BeastyBaiter

If you are talking about a DCS only rig or 144Hz 1080p gaming, then a heavily overclocked I5 or I7 is the way to go. But even then the difference isn't huge. As said, the 1600X is faster in DCS than the I5-4690 (3.6-3.9GHz) that it replaced in single thread performance. The kabylake cpu's mainly rely on a clock advantage and that doesn't come close to making up for the core/thread difference in more general use. In regards to the 1600 vs 1600x, the main difference is the non X might manage 4GHz but might not. The X model is basically guaranteed to. There really isn't anything beyond that though, 4.0GHz is a brick wall for this first generation of Ryzen. Regardless of which route you go, I think you and your wife will be pleased. I went with the 1600x over the 7700k because I suspect it is more future proof and I do care about multitasking, even while gaming.

I recently swapped my old I5-4690 for an R5 1600x, it's a big improvement in everything except older total war titles (rome2 the worst offender oddly). I'm using the MSI B350 Tomahawk with it, it's a very good board, generally considered the best B350. There is no point in an X370 unless you want multiple GPU's. In terms of RAM, I recommend the G.Skill Flare X that's made specifically for Ryzen. I bought Tridentz instead since it was on MSI's compatibility list but sadly it only runs at 2667 atm. Allegedly BIOS updates will fix that eventually. It's also worth noting that you need to stick to 2 sticks of RAM in order to run above 2133, so be aware of that. 32GB is excessive for a gaming system anyways, not even DCS will use that much. In terms of cooling, a decent air-cooler is enough. I'm running a $25 deep cool fan and it keeps it under 70c at full load at the full 4.0GHz overclock. And yes, that is as high as they go while stable. It's also trivial to achieve. My case is well ventilated for what that's worth. Overall, the system is around 25℅ slower than the 7700k in single threaded performance but much faster overall. I chose it because it isn't at all fussy about tons of background processes and is still faster in single thread compared to the I5-4690 it replaced. Just to give you an idea on overall performance, I was benchmarking BoX earlier today while downloading elite dangerous, running a bunch of hardware monitoring stuff, paint and a few chrome windows. It had no impact compared to benchmarking it totally clean.

Unlikely, I expect them to be $370-ish until they are no longer relevant. This is based on how it normally goes. It might get dethroned by an AMD card by then though as they plan to release some higher end GPU's in the next couple of months. The 1060 is already a pointless product given the existence of the RX480/580. We'll have to see what the upcoming cards and prices are like.

Most Ryzen chips seem to be trivial to overclock to 4.0GHz, but they don't really go beyond that. I expect thread ripper and epyc to be similar as they are basically 2+ 1800's stuck together. In regards to smt/ht, Ryzen has that solved I think. I tested with it both on and off on my 1600x and only ever lost performance with it off across a dozen or so games.

Depends on workload, that's just one program. Ryzen loves integer and floating point math but isn't anything special for compression and similar tasks. I do a lot of number crunching and never even finished a sphere 3d modeling tutorial, so my perspective is a little different from yours. Just checked mine in DCS 1.5, BoS and Rome 2, no measurable difference in fps or cpu usage ( DCS had 1 core maxed, 1 barely touched, rest idle unless Windows does something). Unfortunately yes. Damn shame DCS doesn't properly use any cpu made in the last 10 years. It certainly isn't alone with that problem, Rome 2 is also single threaded I noticed.

I replaced my I5-4690 (locked) with an R5 1600x last week, hell of an upgrade even for DCS. My minimum fps went from 30-ish on the deck near batumi to about 45-50 with medium view distance and 10km trees at 1440p with an rx480. An I7-7700k would have given better results, but I have no interest in crippling my new machine in every game but DCS just to get a few extra frames here. In properly multithreaded games, the 1600x should be a decisive winner (it is 40% faster out of the box). I can also update games while playing other games without penalty. New system is: R5 1600x, MSI b350 tomahawk motherboard, rx480 8gb (reused), 16gb G.skill tridentz pc3200 (running 2667 till bios update) and win 10 on a Samsung 960 evo nvme. I can get a stable 4.0 GHz on all cores at 1.35v and am playing with 1.30v but not sure of stability.

It's interesting that counter steering is so poorly understood by so many bikers. It is the only correct way to turn a motorcycle once doing more than a jogging pace. Type of bike is irrelevant. But I personally have seen 3 new riders go flying into the grass on the side of the freeway cause they couldn't make a minor course correction at speed. Fortunately none of them were hurt.

I replaced my old Kawasaki Vulcan with a new 2016 Versys 650 LT about a month ago. It may not keep up with an S1000RR at Le Mans, but for a 7 day a week rain or shine commuter bike, it's the best I could find at any price point. Not bad for an $8400 ride off the lot bike ($7400 without taxes/fees), though I promptly spent another $2k on it.:lol: Hurrah for being way less than I was planning to spend. I was expecting to get a Honda VFR1200, BMW F800 GT or Kawasaki Versys 1000. Ended up liking the baby Versys best. Bike handles wonderfully and is plenty quick off the line at stop lights/signs. Ton of cargo space too with the top box. Few pics below, outside pic is factory fresh. Other 3 are as it's actually fitted now.

The thing you have to keep in mind is that the $250 R5-1600X is massively more powerful than the $350 I7-7700k, but only in applications that use all those threads. New games, especially DX12 and Vulcan titles, love more threads and so Ryzen does well in those. However, DCS is effectively single threaded and so the fact that an R5-1600X is around 30-40% more powerful than an I7-7700k is simply not relevant. The 7700k's 25% single thread performance advantage is all that matters to DCS. I fully expect for Ryzen to soundly beat Intel's current offerings once more DX12 and Vulcan titles are used in benchmarking. But the question here is about DCS, I'm very curious as to how well an overlocked Ryzen does. I don't expect DCS to change much anytime soon, so if a Ryzen CPU grants acceptable performance in DCS, even if inferior to the 7700k, then its non-DCS peformance makes it a clear winner in my eyes. But if it doesn't run DCS any better than my locked I5-4690, then I don't see myself buying it as my I5 can't handle certain areas of the Caucuses map. My RX480 running at 1440p is heavily CPU bottlenecked on that map due to tree count and some of the airfields.

Counting my vote, it's 3 to 21, not a hard choice it seems :P. Seriously though, the Tiger is an absolute blast. I think I like the MiG-21 better, but the F-5E is a close second for my favorite fixed wing aircraft in game. It strikes that perfect balance of being a balls to the wall gun fighter while still having a touch of modern with a first rate RWR and a pair of reasonably capable short range missiles. And unlike the spit, you can hop into nearly any MP server and be at least somewhat useful in it (and fully expect it to be available, WW2 stuff typically isn't).

The 580 is basically just an overclocked 480 though. Nothing wrong with that of course, I'm very pleased with my 480 but i is worth noting.

Can't comment on Helios but my MSI RX480 8GB Gaming X runs 1440p in DCS just fine. I'm CPU bottlecked in both 2.0 and 1.5. The overall system is i5-4690, rx480 8gb, 16gb ddr3 and win10. This is higher settings but not max.

For me, it's the complexity that's the draw. I played WW1/WW2 flight sims pretty much continuously from 1991-ish (can't remember exactly, was very little) up till around 2013. I reached a point where there was simply nothing new to learn, arrogant as that may sound. But it's true, 20+ years of playing 1 very specific type of game will do that. Post Korea aircraft offer something new and different. I don't find the systems particularly intimidating, but the combat offers a lot more depth. It's not enough to simply manage energy well and know what you can out turn and what you can out climb/run/dive and so on. You also have to know how to evade detection, break a missile lock and evade a missile. Combat is faster with less room for error and the planes are more limited by your imagination than aerodynamics and engine power. My favored aircraft at the moment are the Ka-50, MiG-21, F-5E and Mirage 2000. The MiG-21 and F-5E offer a very interesting mix of WW2 style fighting combined with some crude missile combat. I think overall, it's my favorite air to air period and hope it gets expanded on. Using missiles accurately for those planes takes skill, it's nothing like the spamramm. Gun kills are pretty common with those two as well. I've yet to find anything more exciting in all of video gaming than charging in, firing a pair of missiles, having the guy dodge them and blasting by with a mach 1 speed difference for a gun kill. It's truly different from what I've done in flight sims for last couple decades. The Mirage 2000 offers a more modern take, but even with it, closing to guns is a common occurrence. It has the RWR, performance and countermeasures to render the spamramms largely useless. And once in close range, it's a monster. The fun here is getting into range mostly, once there, the kill is less interesting imho. The Ka-50 offers something different from all the fixed wing stuff. It rewards tactics and situational awareness in addition to reflexes. As such, it's more methodical and I find that style of play both relaxing and interesting. It certainly helps that it is by far the best tank killer in the game and not too shabby at SEAD either. And unlike the A-10, it can hide in a high threat environment effectively. This has been my favorite aircraft in DCS since BS1 was released on DVD and will likely remain so until a second attack helicopter is added (come on BST, get that Hind and Cobra out:D).

Pretty sure someone with Magnitude stated they were not doing a MiG-23 currently. It's #1 on my fixed wing wish list, but it isn't being made by this team. Someone might be working on it though, the way the RAZBAM project got shut down suggests so.

I've always been satisfied with a normal hotas (x-52, later x-55) just sitting on my desktop. Gives plenty of buttons and don't have to worry about remodeling, just slide the mouse pad off to the side and drop the stick in its place :).

The Ka-50 has remained my favorite DCS aircraft ever since it was released 8-9 years ago. Lots of fun aircraft have been made since, but I always find myself back in DCS's only attack helicopter. And don't worry about the lack of an RWR, it isn't a big deal tbh, especially in 104th where you can talk to A-10 drivers about SAM activity. Flying it after the Gazelle will be like going from chucking hand grenades out the window of a Cessna 172 to flying the A-10. You will be pleased.

My RX480 works wonderfully with DCS in both 1.5 and 2.0. It was a hell of an upgrade compared to my old GTX 770.

Depends on price point, the 1070 and up are uncontested, but the 1060 and especially the 1050 fall short of similarly priced AMD cards at the moment. But yeah, no issues compatibility wise with either AMD or Nvidia. I've used both brands over the years with DCS and many other sims, never had a problem.

I have an RX 480 8GB, it's been very satisfactory in both DCS and BoS at 1080p. Previous card was a GTX770 and it was one hell of an upgrade. Can't say if the 1060 is better in DCS specifically, but in general the 480 and 1060 are equal in DX11 games since the December driver update (previously it was about 10℅ slower). In DX12 and Vulcan games, the 480 is substantially faster. Driver updates for Nvidia won't change that as the 480's advantage is hardware based.

Looking very nice :)

Same. WCC reported it but that's based on microcenter pricing alone, which was always discounted apparently(I didn't know till this came up).

Good to know though. Will be interesting sharing targets between the different types.

OK, thanks. So it is an option then.

Not really. You can fly anything in the game with just a twist stick. If you have no rudder outside of keyboard or buttons, stay away from props and choppers but fixed wing jets are still fine.

Get what interests you the most. There is no problem going from an FC3 A-10 to full fidelity. It is the most complicated plane in the game but you already know most of its weapons and flight handling characteristics. With that said, the A-10C is a better A-10A, the Mirage is a French MiG-29A basically and the Viggen is a maverick and anti-ship missile spammer. It does not have any meaningful air to air capability. Other good options are the MiG-21, F-5E and Ka-50. The MiG-21 is a well rounded light fighter with simple systems and docile handling, though landing can be intimidating. It's perfectly matched to the F-5E in air to air and is a solid mud mover too. The F-5E is easy to fly and possibly the simplest jet in the game, but falls short in air to ground compared to the MiG. The Ka-50 is the easiest chopper to fly, the most capable tank buster (beating even the A-10) and is of intermediate complexity. In terms of single player content, all have an included campaign except the F-5 which has none and the Ka-50 which has 3. The Viggen's campaign is a beta currently and must be downloaded from the website, but should be added in a patch in the near future.