Desktop Spec recommendation?

[FRANK_G]

Hi all, I am thinking of a new gaming desktop, which is mainly for DCS, MSFS2020, no requirement for VR. Appreciated if could give me recommendations. My budget is $3,000 Aud excl monitor and other accessories. 32G ram at least. Personally, I prefer intel and NVidia products.

Thanks guys and Merry Xmas!

[Tiger-II]

If you're not interested in VR then top spec Intel CPU (i7, not i9), and a 2080. The 30xx cards are overrated and not nearly as good as claimed.

Get the fastest memory you can, but be aware that your requirement for 32 Gb will mean you may need to run the memory at slower timings. I run 16 Gb for this reason, and I've not yet found I *need* more than this. Close your damn web browser when gaming! That junk eats 5 Gb of RAM on its own.

I run an i7 9700K @ 5 GHz, and a GeForce 1080 (NOT Ti). It runs DCS at max settings at 4K without any problems. System memory is running at 3466 MHz (it can run higher clock freq but it is actually SLOWER at 3600 MHz due to timing interleave with the processor clocks). Refresh is 16 ns.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Tiger-II

[MadKreator]

My recommendation- 64 gig ram( absolute minimum 32), fast ssd min for install or better yet NVME. I7 or I9 ( DCS wont make either struggle).

As for video cards, I will agree and disagree with Tiger-II ( everyone has their opinions and are 100% entitled to them).

I run  a 5120x1440 monitor and going from a 2080 to 3080 was a huge step up, not as much in dcs but hugely noticeable in every other game.. Just went to a 4080 and yes an improvement in dcs but there is a point where DCS’s un-optimized cpu usage and logical bottlenecking are the noticeable hinderance. I will say in every other game including fs2020 going from the 3080 to 4080 is a massive improvement. 3080 ran just fine but 4080 is silky smooth with every setting on ultra including RT. Its was no slouch with the 3080 but I did have to tweak a lot to get the best performance/quality balance.

The 3080 is a big step up and a great card from say the 2080, even bigger jump going 4080 from the 3080… just not in DCS. DCS just isn’t optimized to be able to utilize what today’s  cards are capable of.  Right now DCS needs LOTS of memory, fast transfer speeds from drives and fast single core performance. Hopefully that will all change when Multicore is implemented. 

My memory is @ 3600 but I’m not smart enough to know how to tweak and tune things like that or do any sort of manual over-clocking lol I enable XMP and let ASUS’ ai overclock do its thing and things run great for me.

Even my system being a couple generations old , minus the GPU’s, I don’t feel the need to upgrade anything else at the moment, DCS, COD, fs2020, Battlefield, all run exceptional. I think going to things like a 4090,  i-9 13900, ddr5, in most games will be way overkill, and in dcs you won’t gain much (maybe in VR), due to how un-optimized it really is. You can build a beast of a PC for 3k, even if its not the highest end of everything