Aapje

Yeah, moving a bunch of generations ahead gets you that nice big boost.

The 9900K is the fastest and newest CPU that fits in that socket. It was considered a top tier gaming CPU for quite some time (although that was also due to Intel stagnating). You could see if you can get that one second hand for a modest price.

Userbenchmark is full of it. It's run by a person with a pathological dislike of AMD, who doctors the benchmarks to make AMD look bad, but that doctoring also messes up comparisons between different Intel CPUs. The 12700 actually has a higher turbo than the 8700: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/126684/intel-core-i78700k-processor-12m-cache-up-to-4-70-ghz/specifications.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134592/intel-core-i7-12700f-processor-25m-cache-up-to-4-90-ghz.html But the performance of CPUs is about more than just clock speed, but also IPC, cache, IO, etc. A proper comparison requires benchmarks, preferable in the game or type of games you care about. As sukebe said, the 12700 uses a different socket and you need a new motherboard to upgrade to it. If you upgrade your platform, I would currently suggest the 7800X3D, both for the great 1% lows, the low power usage and the platform longevity.

Historic precedent says that the release should be around September/October.

Keep in mind that the B650 doesn't have PCIe 5, while the B650E that LucShep suggested does, so the longevity is a bit less. The price difference is significant, so it's not necessarily a bad choice to get the cheaper one, but just telling you that you know what you are giving up for the savings.

That looks quite good. The site doesn't keep track of whether the RAM fits. But you can make it fit anyway, as the fans are just clipped onto the CPU cooler. So you can just clip them on a little higher. However, I would personally get memory that is not as tall and that is cheaper too, like these: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QJ3gXL/gskill-ripjaws-s5-64-gb-2-x-32-gb-ddr5-6000-cl30-memory-f5-6000j3040g32gx2-rs5k So you will save some money and some problems. And they tell you do use three separate cables to connect to the GPU, for stability and safety. You will get 4 of those cables with the RM1000x and don't need them for anything else, so that is no problem.

Performance should definitely improve, but you need to benchmark how noticeable it is. You can just do that yourself, because pulling out the RAM should be easy.

Flight simming, especially in VR, is typically quite taxing on the CPU. As you note yourself, you are CPU-limited, which is not great, since being CPU-limited is more likely to result in stuttering or getting halved frame rates. AM5 should last to at least late 2026, so you should be able to do an upgrade to the 2026-generation of X3D-chips and perhaps a later gen, depending on when AMD moves to AM6. We've seen with the 5800X3D and 5700X3D that they gradually lowered prices, especially once the new platform is out, so if you upgrade (some time) after the release of AM6, in 2027 or so, you can probably get a pretty cheap upgrade to get a decent boost. Of course, this is all speculative based on the past and things that have been announced (like the DDR6 release date, which should be the basis for AM6, although there tends to be a decent delay between the two). In any case, I would wait at least a week to see what Computex brings. The new AMD motherboards may bring PCIe 5 to a lower price point. The upcoming B850 boards seem to have a optimal feature set compared to the expected price, when taking longevity into account. The older B650E-boards are mostly the same and are thus also a good choice. Just look at what the prices do for both. Basically, I would look for a board with PCIe 5 for the GPU slot, which should future proof you for future video cards with PCIe 6 on them, because we typically see that the cards have so much PCIe headroom, that it is absolutely no problem to put the GPU in a slot that only support the previous PCIe generation. Yeah, you already have a decently fast computer. The slower the computer is, the easier it is to justify an upgrade right away.

But there would be a better version of FFR, right? Has that been released already?

@Calvin.Pimax Will the new FFR be available right away or later on? Because the proper test would be to compare DFR with both FFR and no FR.

@Nodak No, the Quest 3 has canted screens as well.

Converting is doable, but a faff. In hindsight I probably should have gone for the XL. The issue with converting is that the Stream Deck software doesn't actually show the buttons outside of the 15 that are on the smaller model. I found that one can use the Lorby Editor in combination with the Stream Deck software, but it is not that convenient.

While the new CPUs should be announced in just over a week, the X3D parts always lag behind half a year or so. Basically, the regular CPUs have to be fully validated first, before they can start validating the addition of the X3D-cache. This takes about half a year. In the meantime, the 7800X3D is probably still king for gaming. The prices of the old generation might go down a bit after the announcement, though. Or one could wait half a year and then either get the new part, or a 2nd hand 7800X3D from someone who upgraded to the 9800X3D. And I decided against suggesting a 5800X3D since he already has a 5700X, so the 5800X3D might not be a good enough boost if he experiences significant bottlenecking now. Perhaps he constantly play on busy MP servers or has a different configuration that loads the CPU more. He also has a lower end AM4-board and slow memory, so all in all I would just replace it all and be done until the end of the AM5 generation, when he can just toss the last X3D-chip for the AM5 generation on there and get a huge boost, assuming things go similar to how it went with AM4.

The big upside of AM5 is that you might be able to get a large upgrade later on by merely getting a new CPU at the end of the AM5-lifecycle. Your current memory is very slow for a non-X3D CPU, so you are probably getting bottlenecked there a lot too. I'd suggest moving up to a 7800X3D with a PCIe 5 motherboard and DDR5-6000. It's such a shame to have a 4080 Super getting bottlenecked.

Looks great.

Not sure why you picked CH since the products are pretty much ancient. I'd instead suggest the Trustmaster AVA, which seems to fit your site much better. And my advice would be to team up with someone who has extensive experience with a lot of flight sim hardware, where you focus on writing a story for a general audience and depend on the other person for the technical expertise. I don't see how you can build up a sufficient knowledge base quickly enough to not make major errors otherwise.

@wikz I'd suggest the Fractal Design Torrent case. It has extremely good airflow, so will cool everything well. The 5 included fans should be sufficient. I'd go for air cooling, which is much less of a hassle. The 7800X3D is quite efficient, so air cooling is plenty good. The Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 is a great cooler for an excellent price. Insider info tells me that it's a temporary oversupply so they are selling at bargain bin pricing despite being a high end product. For the RAM, I'd suggest getting low profile RAM without RGB. Otherwise it can interfere with these big/good coolers. The G.Skill Flare X5 or Kingston Fury Beast are examples of good RAM to get. Make sure to get a single 64 GB kit of two sticks. I'd suggest the MFG Crosswinds for the rudder pedals. Way more moddable than the TPR, so you have options for a damper, different pedal platforms, different CAM profiles, etc. You don't have to do these mods right away, but you have the option. When it comes to the GPU, Nvidia demanded so much cooling from their partners that there is little between the brands. I personally like the ASUS TUF cards for the quality of the components and tuning. But there is not much in it and ASUS does have some issues with not honoring warranties as they should. The Corsair RM850x and RM1000x are top tier power supplies. I think that you can figure out what wattage they are based on their names Your pick for joystick combo seems good. There are already a bunch of people who really like the Warthog stick, but run it on a Virpil base, since the Warthog base is so bad. The early reviews for the AVA base and the shots of the internals all look excellent, so I expect it to be a perfectly good combo and very solid to learn the F-22 with. I personally wouldn't get the Warthog throttle. It isn't that bad, but it also isn't good. The VKB, Virpil or Winwing offerings all seem better. PS. since you are getting a sim pit, I'd advise a Buttkicker at one point. This is something you can and probably should add later, since otherwise it is too much at once.

Why not a 7800X3D?

Someone is selling it here:

There is a mistake in the review, with the deflection values being off. See the pinned comment.

I generally agree, although he wants to fly the F-22 mod to study and I just checked out the flight stick. It is very similar to the Warthog. So I can see the case for getting the AVA base with the Warthog stick.

@wikz The 7800X3D CPU is pretty much optimal from a bang for the buck point of view. Top of the line performance for a not so top of the line price. Don't overspend on the motherboard. The very expensive motherboards don't help performance and are mostly snake oil (fancy looks). In principle, it should cost less than $300. Get plenty of storage. It's still relatively cheap and DCS with the modules quickly take a lot of space. Getting two 2 TB NVMe's is the minimum I would suggest (one for DCS and then one for Windows and everything else). Also get 64 GB of DDR5 6000. When it comes to the video card, the best bang for the buck at the high end is the 4080 Super. Especially with new cards coming relatively soon, I would not get the 4090 because the depreciation when the new cards come will be very bad. The upcoming Crystal Light will save quite a chunk of money and weight on your head, so it is going to be much more comfortable. And please don't get the Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog unless you can't get anything better shipped to Hawaii. It's very old hardware that they've refused to update, while competitors kept improving. Get something from VKB (Gladiator NXT Premium is great for a fairly low price or you can get the Gunfighter IV if you want to run it with an extension or want a metal stick. For the throttle, you can get the STECS MiniPlus), or get something from Virpil or Winwing. But then others can advice you better on those brands. The Trustmaster Ava also seems like a decent option, although it is only just now being released. You can use that with the Warthog stick if you are dead set on that. Keep in mind that a proper setup includes a set of pedals. Depending on which ones to get, you may need to rig something to keep your chair in place or build a sim pit. In general, a sim pit is where you can spend a decent amount of money as well. Getting/building a sim pit rather than game on a desktop is something that allows you to really get a comfortable setup. But of course, how far you want to take it is your choice. Keep some spare budget in any case for things you learn and need to address along the way, since everyone is different, so you may need to adjust/change some things so that you are happy.

Very good review.

The actual link is missing.