Upgrading CPU to 4090 or GPU to 7950x for better VR performance?

[Ready]

I am on the fence about upgrading my GPU (from 3080 to 4090) or hold out and first upgrade my CPU (from Ryzen 7 5800x to Ryzen 9 7950x). I am not going to wait for Vulkan or other magic software changes.

My main issue is that I currently sometimes experience 'CPU-bound' messages while on the ground at Nellis and sometimes my FPS drops below 20 and sometimes does not recover. In the air it sometimes happens as well, but less frequent.

I am reading different things about the single core performance. I fear the GPU upgrade won't bring much improvement as long as the CPU-bound issues are still there and I think my sudden FPS-drops are mostly caused by CPU intensive things like loading Apaches, scripts etc.

Any thoughts?

(VR with G2, 64GB RAM, running OpenXR and DCS settings are optimized. )

[Ready]

2 hours ago, AirMeister said:

If you have to choose most definitely the 4090 

Even if DCS is old and leans on CPU way too much, it barely uses more than 1 core anyway so upgrading CPU is pretty much useless in all scenario's anyway. 

 

 

Performance benchmarks show the 7950x giving about 25-30% more single core performance than the 5800x in certain tests, but am not sure if this will be the same for DCS. So I am guessing this will improve my overall DCS performance a bit. Not sure in what way though, compared to swapping out the GPU (which comes at a much higher price.  

[LucShep]

9 hours ago, Ready said:

I am on the fence about upgrading my GPU (from 3080 to 4090) or hold out and first upgrade my CPU (from Ryzen 7 5800x to Ryzen 9 7950x). I am not going to wait for Vulkan or other magic software changes.

My main issue is that I currently sometimes experience 'CPU-bound' messages while on the ground at Nellis and sometimes my FPS drops below 20 and sometimes does not recover. In the air it sometimes happens as well, but less frequent.

I am reading different things about the single core performance. I fear the GPU upgrade won't bring much improvement as long as the CPU-bound issues are still there and I think my sudden FPS-drops are mostly caused by CPU intensive things like loading Apaches, scripts etc.

Any thoughts?

(VR with G2, 64GB RAM, running OpenXR and DCS settings are optimized. )

What you're encountering there is more due to limitations of the DCS game engine itself (as said, barely uses more than one core), and not really from your hardware.

I don't think you'll notice much improvements by upgrading CPU. You'd be better by upgrading the GPU to something even stronger, and with more VRAM.
How much of those gains will be is unknown. It may be worth it, or it may be disapointing (considering the investment).

Wait for in-depth reviews of the new Intel 13th gen "Raptor Lake", same for the new RX7000 series GPUs of AMD.
If they're good as expected, compare prices and availability to other new stuff out there, then decide.
 

Edited October 8, 2022 by LucShep

[N206LG]

@Ready: What did you end up doing? My understanding is that the 4090 may not benefit you any more than the 3080 due to the CPU not being able to keep it fed. In other words, you may be CPU bound. I was wondering if you had made the switch and if so, how it turned out? I'm considering upgrading my CPU and GPU as I don't think one or the other by itself will do the trick. I have a 3080ti GPU with a 5900x CPU.

[Ready]

16 hours ago, N206LG said:

@Ready: What did you end up doing? My understanding is that the 4090 may not benefit you any more than the 3080 due to the CPU not being able to keep it fed. In other words, you may be CPU bound. I was wondering if you had made the switch and if so, how it turned out? I'm considering upgrading my CPU and GPU as I don't think one or the other by itself will do the trick. I have a 3080ti GPU with a 5900x CPU.

I ended up getting an 5800X3D and a 4090. 5800X3D is great because of the large cache and the 4090.. what can I say. Have much better performance overall. Still tweaking. So now I can not blame my hardware anymore. Still CPU bound on our NTTR server in some areas though..