CPU or GPU upgrade?

[h1ght]

playing on a i5 7600k@5ghz and vega 64 at 1440p/windowed. lowest graphics settings getting cpu limited and gpu chills between 10-70% usage so far. i try to test other settings. there is some other bottleneck.

regards

edit//
max settings, gpu limit of course. cpu chilling at ~40-70%.

btw. is there a chance to enable freesync and to limit the refreshrate? e.g. max. 90hz and fps limiter nativly? the few games i tested worked better with ingame fps limit and refresh instead of forced fps via driver. less stuttering. wasnt successfull to set refreshrate for x4.

[ballti]

Ah, Steve and similar ppl need to stey between users and companys, they are very limited whit tricks. If you limited whit $$ then downgrade on r5 1600 and save some $$. Weit for new gen of cpus, this performance is old few years. Even i7 9700k in "i5 shape" is vey too old single core performance..

[AquilaRossa]

I made a decision.

I was waiting for the 2.60 beta to see how it affects performance. Initially it was a huge improvement as they took lots of objects out of our save games. Easily 30% when flying in space in the average sector. FPS still dropped by nearly half when in map mode at a station, but that improved a lot too, i.e., half of 30% better. However the gains evaporated as new stuff got built. Not quite back to square one, but almost. A very slight increase in performance overall. -- maybe.

I tested all graphics quality preset settings at 1080p in a quiet sector. Ultra to low made almost zero difference to FPS. That is almost always a CPU bottleneck, although I think a better GPU than my Nitro RX590 will help in the sectors where lots is going on and textures do not load as going through gates etc (it's a good mid priced card and imo better than the GTX 1060 that was the alternative. Cheaper too. But it has its limits for sure).

I decided to get the CPU first, but only because the Sapphire RX5700XT Nitro is not out yet and will be very pricey for a few months ahead. I just ordered a Ryzen 3700X and expect it to run the game at least 10% better. Sell the 2700X here in NZ. I did not want to upgrade within a year, but the hell. Ryzen 9 is almost twice the price and would be a stretch on the wallet right now (four extra cores would not help X4 either). Divorced now, so no other half to have to negotiate with over money. Happy days, although I rather not have this damn spinal injury and be back out at sea. I do not like being a land lubber. I like exploring, which i guess is one reason X games appeal to me.

If anybody is interested I can take notes of before and after with a save game and post if FPS increases. That might help folks if they are trying to decide the same.

[linolafett]

Enjoy your new toy then!
I guess its great to get some results from you, how much faster the game then runs.

[alt3rn1ty]

I recently got a new laptop which has a hex core CPU, I7 8750H 4.1ghz
6 physical Cores, 12 logical cores

After monitoring the current 2.60 Beta 1 quite a lot, all 12 logical cores are being utilised very nicely. If you watch one its usage percent (MSI Afterburner) ranges between 0-40% (I have seen a couple of them rarely spike up to 60%), which fluctuates rapidly while playing. The same behaviour and percentage of use happens for all 12 logical cores no matter where you are in the game.

So the beta in my experience is utilising all cores very nicely to spread the load. Compared with my previous laptop which only had 4 cores, my current laptop is managing to run the game with a lot more CPU horsepower to spare.

I dont know how an I7 compares with an AMD CPU, but it seems to me the more cores on a more recent CPU the better the game uses them, and performance benefits very nicely.


Edit : Forgot to mention - The I7 dynamically adjusts its power use between 2.2 - 4.1ghz, I have seen another game take it up to 4ghz once (while I was doing silly things with settings), but X4 has never taken it above 3.7ghz with the distributed usage percentages mentioned above.

[Imperial Good]

After monitoring the current 2.60 Beta 1 quite a lot, all 12 logical cores are being utilised very nicely. If you watch one its usage percent (MSI Afterburner) ranges between 0-40% (I have seen a couple of them rarely spike up to 60%), which fluctuates rapidly while playing. The same behaviour and percentage of use happens for all 12 logical cores no matter where you are in the game.

Which is likely the result of the OS rescheduling the threads between cores. Hence why no core is hitting near 100%. Two cores hitting 50% utilization does not mean that an application is well multithreaded, it can mean it is just single threaded with the thread spending half the time on one core and half on the other for an average of 50% on each.

I think the scheduler does this with Intel CPUs to get around boost duration limits or spread thermals. On Ryzen third generation CPUs the Windows scheduler seems much more willing to keep applications pegged to only 1 or 2 cores because there is no duration limit and instead specific cores are faster than others.

Edit : Forgot to mention - The I7 dynamically adjusts its power use between 2.2 - 4.1ghz, I have seen another game take it up to 4ghz once (while I was doing silly things with settings), but X4 has never taken it above 3.7ghz with the distributed usage percentages mentioned above.

This can be for a number of reasons. For example the power settings of the OS, or the application deadlocking, or the CPU hitting a limit such as thermals.

However in your case it almost certainly is because 4.1 GHz is your "Max Turbo Frequency" which according to Intel...

Max turbo frequency is the maximum single core frequency at which the processor is capable of operating using Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and, if present, Intel® Thermal Velocity Boost. Frequency is measured in gigahertz (GHz), or billion cycles per second.

This is the maximum single core frequency, for 1 thread running on the entire processor. Multi threaded applications usually cannot hit this frequency because all core clock speed is lower. With stock settings this frequency can only be run at for a short period of time, a couple of minutes max, before the CPU must revert to a lower frequency. The OEM might have disabled this time limit if they felt the cooling was sufficient, however only really expensive laptops would consider such a thing due to how thermally constrained they are.

In your case the multi core profile is...

4,100 MHz (1 core),
4,100 MHz (2 cores),
4,000 MHz (4 cores),
3,900 MHz (6 cores)

Hence 3.7 GHz likely means some other limit is being reached. Assuming measuring fastest core (not average).

CPU mostly becomes a bottleneck late game where there is a lot of activity happening. Early game graphics or frame limits usually are the bottleneck.

[AquilaRossa]

Okay. 2700X removed and 3700X CPU installed. Before and after test on a save in late game with lots going on are done. 2.60 beta patch.

I tested this way:

Windows environment normalized for both CPUs, i.e, same background tasks like Steam still running but no applications like Firefox open.
RX 590 with default software settings in the latest drivers. Game running high preset at 1080p with all AA turned off. Adaptive sync off in game, but Freesync is enabled in Radeon settings. Monitor is native 1080p with 75Hz refresh.
16GB Trident Z running 3200 MHz XMP.
Both CPUs running default bios settings apart from XMP on and Realtek audio disabled.
Sound is provided by an Audient iD14 recording interface at 24/96 resolution via USB 3.1.
$team directory and Win 10 pro OS on separate SATA 3 SSDs.
Noctua NH-U12A for CPU cooler.
EVGA GD 650w PSU.

I benchmarked each CPU by loading a save after freshly relaunching the game from Steam (sometimes after long playing sessions FPS will increase when shutting down the game and relaunching, so I had to remove that variable). In the game save I am standing still on a HAT Free Port platform in Silent Witness XI. Then I open the property map mode to record how much FPS drops. I then teleported to my HQ that is very built up and did the same.

Numbers given are averages and typically the swing was one FPS up or down. Game is modded a little (no trading mods though). Save is seven game days in. Lots of stations and ships built, so it is well past that point we see where everything slows down to crawling speed. FPS in a new game start will be a lot higher than these results (it would typically be twice as high on this computer, or more now). I did not think to also test a new game start and I am not keen enough to know to do a CPU swap over again.

Results for 2700X:

HAT Free Port: 40FPS. 30FPS in map mode.
Grand Ex. 1 HQ: 20 FPS. 12 FPS in map mode

Results for 3700X:

Hat Free Port 48 FPS. 37 FPS in map mode
Grand Ex. 1 HQ: 22 FPS. 22 FPS in map mode.

Conclusion:

In a quiet sector the CPU was a greater bottleneck and the 3700X gave a significant boost in FPS. At a mega complex with hundreds of ships there was only about a 2 FPS increase, but a 10 FPS increase in map mode. I do my fleet and station managing while in quiet sectors. The FPS increase will make the map mode and building mode run smoother. In very busy sectors with lots of objects the CPU will help with processing instructions for their AI, while a stronger GPU is needed to draw all the objects faster and at higher quality settings. The answer to the CPU or GPU question is both will help, so the decider became money. I chose CPU first because it was slightly reduced in price and the Sapphire 5700XT I want will not go on sale for some time yet (I am allergic to paying the early adopter's premium, which on top of saving money has the bonus of sparing me the teething problems new hardware and software often has).

Was it worth it? I think so for me at least. I run a digital audio workstation on this PC and it will run better now. My DAW software called Reaper and also Cubase really likes Ryzen and uses the threads when i run lots of VST plugins etc (my old 2500K would get maxed out and cause audio drop outs and latency due to not being able to set the buffer size low). In Cinebench R15 multi-core it beats a 9900K and is only ~2% behind in single threaded, yet the 3700X is about 60% the price of the 9900k here in NZ, even after Intel dropping the prices. I got improved FPS in X4 and the computer feels a little more snappy. Building a clone of a vintage Marshall JMP 100 'Plexi' guitar amp will have to wait- yet again. I can sell the old CPU so the cost of the upgrade is reasonable. Upgrading the CPU while being able to stick with my Zen+ motherboard is icing on the cake.