X-Plane 11 Performance: i7-9700k or i9-9900k

[Dave3000]

Now that i7-9700k and i9-9900k are released I'm thinking about upgrading my system. I currently have an i7-4930k at stock settings and want to get better performance in X-Plane 11 without turning down more options. X-Plane 11 is the only game in my system that I want to upgrade for as all my other games perform great on my system. Is the i9-9900k worth it over the i7-9700k for X-Plane 11 performance?

 

[LTC8K6]

I would get an 8700K if I were upgrading to an Intel chip.

If you have to go with a 9000 series chip, then I'd get the 9700K over the 9900K.

 

[LTC8K6]

Looks like that game relies on strong single core performance, so the 8700K would be a big jump for you.

 

[tamz_msc]

OC'd 9700K.

 

[TheGiant]

the 9700K and OC it. It is a gaming monster

 

[LTC8K6]

OC'd 9700K.

He'd gain very little single core performance over the 8700K though.

He'd gain very little overall, it looks like.

 

[tamz_msc]

He'd gain very little single core performance over the 8700K though.

He'd gain very little overall, it looks like.

They are priced the same, and I'd take eight physical cores without HT over six with HT any day. It also seems the 9700K will hit ~100MHz more if OC'd than the 8700K.

 

[LTC8K6]

They are priced the same, and I'd take eight physical cores without HT over six with HT any day. It also seems the 9700K will hit ~100MHz more if OC'd than the 8700K.

9700K is $40 more at Amazon and unavailable...

 

[tamz_msc]

9700K is $40 more at Amazon and unavailable...

Those are issues with stock. Over the next few weeks as 9th gen parts become available, 8th gen parts would become rarer and the 9700K will become cheaper as prices stabilize.

 

[LTC8K6]

It seems like the 9700K will run a lot hotter though.

 

[TheELF]

They are priced the same, and I'd take eight physical cores without HT over six with HT any day. It also seems the 9700K will hit ~100MHz more if OC'd than the 8700K.

Moot point since he already said that xplane is the only game he would upgrade for.
Dave,any reason why you don't overclock your current CPU? Gains in clocks would be linear to FPS as long as your GPU isn't the bottleneck and from a quick look it seems that it does clock pretty high.

 

[tamz_msc]

Moot point since he already said that xplane is the only game he would upgrade for.
Dave,any reason why you don't overclock your current CPU? Gains in clocks would be linear to FPS as long as your GPU isn't the bottleneck and from a quick look it seems that it does clock pretty high.

Realistically, a 9700K will clock 400-500 MHz higher than an 4930K. Games which are heavily limited by ST performance also benefit from fast RAM, which the 9700K + Z390 platform will provide. Also there is a possibility that going from 12 threads to 8 threads might actually help improve process scheduling in Windows and result in better performance.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I have X-plane 11. You simply need to OC your CPU. It relies on single core performance. Later this year or early next year they are adding Vulcan. X-plane 11 doesn't change much between 1080P all the way up to 4K if you don't have AA beyond 2x. A 1070 or 1080 is really all you would need. Worst case is in clouds where the FPS takes a dive. But who cares in IFR conditions. Your eyes are supposed to be on your instruments.

I get 30-60fps. The other thing to watch out for are add on scenery and add on stuff that can hurt your FPS. With an intel CPU, very easy to run Xplane 11.

 

[Dave3000]

I have X-plane 11. You simply need to OC your CPU. It relies on single core performance. Later this year or early next year they are adding Vulcan. X-plane 11 doesn't change much between 1080P all the way up to 4K if you don't have AA beyond 2x. A 1070 or 1080 is really all you would need. Worst case is in clouds where the FPS takes a dive. But who cares in IFR conditions. Your eyes are supposed to be on your instruments.

I get 30-60fps. The other thing to watch out for are add on scenery and add on stuff that can hurt your FPS. With an intel CPU, very easy to run Xplane 11.

You can say the same thing about the 9700k in regards to overclocking. I can overclock my 4930k to 4.4GHz but it still won't be close to a stock 9700k, much less an overclocked 9700k. I also prefer stock settings because even at stock settings on my CPU I got a BSOD mentioning the my PC has ran into a problem and something about a threading exception system error one time while playing Forza Horizon 4 and if this happened when the CPU was overclocked, then I would think it would be because of the overclock and not blame it as a software issue. If my system crashes while playing a game, I want to know that's its a software or malfunctioning hardware issue without adding overclocking to the mix and overclocking just adds more variables to for dealing with system crashes even with seemingly stable overclocks.

 

[Shmee]

If you are having a BSOD at stock settings, something else is wrong. If you don't want to mess with OC, fair enough, it can be a lot of testing to get to the sweet spot. That said, the 4930k is a good tweaking chip.

 

[TheELF]

Yeah if you can only do 4,4 on a chip that turboes to 3,9 anyway then overclocking isn't gonna help much anyway.
As people already said even lower 9series CPUs should do the trick just look for a high one/two core boost.

 

[ZGR]

I would argue even a 6+ GHz i7 9700k will not be enough to satisfy performance in this game. I play a number of older single threaded bound games, and fast RAM with tight timings can help just as much as a decent core + uncore overclock. Ideally I would recommend getting the i7 9700k, achieve 5GHz ACT, and then see what kind of RAM you can afford. I never like doing 1-2 core boost as I usually run a lot of other tasks.

I will be waiting for a 10 GHz chip.... I wish. The i7 8700k is also a good deal. At this point I think 8 cores is the way to go, but 6c with hyperthreading/SMT is fine. I do not like seeing how poorly the 6c/6t i5s perform with minimum FPS in a number of games. However, if you are at ~60hz, you should be fine with 6c6t.

 

[Dave3000]

I would argue even a 6+ GHz i7 9700k will not be enough to satisfy performance in this game. I play a number of older single threaded bound games, and fast RAM with tight timings can help just as much as a decent core + uncore overclock. Ideally I would recommend getting the i7 9700k, achieve 5GHz ACT, and then see what kind of RAM you can afford. I never like doing 1-2 core boost as I usually run a lot of other tasks.

I will be waiting for a 10 GHz chip.... I wish. The i7 8700k is also a good deal. At this point I think 8 cores is the way to go, but 6c with hyperthreading/SMT is fine. I do not like seeing how poorly the 6c/6t i5s perform with minimum FPS in a number of games. However, if you are at ~60hz, you should be fine with 6c6t.

Is L2 and L3 cache size important for X-Plane 11 performance? I wonder if the increased cache size on the 9900k combined with the slightly higher turbo clocks will make a noticeable advantage in X-Plane 11 over the 9700k.

 

[ZGR]

Is L2 and L3 cache size important for X-Plane 11 performance? I wonder if the increased cache size on the 9900k combined with the slightly higher turbo clocks will make a noticeable advantage in X-Plane 11 over the 9700k.

Would love to see 9700k vs 9900k (with HT disabled) locked at same clocks.

 

[french toast]

I would go for the 8700k or 9700k if intel.
Better yet OC your chip and wait for zen 2

 

[sioux]

I want to upgrade my CPU, I7 4790k OC@4,5 GHz, as well, for X-Plane 11
GTX 1080 Ti, 32 GB DDR3, 4k@60Hz
Right now, i think I7 9700K, OC@5 GHz, would be the best choice
I could go with I9 9900K, but the main concern is the high temps
Offtopic : do you think, the Noctua NH-D15 would be okay for OC@5GHz ?