Improved performance: GPU or clock speed?

Question

I recently purchased XP11/XP10 and the associated yoke and peddle hardware.  I'm well aware of the Minimum hardware requirements for XP11 (below).  My question is directed to what is a more important criteria for the HW:  GPU or clock speed ...  and how that relates to XP10 as well as XP11.  These are the two mac-mini options I have (I also have an older 12 core mac pro but with an even lower clock speed I don't think that is an option):

1) a 4 core i7 @ 2.3MHz with 16GB RAM and an Intel HD graphics 4000 GPU @ 1024 MB VRAM, or

2) a 2 core i7 @ 2.7 MHz with 16GB RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 6630M GPU @ 256 MB VRAM.

Since these are both somewhat below the minimum requirements for XP11, I'm thinking I may need to revert to XP10.  In either case, I still want to do the best I can do.  Is the extra clock speed with option (2) going to make much of a difference?  I cant tell which GPU is better except more VRAM is better.

What is the opinion on whether (1) or (2) is better?   With my first attempt in trying option (1) and adjusting the rendering to minimum and maximum I really couldn't tell what the difference is.  The performance shown on the upper left display is well below 29 - I think it comes up as 7 or so and reducing the rendering increases it to 9 or so.  Perhaps the performance is so bad for both that makes it hard to distinguish.  On the other hand, both XP11 and XP11 seem to work OK (at least with a Cessna).  I just don't have a reference to compare to.

Another odd thing is happening as well.  When I run XP11 with option (1) is see a big difference between the pilot instruction mode (Cessna take-off module) vs a regular start.   The pilot instruction seems to work as expected (with the pop-up help screens - wish those could be turned off) but when I try to repeat using the regular start mode the throttle doesn't work well.  That is, after full throttle on the runway it seems to take forever to build speed (several minutes to get to 55kts). this doesn't happen in the learning module where throttle-up is quick and responsive.  What's odd  this difference is happening on the same computer and rendering settings, etc.  Any thoughts to explain the difference? Perhaps the teaching options has different default settings?

 

Thanks in advance.

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Minimum Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 CPU with 2 or more cores, or AMD equivalent.
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Video Card: a DirectX 11-capable video card from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel with at least 1 GB VRAM

Answer 1

Hi,

I haven't tried XP 11 so I don't know what's going on with your rendering settings.

I can help you with your computer though ;)

Honestly, I would look for something better since both options don't deliver good specs for XP. But if I had to choose which option to buy, it would be option 1 since the CPU has 4 cores and XP can use all 4 whereas a 2 core CPU isn't as efficient. Can you turbo-boost above 3.0 ghz? If so, that is good. Now time for the GPU. The 2 major issues with this GPU is that it's an integrated card (they deliver poor performance) and the amount of VRAM is a bit higher than 1 gb which immediately raises a red flag. Look for a dedicated GPU like an Nvidia or AMD and make sure that it has 4 gb or more of VRAM. Make sure the cooling is good as well and Macs don't have good cooling especially if it's a laptop.  Have you tried the free XP demo? What do I have?

With the specs you listed, you might be better off buying X-Plane 9 or FSX Steam Edition

My Specs:
Intel I7 4770K @3.5 ghz

Nvidia GTX 970 with 4 GB VRAM

16 GB RAM

MSI Z87-G41 Motherboard

I built this and whenever I run XP, I get around 35 FPS with medium settings

Cheers,

Rishi

Comments

In XP look for Data Output. Tick Frame - Show in Cockpit. There look for CPU and GPU numbers, something like 0.023 (CPU) and 0.021 (GPU). These number show the time it takes to render 1 frame for CPU and GPU respectively. Higher number will mean it takes longer to render 1 frame. If one number is substantially greater than the other it means that hardware is your bottleneck.

16GB RAM is OK. i7 should be just fine. VRAM @ 1GB on board is not OK for XP, it will bottleneck your sim.

Hope this helps a bit.

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Thanks.  I own both the mac mini options I cited.  I was starting to look for a new system but then I tried my older 2008 vintage Mac Pro over the weekend.  That is an 8 core machine at 2.8 GHz and 10 GB RAM.  It has a newer  ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB graphics card.   Although I discounted it because of age, this set-up seems to make a huge difference.  Now I'm getting ~25 FPS.  I still have to check whether the GPU or CPU is the bottleneck.

I'm still considering upgrading to a faster 6 core mac pro at 3.5 GHz (circa 2010 vintage with a NVIDIA GTX 980 with 4GB VRAM).  Don't know how much improvement this would be.  The alternative is to get the "Titainum" system from Xforce PC.  However that is $1,595 and won't be compatible with all my existing Mac software.

It's really hard to figure this out... so many options and variations.

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Hi,

What exactly is your budget? The reason I ask this is because it is way better if you can build it yourself- much cheaper (I built mine-cost around- specs above for $1200). I plan on trying to overclock my CPU to above 4 ghz this weekend (hopefully I don't ruin it). For $1600 as you mentioned above, you could get a 1060, 1070, or 1080 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 8 Core CPU-due to release in March (they've already found out that it can overclock it to 5.2 ghz!-blows way past its expected benchmark) 16 gb of high quality and high speed Corsair Vengeance RAM, and some nice CPU cooling, possibly even water-cooled.

Pre-built PC's tend to be overpriced since vendors like to charge an insane price $1600 (XForce PC what are the specs of the "titanium" system?)

I don't like Macs since they tend to charge a insane amount of $$$ for garbage specs (I used to have a mid-2011 Mac Book Pro which had 8 gb of RAM, 1 tb HDD of storage, and Intel HD graphics card, and a I7 which couldn't be turbo-boosted at all (it stayed a 2.2 ghz).

http://www.amd.com/en-us/innovations/new-horizon

http://www.pcgamer.com/amd-ryzen-7-1800x-hits-52-ghz-breaks-benchmarking-record/

The 2nd link is an article

Cheers,

Rishi

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Rishi,

Thanks for the advice, key specs below.  Since I'm far less familiar with PCs I'm concerned that I could end up with issues in building my own.  I've been using Macs at home for decades with some PC SW under parallels.  At work I only use PCs.  I'm not diehard one way or the other, the key question is SW compatibility.  If I buy or make a PC it is likely only going to be used for this one purpose... not sure if that makes sense.  If I upgrade my mac Pro to a 2010-2012 6 core at 3.5 GHz with a NVIDIA GTX 980 with 4GB VRAM, all my current SW will work so I get the advantage for other uses as well.  But you are absolutely right.  It will cost me more to do this so I'm really hesitating, particularly since it's hard to know if the extra 0.7GHz clock speed and improved graphics card is worth the price.  I suspect it's not.

I'll check out the links you sent (can't do right now since I'm at work).  Perhaps that will swing my decision.

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Titanium specs:

• New Intel Quad Core i-5 7600K Processor overclocked to 4.4GHz
• 16 Gigabytes of DDR-4 2400MHz RAM
• 500 Gigabyte M.2 Solid State Hard Drive (SSD)
• Nvidia GTX 1060 with 6GB GDDR5
• 700-Watt Power Supply for power stability
• Power supply has active PFC for greater efficiency