CPU upgrade

[algherghezghez]

Hi all guys! 
 

for all of you who will take the time to read and help me thanks a lot!

my current system is:

 

Mobo: Z-370-A

CPU: i5 8600k

Ram: 4 x 8Gb  gskill ripjaw v 3200mhz ddr4

GPU: rtx 3080

 

i get quite acceptable performance with almost everything maxed out playing in flat screen 4k capped at 60fps

just with the phantom and corsair quite noticeable lower performance

 

I know my system is quite old and way surpassed. I’m pretty sure the bottleneck is the cpu. 
would upgrading cpu mono and ram make a noticeable difference without spending a fortune? 

[sea2sky]

59 minutes ago, algherghezghez said:

Hi all guys! 
 

for all of you who will take the time to read and help me thanks a lot!

my current system is:

 

Mobo: Z-370-A

CPU: i5 8600k

Ram: 4 x 8Gb  gskill ripjaw v 3200mhz ddr4

GPU: rtx 3080

 

i get quite acceptable performance with almost everything maxed out playing in flat screen 4k capped at 60fps

just with the phantom and corsair quite noticeable lower performance

 

I know my system is quite old and way surpassed. I’m pretty sure the bottleneck is the cpu. 
would upgrading cpu mono and ram make a noticeable difference without spending a fortune? 

My system is similar to yours. Are you running your cpu overclocked? At what frequency? From the past my impression was that all what matters to dcs when it comes to cpu is a clock speed. Not sure if it has changed over the recent updates.

Edited June 27 by sea2sky

[algherghezghez]

5 hours ago, sea2sky said:

My system is similar to yours. Are you running your cpu overclocked? At what frequency? From the past my impression was that all what matters to dcs when it comes to cpu is a clock speed. Not sure if it has changed over the recent updates.

Yeah, honestly I use the auto over lock function of the mobo, so I wouldn’t know the clock speed. But I get very similar performance to when I was manually over locking it to the limit.

[Aapje]

On 4K on a flat screen, you should be a bit less impacted by the CPU than on a lower resolution or in VR, but flight sims are notoriously CPU-heavy.

And you have only 32 GB of RAM, while people are reporting that 64 GB has a decent benefit, so upgrading would allow you to sort that out too.

If you want to upgrade, then the most economical way is to get a B650 motherboard, 64 GB of DDR5 6000 CL30 and then for the processor, one of these:

- 7800X3D (top tier performance right away)

- 7600X3D (2 fewer cores that should not impact gaming meaningfully, so if you can actually get it and there is a decent discount, it can be very economical. This CPU has just dropped to 274 euros in NL/DE)

- 7500F from Aliexpress (China-only CPU that performs almost the same as the 7600X, but should save a bit of money)

The last option in particular can be done as part of a long-term plan, where you plan to do one more CPU-upgrade, after AMD introduces AM6. During the previous transition from AM4 to AM5, they sold a lot of fairly cheap X3D-cpu's to those still on AM4, so I expect them to do that again. With this strategy, you would get a big gain with the 7500F and then another big gain once you migrate to the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform.

Also, the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform should retain it's value extremely well on the 2nd market, just like is now the case for the 5800X3D, so the latter strategy could see you recoup much of the costs of that final CPU-upgrade if you later move on to AM6.

Edited June 28 by Aapje

[algherghezghez]

5 hours ago, Aapje said:

On 4K on a flat screen, you should be a bit less impacted by the CPU than on a lower resolution or in VR, but flight sims are notoriously CPU-heavy.

And you have only 32 GB of RAM, while people are reporting that 64 GB has a decent benefit, so upgrading would allow you to sort that out too.

If you want to upgrade, then the most economical way is to get a B650 motherboard, 64 GB of DDR5 6000 CL30 and then for the processor, one of these:

- 7800X3D (top tier performance right away)

- 7600X3D (2 fewer cores that should not impact gaming meaningfully, so if you can actually get it and there is a decent discount, it can be very economical. This CPU has just dropped to 274 euros in NL/DE)

- 7500F from Aliexpress (China-only CPU that performs almost the same as the 7600X, but should save a bit of money)

The last option in particular can be done as part of a long-term plan, where you plan to do one more CPU-upgrade, after AMD introduces AM6. During the previous transition from AM4 to AM5, they sold a lot of fairly cheap X3D-cpu's to those still on AM4, so I expect them to do that again. With this strategy, you would get a big gain with the 7500F and then another big gain once you migrate to the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform.

Also, the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform should retain it's value extremely well on the 2nd market, just like is now the case for the 5800X3D, so the latter strategy could see you recoup much of the costs of that final CPU-upgrade if you later move on to AM6.

I think I'll follow your advice, thanks!

[algherghezghez]

On 6/28/2025 at 12:51 PM, Aapje said:

On 4K on a flat screen, you should be a bit less impacted by the CPU than on a lower resolution or in VR, but flight sims are notoriously CPU-heavy.

And you have only 32 GB of RAM, while people are reporting that 64 GB has a decent benefit, so upgrading would allow you to sort that out too.

If you want to upgrade, then the most economical way is to get a B650 motherboard, 64 GB of DDR5 6000 CL30 and then for the processor, one of these:

- 7800X3D (top tier performance right away)

- 7600X3D (2 fewer cores that should not impact gaming meaningfully, so if you can actually get it and there is a decent discount, it can be very economical. This CPU has just dropped to 274 euros in NL/DE)

- 7500F from Aliexpress (China-only CPU that performs almost the same as the 7600X, but should save a bit of money)

The last option in particular can be done as part of a long-term plan, where you plan to do one more CPU-upgrade, after AMD introduces AM6. During the previous transition from AM4 to AM5, they sold a lot of fairly cheap X3D-cpu's to those still on AM4, so I expect them to do that again. With this strategy, you would get a big gain with the 7500F and then another big gain once you migrate to the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform.

Also, the final X3D-cpu for the AM5 platform should retain it's value extremely well on the 2nd market, just like is now the case for the 5800X3D, so the latter strategy could see you recoup much of the costs of that final CPU-upgrade if you later move on to AM6.

Man I followed your advice, went for thr B650, 64Gb of ddr5 ram and a 7800X3D and I'm having a blast! for a relatively low price (compared to replacing the gpu or a brand new pc) I doubled my fps and heavy missions are not a problem anymore! Thanks!

[draconus]

On 6/27/2025 at 10:24 PM, sea2sky said:

From the past my impression was that all what matters to dcs when it comes to cpu is a clock speed. Not sure if it has changed over the recent updates.

It changed drastically when DCS went multi-threading way a few years ago and wasn't really true even then in single-thread version. Frequency is not the only parameter deciding on CPU performance. Different cache sizes and types, CPU architecture and tech can all make big difference. As mentioned above x3d series is especially good for DCS and it's common for new budget CPUs to surpass a few years old top shelf ones.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

2 hours ago, draconus said:

x3d series is especially good for DCS

I recently upgraded from a 5900X to 9800X3D and I observed the minimum framerates go up by up to 50%, especially around busy air bases. Now the frame rates no longer dip around an airbase, while previously busy air bases were the hardest on my system. It truly is night-and-day difference and it transforms the experience.

[Aapje]

@draconus

Almost without exception, games don't scale very well with overall processing power. What you need is enough processing power to handle all the tasks that have to be done. Then in addition to that, there is the code that is the bottleneck, and that is generally relatively little code that benefits greatly from a high clock speed.

Furthermore, the code needs data to process. Code does not only become a bottleneck due to a lack of processing power, but it can also bottleneck because it doesn't have the data available in the local cache and needs to wait for the comparatively slow RAM. The X3D-cache really helps to ensure that the data that is needed for the crucial code is available.

Being bottlenecked on waiting for the RAM tends to be much worse than waiting because the CPU is a little slow, because you get a huge disparity in wait times between the situation where the data is available and when it is not. It's much worse for the gaming experience to have stutters (fast then slow then fast then slow) than a consistently slower experience.

[BitMaster]

Am 15.7.2025 um 14:56 schrieb Raven (Elysian Angel):

I recently upgraded from a 5900X to 9800X3D and I observed the minimum framerates go up by up to 50%, especially around busy air bases. Now the frame rates no longer dip around an airbase, while previously busy air bases were the hardest on my system. It truly is night-and-day difference and it transforms the experience.

^This....foremost the low 1% get's fixed. Seeing this on X3D's that I have built and service.