Mudspikers…
A friend of mine needs a PC that will run FS2020 well.
Since I don’t have that title yet, I don’t have a feel for what’s needed.
Does it like a lot of RAM? Lotsa cores? M.2 NVMEs?
Go!
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What’s the budget?
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It’s very scalable but more is better obviously. It ran very well with my 1080 and obviously is even better with the 3090. Likes cores and core speed
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Say around $1000-1200.
That’s just the PC. He’s got a screen and peripherals.
That’s out of my league I’m afraid - I’m not going to be much help maximizing that amount for FS2020 as my hardware knowledge ends at, “throw money at it!”. The rigs I’m looking at are 2.5X that amount, but my target is DCS in VR. And I’m still waiting to see how FS2020 does in VR. So far, IMHO, FS2020 feels sort “Sim Lite”. It’s very pretty though.
I can say…
My 1080 (non Ti) w/8GB runs it okay. Its useable in 2D (I can’t tell you my settings as I’ve not fired it up in over a month, but I’ll look again). I have an i7 6700K @ 4.4Ghz and 32 Mb 2400 RAM. I’m sure something roughly equivalent would do fine and be available around that amount.
[EDIT] Arg. Sorry. Something’s changed since I last booted up FS2020. It squawked about being unable to connect to X-box Live something, then froze. I’m not going to be much help for a while. Feel I, personally, wasted my money on it. I’ll revisit it later.
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I run FS2020 on a i7-6700HQ (mobile processor), 16GB RAM with an e-gpu with a 1080ti. It runs fine at 1440p. It can stutter here and there, and hovers around 30fps (because as you can tell, it is a less then ideal use of my configuration - several bottlenecks, but it’s what I could put up together)
Right now, the PC you should be building for close to that money (Ryzen 5600x and RTX3070 build) is pretty hard to source. So maybe using older hardware like mine and jross as a short term solution would be a good way to go, while we wait another couple of months. Usually waiting on the next thing is useless, but I’m pretty sure computing has advanced a lot this last year for it to be currently worth it. (And we are not even talking about macs!)
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Supposedly the Ryzen 5000 shortage is disappearing in the next few weeks, so it may well be possible to build the ideal PC and only substitute an old GPU. Saves a lot of money and trouble not having to swap out the motherboard.
@Troll I can only tell you that it runs smoothly on Ultra@1080p on my Ryzen 5 5600x and a second hand 1080Ti (420 euro).
The 1080Ti is likely overkill for non-VR, and MSFS can be quite CPU bottlenecked, especially at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 5 5600x seems to be doing the real work here. It got the same temperatures as during a CPU benchmark.
RAM seems to be reasonably important for Ryzen, so make sure you get a set that is ‘overclocked’ with an XMP profile, ideally at 3600MHz or lower for synchronization with one of the clocks on the Ryzen chip. I could get a 3200MHz CL16 kit for my girlfriend’s build for only €10 more than non-XMP (2x8GB sticks) and that made a lot of difference (almost 10%) in Mass Effect Andromeda.
So I would advise a B550 build with a cheap form of OC RAM, no idea of the amount needed: I got 32GB on my own rig but my guess is that 16 would be the right amount for that budget. Will get back to you with measurements in FS2020.
I’d say an SSD is always good and they’re not expensive these days. 500GB seems cheap, 1TB cheapest per byte. NVMe is probably overkill (it usually is).
Try to get a case with good cooling, something with a lot of mesh can be gotten in NL for €50 or less, can help keep the GPU cool and quiet, especially if somebody has some spare fans lying around (I don’t unfortunately, put them all in said girlfriend’s build).
For GPU, look for a sweet deal on a used card in your area. There’s likely to be a GTX 1060 or RX 580 or GTX 980 (in order of efficiency, descending) for cheap. These go for between a 100 and 150 € in my area.
An inefficient card just means don’t use it for too long, especially during summer when you don’t need the heat. But they’re great for temporary cards.
Could also go with GTX1070 if it fits the budget. They’re closer to 200-300 used here.
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And if Ryzen 5 5600x isn’t available yet, you could put a 3100 or 3600 in that B550 motherboard in the meantime.
Ryzen 5000 series require a new BIOS, different from the default BIOS of most B550 boards sold, so if you don’t put in a Ryzen 3000 CPU first, make sure your motherboard supports USB flashback for flashing the BIOS from USB without a CPU installed. Gigabyte calls it Q Flash Plus (very important to check, Q Flash without Plus isn’t good enough IIRC).
Otherwise, ask the seller of the motherboard to flash it with a Ryzen 5000 compatible BIOS
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I just checked and this is what was used of my 32GB RAM. Ryzen 5 5600X CPU, overclocked FCLK to 1900 MHz, RAM speed 3800 MHz (synced with FCLK) CL 18.
With a 1080Ti breezing through a 1080p flight on Ultra preset, flying around Athens and the Parthenon then to Crete.
Just over 16GB used, so I would say you’re probably good with 16GB for now.
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maybe something like this?
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If I set logicalincrements.com to Sweden (Norway is not supported), I think the “good tier” is a good guide.
Except I would recommend getting 16GB of RAM, a B550 instead of a B450 motherboard, and a cheaper, second hand GPU (1070 for 200-250 euros for example).
My girlfriend used the Gigabyte B550M S2H because it was the cheapest here. While it does all she needs, it is a bit annoying that the SATA ports are barely accessible with a GPU mounted over them. Luckily she doesn’t need more than 2 of them.
If you do go for the second hand GPU, make sure to also get a PSU that can handle it first.
Ah, sniped by @NEVO. Pre-built is probably a better (simpler) option
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I just realized that some of the B450 motherboards have also gotten an updated BIOS that allows them to work with Ryzen 5000 CPUs. So those would be an option too, and probably cheaper than B550. I bet the PCI-E 4.0 support is not a hard requirement on a €1000 build. And that’s really all you’re missing out on.
For example, ASRock has made updated BIOSes available for all of its B450 motherboards: Ryzen 5000 CPU support for older AMD motherboards has begun rolling out ahead of schedule | PC Gamer
My number of replies to this thread is getting too d**n high…
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