After some help/advice if possible. Just getting back into DCS after a few years away. Have always built my own PCs - prefer it that way as when it goes wrong it is easier to fix. My current setup is an AMD Athlon Phenom II 1100T, coupled with a GTX770 GPU, 16GB Ram - which was fine a few years ago - but now realising it isn’t really up to scratch!
I normally plump for AMD processors coupled with Nvidia GPUs, though have lost touch with recent hardware developments - but after some guidance for a decent modern gaming PC that won’t break the bank.
Unfortunately you have chosen the worst time to upgrade. High demand, low availablity means building a computer on a budget is not easy right now. You’d have to get really lucky.
Sticking with AMD is a good idea. Zen 3 is great although more expensive than previous offerings and the 5600X is fantastic. However, a Ryzen 5 3600X is still a very good processor. For RAM I would say 16GB is good enough for singleplayer but for multiplayer I would not take less than 32GB.
As for graphics cards - that is a really tough one. Prices are beyond anything I have ever seen, even for midrange cards and availability for new cards is practically zero. It’s crazy.
Thanks for the reply. Having done a bit of research - yep - realised I am walking into a very dry desert GPU wise!
Currently eyeing up an AMD 5800, with 32gb, coupled with a Asus Rog Strix X570-F - thinking of a little bit of future proofing.
GPUs - seems my old GTX770 is actually quite a high flyer in terms of what is actually available currently. Frigging frustrating! Was thinking of a 3070GTX as a good ‘midrange’ offering - just need to find somewhere that actually has them in stock…
I would advise, depending on availability and price, the 5600 over the 5800 as their MSRPs are not very proportionate and the 5800 is only marginally better than the 5600. plumping for a 5900 is another story though.
The 3070 is a GREAT midrange card, almost equal performance with top of the line cards from 6 months ago. It would be my choice as well. If you need to save money, for the 3070 (or even splurge on a 3080) you could go with an X570 Motherboard and an older 3600 CPU. You would be able to upgrade it for a 5900 or 5950 when those are more reasonably priced…
Thanks. From what I’ve seen there is no major difference (at the moment) between the two cards.
When initially playing DCS I had a jitter/stutter - not seen before in my earlier days. Lots of internet searching - with helpful and not so helpful bits of advice - most of it out of date - so embarked on my own troubleshooting. Lots of messing around with Nvidia CP settings, and in game settings - nothing working - sometimes getting better, sometimes worse.
Reset Nvidia CP settings to stock and installed MSI Dragon Center - which gave me the option to selecting ‘User Scenario’ pre-sets. Opted for extreme, flew and no jitters whatsoever. Uninstalled it (hate manufactures ‘One Solution software’) and pressed on. No jitters and all settings on Max.
Then began thinking what changes did the MSI install actually do, as it also installed a Ryzen SDK and something called cFos (LAN ‘optimiser’ - more on that below). When I looked at my power options they were now set to ‘Ultimate’ - which sets Link State Power Management to Off, and Min/Max CPU power management to 100%.
Re-installed MSI, and selected MSI back to balanced - jitters. Re-set it to extreme, Nothing. So - to cut a long story short and a lot of installing/uninstalling and testing, uninstalled MSI DC with it being set to Balanced, which in turn reset Windows power options. Rebooted, ran DCS to confirm stutters, and then set Windows Advanced Power Options back to High Performance, as this selects Link State Power Management to Off, and Min/Max CPU power management to 100%. Now have a rock solid performance with no jitters/stuttering at all.
Now - cFos is a ‘LAN Optimiser’ by all accounts. In my experience it kills an internet connection speed - my upload going from 30 mb/s to 5, and making the download speed very unstable.
Thanks. My last build was in 2013 (ish) - so really needed to come up to speed with latest standards - loving the little M2 drives and SSD - making everything that much smaller allows for better airflow through the case. After a mission or two my CPU temp is around 65 C(with stock supplied cooler fan), and GPU is 48 C - so all happily cool.
Not convinced with the various RGB colour options nonsense on various components - don’t want to look in a case at pretty lights when playing - just expect it to perform!
Yeah I have a strict no RGB build. All black except for RAM and the Noctua cooler xD I don’t need a lightshow in my rig.
Just out of curiosity how high does your 5600X clock when boosting single core? My 5900X regularly exceeds the advertised 4.8GHz by 150MHz, sometimes even over 200MHz.
‘Just out of curiosity how high does your 5600X clock when boosting single core? My 5900X regularly exceeds the advertised 4.8GHz by 150MHz, sometimes even over 200MHz.’
TBH I have no idea - as far as I know everything is on stock settings - and not too sure how to see the boost. Happy to report back if you give me some pointers on how to monitor ingame.
Just had a quick look at ryzen master and it is showing all my cores at 3700…
Interesting. Looks like all their Zen 3 CPU’s manage to exceed their official single core boost but top of the line chips manage to clock slightly higher above their target clocks than the 5600X and 5800X. I have seen my 5900X boost to 5099MHz for example.
Edit: I just noticed that your CPU runs quite a bit hotter than mine despite the lower TDP (~15°C higher max temperature, 58°C min is actually more than 30°C hotter than my idle temps but I suspect that might just be because it didn’t run at idle while you had HWmonitor open). What style of cooler is the stock cooler for the 5600X? At 89°C it might actually stop boosting higher although it is within specs, so nothing to worry about.
For reference I am running a Noctua NH-U12SE and hitting about 75°C (ish) max.
To confirm - started HWMonitor then jumped straight into DCS - so there are no ‘idle’ temp stats shown as such - as I had been jumping in and out of DCS messing around with various power and graphic settings prior to running a couple of hours sustained missions. Think it normally sits at around 38.
The temp is another oddity, as the CPU temp (not the CPU package) is reported at around 50-60 in RyzenMaster when I bang out of DCS - with the limit being 95 - so quite content (I think).
From what I understand the CPU package temp is internal to the CPU - and not the temperature that AMD sees as critical.
Stock cooler is a ‘Wraith Stealth Cooler’. Admittedly did have some issues installing it, as it slipped off the CPU when I was trying to line up the screwplate on the other side of the MB - so the paste application that was pre-applied may not be the best.
One other thought - what cooling do you have in your case. I have 2 intake fans and one exhaust - controlled by a case switch and not by the MB - so may look at swapping them onto MB controlled.
Two 120mm PWM fans in the front pulling air in, one 120mm in the back pushing air out, I did not install the top fan, all plugged in to the Motherboard. PSU pulls in air from the bottom and pushes it out the back. Admittedly I have had the case open since last summer when it was so hot that I just removed the side panel to improve temps. Room temperature is usually 18-20°C atm
TBH I may well leave ‘as is’ now. Ran 3D Mark 3 times in succession, and the CPU temp maxes out at 89C - so within AMD specified limits for the CPU with a stock cooler. Think worst case I upgrade the CPU cooler. I have a ‘beQuiet’ case with 2 x 140mm intake fans and a 120mm exhaust.
I think you will be fine with single thread load (typical for games) but if you put load on all cores your cpu will throttle down due to hitting temperature limits.
You can use cinebench to test that.
Game loads are often not nearly as bad as benchmark tools thermally. Different loads create different thermal output.
For example, run Prime95 and you can do the different types of tests - all can max out CPU usage but only the dedicated small FFT will really turn a CPU into a fryer.
