Reference 1080Ti good enough?

[Django]

I'm planning on an i5-7600K + 1080Ti for my next build albeit not with unlimited funds! Planning for 1440p and VR.

 

Q) I expect to be CPU limited long before the GPU became a bottleneck, hence I do not need anything more than a reference 1080Ti in DCS - is this reasonable?

[cordite]

As opposed to a factory o/c? That GPU is good for now.

You sure you don't want to save a bit more for an i7-7700 or 8700?

[Demon_]

You should go for the 8th gen i3 8350K, socket 1151v2.

Reference 1180Ti? Yes, good enough. Overclock cards are more expensive for a small/tiny performance improvement. They are less noisy, they use 2-3 fans.

[StandingCow]

IMO, Don't go reference unless you plan to watercool or are building in a really small case. The aftermarket cards run way cooler, quieter and... well very slightly faster, but the other things make them worth it.

[otto]

I used to have a reference card a long time ago and it was noisy.

Now i have a aorus 1080ti xtreme and it's a lot more quiet .

Depends if you want to pay the extra money.

[cordite]

You should go for the 8th gen i3 8350K, socket 1151v2. ...

Why?

[Django]

The aftermarket cards run way cooler, quieter and... well very slightly faster, but the other things make them worth it.

I can find a reference GTX 1080Ti for about £625, so for more £££s will these "other things" make a real difference for DCS (or any other flightsim) FPS?

 

You sure you don't want to save a bit more for an i7-7700 or 8700?

I'm hoping for a good deal on an i5-7600K + Z270 M/B. I'd expect an i7-7700K + GTX 1080Ti system to give a higher CPU OC and a more balanced system, however for DCS (and current flight sims generally) I've seen no evidence that more than 4 physical cores will improve performance.

 

I think I'd rather wait for Zen2 than to go Coffee Lake. Right now I'm not convinced that compared to Kaby Lake, the higher cost, higher OC temps and Intel's ongoing s### heat spreader thermal compound, are worth the extra performance.

 

You should go for the 8th gen i3 8350K, socket 1151v2.

Why do you suggest i3?

[smallberries]

It's not just whether your CPU will be enough for DCS, because it will. The extra cores are nice if you have other things running, though, like a chat program or your browser open, etc. If that doesn't concern you, then by all means save your money.

 

Down the road developers are going to focus more and more on using the extra cores, though.

[Demon_]

Why?

 

Why do you suggest i3?

 

Run with the DDR4-2400 or more, ECC memory supported, more CPU cache, newest OpenGL support. No turbo mode, hyper-threading and other gadgets. Always get the latest if you can. And use the "K".

About AMD, ask Bit.

Edited December 25, 2017 by Demon_

[Demon_]

I can find a reference GTX 1080Ti for about £625, so for more £££s will these "other things" make a real difference for DCS (or any other flightsim) FPS?

 

The performance is proportional to the overclock.

Stock boost clock:1582Mhz

 

Factory overclock:1661Mhz. For an overclock of 5%, you will have 63FPS instead of 60FPS when gaming.

 

Factory overclock:1746Mhz. For an overclock of 10%, you will have 66FPS instead of 60FPS when gaming.

[BeastyBaiter]

Do not get a reference card. The factory overclocks are meaningless but the reference coolers sound like a hair dryer. Something far less obnoxious is well worth the extra $10-20 USD on a $700+ graphics card. Other than that, great card. Paired with an 8700k at 5GHz, it runs 1440p at absolute max detail at 60 fps or VR at high-ish settings at 90 fps over NTTR.

[StandingCow]

I can find a reference GTX 1080Ti for about £625, so for more £££s will these "other things" make a real difference for DCS (or any other flightsim) FPS?

 

Well, value is something only you can decide. There will be a slight difference depending on if you overclock (don't worry about factory overclocks, you can do that yourself) and how good your case cooling is. The 1080TI reference runs pretty hot so with a reference cooler, while you may be running within tolerance it could potentially throttle a little bit to keep it's temps within where it wants to, you can change some settings in EVGA precision (see here:

) to prevent that... but it will be LOUD.

 

So, unless you want to throw a hybrid cooler on it, again... I suggest an aftermarket card, but you will be happy either way. :)

[Fanatic]

I bought a reference. Died after a week and bloody noisy. Get a decent 3 fan custom.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fri13]

It's not just whether your CPU will be enough for DCS, because it will. The extra cores are nice if you have other things running, though, like a chat program or your browser open, etc. If that doesn't concern you, then by all means save your money.

 

Down the road developers are going to focus more and more on using the extra cores, though.

 

A web browser or a VoIP/Chat program at background doesn't consume at all that much they would require a new core.

 

A high performance single core is better than multi-core system, but as more and more complex calculations are added, multi-core can become better. But problem is always that is the future known? With a video compression it is super easy as we have a linear timeline, lots of data and all needs to be calculated and that work can be split pieces and all done in any order and finally all just combine to one.

 

With a gaming like DCS, future ain't known. No one can predict that you are about to shoot a missile, and when it is launched, it is with unknown flight parameters. So all that can't be pre-calculated or delayed but needs to be done in real time. And when you have dozens of those going on, it can become very heavy.

 

Example when I am writing this, it doesn't even consume 1% of the system resources. I have a background music playing and that doesn't either consume 1%. I have a chat open and it is basically idling at 0%.

 

In normal desktop use, >90% of the processing performance is just idling.

 

Even if I start playing a 4K video (locally) it is 5-7% what it takes. If I start four 4K videos playback, every process takes no about 7-9% by average and jumps now and then to 11-14%. The HDD I/O instead goes totally crazy and is maxed out as each player is pre-caching 10 seconds worth data.

 

Today most CPU required task that people do are 1) Gaming 2) Image/Video editing like 4K footage and raw conversions etc and then 4K video playback, that comes far behind those two.

[Aluminum Donkey]

I'm planning on an i5-7600K + 1080Ti for my next build albeit not with unlimited funds! Planning for 1440p and VR.

 

Q) I expect to be CPU limited long before the GPU became a bottleneck, hence I do not need anything more than a reference 1080Ti in DCS - is this reasonable?

 

1080 Ti?! Bah, who needs archaic flint-knife & bearskin hardware! What are you playing, Pac-Man?

 

Titan V or bust!!

 

Seriously, no matter what hardware you throw at it, DCS seems to stutter like a bloody booger. There are guys running hefty LGA-2011 systems with 32GB memory and Titans, and even have their own Russian-built Diesel generators in the backyard supplying the electricity. They still stutter like hell.

 

That said, I'm sure the gear you mention will give you stellar framerates at 1440p, just like my much-lesser system. Best of luck ironing out the stutters though!

[BitMaster]

1080 Ti?! Bah, who needs archaic flint-knife & bearskin hardware! What are you playing, Pac-Man?

 

Titan V or bust!!

 

Seriously, no matter what hardware you throw at it, DCS seems to stutter like a bloody booger. There are guys running hefty LGA-2011 systems with 32GB memory and Titans, and even have their own Russian-built Diesel generators in the backyard supplying the electricity. They still stutter like hell.

 

That said, I'm sure the gear you mention will give you stellar framerates at 1440p, just like my much-lesser system. Best of luck ironing out the stutters though!

 

Mine doesnt stutter, it's not that EVERY DCS stutters.

 

Neither in VR nor at 1440p.

[Aluminum Donkey]

Mine doesnt stutter, it's not that EVERY DCS stutters.

 

Neither in VR nor at 1440p.

 

I haven't been able to get mine to stop, except for the helicopters, which I guess are slow enough that stuttering either doesn't occur or is unnoticeable. I'm seriously considering secure-erasing my SSD and reinstalling Windows and DCS from scratch. It's that bad for me.

 

Do you use separate drives for each one?

 

AD

[BitMaster]

I haven't been able to get mine to stop, except for the helicopters, which I guess are slow enough that stuttering either doesn't occur or is unnoticeable. I'm seriously considering secure-erasing my SSD and reinstalling Windows and DCS from scratch. It's that bad for me.

 

Do you use separate drives for each one?

 

AD

 

Yes:

1 SSD OS ( nvme )

1 SSD DCS versions ( sata )

1 SSD other games ( sata )

 

Your 4GHz cap on the CPU is a big hurdle to take, try to crank that thing to 4.5 or such, that will for sure help. 4GHz Intel is the lower bar

[Aluminum Donkey]

Yes:

1 SSD OS ( nvme )

1 SSD DCS versions ( sata )

1 SSD other games ( sata )

 

Your 4GHz cap on the CPU is a big hurdle to take, try to crank that thing to 4.5 or such, that will for sure help. 4GHz Intel is the lower bar

 

I wonder if that would help... I run a single SSD, with 2 partitions... C: for the OS and D: for everything else that's 'big' (DCS World and other flight sims).

 

As for the 4.0 GHz CPU speed, I rarely see DCS at more than about half to 2/3 load on one core, about 1/3 on another, and next to nothing on the last two. It doesn't seem very CPU intensive, even with a large number of units in the air in a big furball. I can run my CPU at 4.5 no problem, maybe 4.6 or 4.7, but it's only a few percent more, it's not like even the newest ones will easily exceed 5.0 GHz. Not most of them, anyway. Even at 5.0 it's only 20% faster.

 

I just constantly get stuttering, even at low graphics settings. Framerates in general are very good, but stutter is awful. It sucks...

[BeastyBaiter]

Bitmaster, I noticed in your signature that you have your 8700k running 5.0 or 5.2 GHz at only 1.17v. That seems hard to believe, would you be willing to check the actual voltage with HWMonitor?

 

For me it takes 1.28v at 4.7 GHz and 1.36v at 5.0 GHz with no AVX offset.

[The LT]

Bitmaster, I noticed in your signature that you have your 8700k running 5.0 or 5.2 GHz at only 1.17v. That seems hard to believe, would you be willing to check the actual voltage with HWMonitor?

 

For me it takes 1.28v at 4.7 GHz and 1.36v at 5.0 GHz with no AVX offset.

 

Yeah, most curious. He may have one of those siliconlottery chips tho. :)

[BitMaster]

Bitmaster, I noticed in your signature that you have your 8700k running 5.0 or 5.2 GHz at only 1.17v. That seems hard to believe, would you be willing to check the actual voltage with HWMonitor?

 

For me it takes 1.28v at 4.7 GHz and 1.36v at 5.0 GHz with no AVX offset.

 

That is the voltage i dial into adaptive volts in Bios, in addition I set a negative Offset.

 

I have not jet found a way to absolutely control the max volts in Bios. Even when I set it to full manual the settings above Intel specs is ( ala XMP all core enhancement ) will cause the bios to give more volts.

 

Maybe a later Bios will give more authority.

 

HWinfo average Volts are ~1.350 and peak 1.375 iirc.

 

What does respond is the temp, the lower i dial in the volts the less the temp, even if at times the peak volts are not as much lower as I dialed in. Still overall the temps do drop.

 

5.2 for sure has above 1.4v, iirc 1.42-1.45 for stability, 1.4v for DCS.

 

I am mining 24/7 at 5G, the CPU used to make 1€ per day with 50% load but since NiceHash dropped the payout few days ago I stopped. The GPU still does anything between 5-30€/day rate. Looks like a 250-300€ month just mining all sorts of altcoins.

Gaawd, this 1080Ti flies when mining, VRAM is full tilt OC with 12G, thats 1GHz above specs, GPU core is at 800mV underclocked, or even less, max is 75% PowerTarget and 44-51°C, depending on what it does at what PT.

 

 

Once the right Bios does XMP I will further tune the board, till then, 5G and "run Lola run" ;)

 

 

I should add, all my volts but CPU are set to stock mvalues manually as Asus overdoes them by a big portion and thus much much more heat. VCCIO VCCSA, CPUstandbye, PCH, etc.. all were ~33% over default

[BeastyBaiter]

Ok, that voltage makes a lot more sense. For 4.7 GHz all cores all the time, I set 1.296v fixed with LLC 2 on my board. At idle, it holds 1.28v and under 100% load it drops to 1.23v. For 5.0 GHz I set 1.35v with LLC 1, this gives 1.36v at idle and 1.36v at full load. Yes, there is zero droop and yes that voltage is 0.01v higher than I set.

 

This is with an ASRock Z370 Extreme 4 with bios v1.30.

[BitMaster]

Caseking hasnt yet delivered my delid mate :( Paid & waiting