buy right now , it would be the new Ryzen, The processor is equal if not better to the Intels and you get the PCI-E 4.0 upgrade if you get the new motherboard with X-570 Chipset, pricewise you cant beat it and intel will be struggling to keep up. And AMD has kept the same socket for 3 generations now which is awesome, this will probably be the last year of the AM4 but still i like where they are going with it.

A quick, down and dirty of my upgrade. this is totally non-scientific so take this with a grain of salt of ya want.

I'm coming from an X470 asrock board with a 2700 that I OC'd to 4.0Ghz. the GPU was a 2060 and it has 32Gb of 3200Mhz with XMP enabled.

With my rift S I could play, but had the settings all pretty low. textures were med, AA at 16x and MSAA off. PD of 1.2, grass off and view distance was at Med. on the 107th caucaus server I would get FPS in the 20's on the ground with it sometimes dipping below that, but once in the air I usually got 40FPS unless a bunch of crap was going on with ground targets or lots of other players around a waypoint.

I just slapped in my new 3700X and it booted up just fine. Jump into DCS and the 107th through the inferno server. kept all the settings the same and I was getting solid 40FPS no matter what. on the ramp at Sochi there were at least 6-7 other players taxing around and it stayed solid at 40FPS. so I decided to start turning up the settings till I found the GPU's limit. got MSAA to 4x and textures to high still keeping PD to 1.2. It got real choppy 15-25FPS on the ground and my 2060 was showing 99-100% usage. the CPU was only around 20-35% used.

Put a new 2070 Super in and again, jumped right in. I was getting 40FPS on the ground again with an occasional dip to 36 then right back up to 40. got in the air and it was smooth as butter at 40FPS. with the higher textures and no more shiny, glinting things on the ground it was so much better.

even got full 40fps in the Persian gulf map on a free flight.

I think I would have been happy with just the 3700X and just bump the visuals a tad, but I am really digging the combo of the 3700X and 2070 super...

The processor is equal if not better to the Intels

for real?

this is contrary to almost every review out there.

Is it already clear which overclocked CPU is the best for DCS VR; the new AMD 3900X / 3800X or still 9900K? Or maybe it is too early to say.

I want to buy a new PC for DCS VR only, i don't mind other things like streaming etc.

cheers

I have been asking myself this very question lately and after a bit of poking around, finally bought the I9 9900k and a mid range Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Ultra motherboard.

Both were cheaper on Amazon than the 3900x and the mid range x570 boards out there at the moment. Plus since I use my rigs for DCS first and foremost, Intel seemed to be a slightly better solution. I simply don't play to the strengths of the 3900x.

A quick, down and dirty of my upgrade. this is totally non-scientific so take this with a grain of salt of ya want.

I'm coming from an X470 asrock board with a 2700 that I OC'd to 4.0Ghz. the GPU was a 2060 and it has 32Gb of 3200Mhz with XMP enabled.

With my rift S I could play, but had the settings all pretty low. textures were med, AA at 16x and MSAA off. PD of 1.2, grass off and view distance was at Med. on the 107th caucaus server I would get FPS in the 20's on the ground with it sometimes dipping below that, but once in the air I usually got 40FPS unless a bunch of crap was going on with ground targets or lots of other players around a waypoint.

I just slapped in my new 3700X and it booted up just fine. Jump into DCS and the 107th through the inferno server. kept all the settings the same and I was getting solid 40FPS no matter what. on the ramp at Sochi there were at least 6-7 other players taxing around and it stayed solid at 40FPS. so I decided to start turning up the settings till I found the GPU's limit. got MSAA to 4x and textures to high still keeping PD to 1.2. It got real choppy 15-25FPS on the ground and my 2060 was showing 99-100% usage. the CPU was only around 20-35% used.

Put a new 2070 Super in and again, jumped right in. I was getting 40FPS on the ground again with an occasional dip to 36 then right back up to 40. got in the air and it was smooth as butter at 40FPS. with the higher textures and no more shiny, glinting things on the ground it was so much better.

even got full 40fps in the Persian gulf map on a free flight.

 

I think I would have been happy with just the 3700X and just bump the visuals a tad, but I am really digging the combo of the 3700X and 2070 super...

Thanks for this.

I have had the 3700x in my cart twice only to have it go out of stock in the time it took to go from the product page to my cart. Frustrating to say the least. I currently have the a 1080ti and am thinking about getting the 2080ti. Maybe I'll hold off on the 2080ti till I've seen what the CPU will do.

This;

-seems interesting. Ryzen 3000 seems to be doing exceptionally well in DCS. Wonder how the 3900X compares to the 9900K

This;

 

-seems interesting. Ryzen 3000 seems to be doing exceptionally well in DCS. Wonder how the 3900X compares to the 9900K

Oh come on. He upgraded from 1800x which is not remotely fast in gaming. Even intel 8400 was faster than 1800x in any game including dcs

Oh come on. He upgraded from 1800x which is not remotely fast in gaming. Even intel 8400 was faster than 1800x in any game including dcs

This, plus:

This comparison is super flawed. On 1st screenshot game is rendering everything to horizon. On 2nd screen it only renders few kilometers. Are you trying to justify your purchase?

OP, you should show the CPU Frametime in the screenshot rather than the GPU, no?

Talking in regards to fpsVR

 

I have zero brand loyalty, if AMD's new CPUs provide more performance/fps in DCS, I'll happily sell my 9900k platforms and switch. I'm not seeing any evidence of this so far, nor in most other games - the 9900k/2080ti combo still looks so far to be overall a bit faster. That, and the fact that I've been using them for 9 months now, and the new Ryzen stuff just came out, so I'd rather wait another quarter or two and see what Intel answers with before making any major swaps of MB/CPU. I know many also care about ratio and bang/$, but I don't, not within reason at least, if a couple/few hundred more $ gets me a faster performing platform, that's what I want still. I have zero interest in Blender/whatever application performance, watching a little cup/icon spin around and faster rates doesn't hold much interest for me, all i care about with a gaming PC is the end result in terms of FPS/quality. If I was to hit my upgrade cycle right now, perhaps the fastest AMD Ryzen cpu would hold some interest, but even then, as others have posted the 8600k and 8700k are still right in the running, and switching from them to AMD is still a pretty open question if gaming is priority one.

Intel 8700K is still the best CPU for the money. It runs far cooler than the overrated 9900/9700K.

 

It doesn`t matter what cooler you use the 9700K`s run way to hot. Heat kills a CPU in short order.

 

Get the proven 8700K and cool with Noctua Air.

Could'nt agree anymore, my 8700k@5.0 ghz reaches 65°c with my Noctua nh-d15:smilewink:

Maybe I'll hold off on the 2080ti till I've seen what the CPU will do.

Keep in mind, in VR you're looking to gain time, and there's more than one way to skin that cat. Easy to understand how a CPU upgrade will improve performance on a busy multiplayer map. What surprised me was, I gained 3ms in frame time even on an empty solo mission where I would have thought I was GPU limited. Which allowed me to up my settings a little.

Read carefully what I'm saying. That is exactly my point.

2080Ti with i9 9900K 5GHz OC have just few FPS more than 2080Ti with Ryzen 5 3600.

Focus on 4K benchmarks because those benchmarks are closest to compare with VR performances.

 

Ryzen 5 with 2080Ti is 500 to 600$ cheaper than i9 9900K with expensive AIO for OC. When I'm talking about a few FPS I mean literally few. It is a matter in VR 2 to 3 FPS max.

Any reference you can point to or a believe.

AMD has the best value but Intel still has the best gaming CPU with the 9900/9700K's.

3800X and 3900X are on par with 9900K in terms of performance. Let's say it again: AMD Hertz are not Intel Hertz, they don't translate 1 to 1. Which has better performance then depends on the title(s).

One thing to consider with those CPUs requiring AIO coolers... some AIOs ( Corsair looking at you...) have an annoying habit of intermittently disconnecting and reconnecting to the USB bus, making operation of e.g. external DVD drive near impossible. Which is really annoying if your case hasn't got any optical drive bays....

Any reference you can point to or a believe.

I'm just read reports and checking benchmarks and calculating performances per $.

I could send you here that much references you will spend the days not hours to watch it all but this one video will describe in the best way what I'm talking about.

I'm just read reports and checking benchmarks and calculating performances per $.

I could send you here that much references you will spend the days not hours to watch it all but this one video will describe in the best way what I'm talking about.

 

 

That video is using the 2080 Super for the 9900k, and a 2080ti for the Ryzen. I've seen a few instances of any AMD cpu with the same video card being faster in games than the 9900k - but it's not the majority, by far. You're right though that 4k/VR it's very, very close all things being equal other than the CPU.

That video is using the 2080 Super for the 9900k, and a 2080ti for the Ryzen. I've seen a few instances of any AMD cpu with the same video card being faster in games than the 9900k - but it's not the majority, by far. You're right though that 4k/VR it's very, very close all things being equal other than the CPU.

I believe the point of that video is more about how to best allocate your money with a limited budget. Intel has been reluctant to reasonably reduce prices on older CPUs (4790K still sells for over $300 in some places). While every previous Ryzen gen drops by a lot. Tie that with fact that Intel's platform is basically dead, where as AM4 is going to have a final series of chips next year, should you want/need more CPU performance.

So have not gotten to the point where I'm able to run benchmarks in DCS yet, but I can say my current Passmark single thread scores on the 3800X are equivalent to a 5.0 to 5.1 Ghz Coffee Lake chip, ranging from the 3070 to 2940 depending on which core it runs on. A 5.1Ghz 9900k gets a 3090 single threaded passmark. This is just a base clock score; no overclocking or Performance Boost Overdrive yet.

I also expect there to be both more head room for the Ryzen in-game performance to improve as AMD sorts out Windows thread scheduling, and for the AM4 platform to have more room for upgrades than the Coffee Lake platform.

We will see how it performs once I've got all the DCS stuff installed and testable.