If you are thinking of going with a 3xxx card for MSFS2020 think again..

JmOverclock

Hi everyone,
       I am a real world private pilot and have been building PCs since the days of dos. I have been through every flight sim out there and it helped me greatly when obtaining my PPL and moving forward with an IFR endorsement. Let me explain that FS2020 is awesome but you do not need a 3000 series card to run it. I was in the tech alpha and learned alot on how the programming took place. Let me state the launch was a disaster and people were getting horrible frame rates unless they turned the settings down to mid. The sim wasn't optimized and in dev mode it would show vram limited. Nope...there were two patches. The 1st fixed installation issues and minor bugs but the 2nd patch is a 15gb update with new code. I went from being on high settings to ultra 35-40fps at 4k resolution. The sim still needs optimization. Next this sim is heavily dependent on CPU and even more so on your internet connection. Yes there are articles about the rolling cache and downloading off line. You are now probably wondering what I have for specs. First and foremost I am using M.2 nvme x2. 1tb is for the os and 2tb for games. You need fast read/write drives. I configured the pc for flight sim and games only. This means not even word is on my pc, no adobe products etc..I have nothing running in the background besides essentials. For CPU I have a 10900k installed in an aorus z490 master. I overclocked the 10900k to 5.1ghz fully stable on all cores continuous. I am using a 2080ti gpu. For cooling I did a custom hard tube loop. All fittings, rad, water blocks are ekwb. For ram I am running trident royal 128gb. Evga 1000w power supply. The gpu is not worth the price for fligh sim at this time. It's a marginal improvement but if you overclock the 2080ti you knock out the 3080. The only aspect of the 3080 that makes it great is the dlss and ray tracing. Until msfs2020 has code to really utilize it, it is not necessary. Msfs isn't even on direct x12. For msfs the more cores you have the better off you are. Also bare in mind the z490 and current 10900k only supports pcie 3.0 and 4.0 will be available with the next gen intel chip. 2080ti was going for peanuts on ebay before the 3080 launched. I bought 4 of them because I build systems for friends etc..now the prices have gone up on the 2080ti because well the 3080 is full of smoke and mirrors. Gamers are simmers are realizing that the 2080ti has been the time tested and proven card. I hope this helps some of you. Spend more money updating your ssd, ram, cpu and MB. Think about the gpu a few months from now where there is stock, benches have been done and more patches realsed for msfs. 

Thank you 

AlexS

@JmOverclock welcome to the Micro Center Community and thanks for the very detailed review provided.  As someone who gave Microsoft Flight Sim a go myself on the Xbox Game Pass (the first time I played Flight Simulator since FS2004), I already astounded by the graphics I was getting on my i7-8700k/2060S @ 1440p medium settings on a 21:9 monitor.  While 4K is the goal with this game for a huge majority of the flight sim enthusiast, I've been enjoying MSFS with my rig just fine and dandy.  

Sure, a 3xxx series card would be a nice upgrade, but I'll wait until the Super or TI versions of these guys come out before I decide to pull the trigger on a new purchase.  

JmOverclock

AlexS said:

@JmOverclock welcome to the Micro Center Community and thanks for the very detailed review provided.  As someone who gave Microsoft Flight Sim a go myself on the Xbox Game Pass (the first time I played Flight Simulator since FS2004), I already astounded by the graphics I was getting on my i7-8700k/2060S @ 1440p medium settings on a 21:9 monitor.  While 4K is the goal with this game for a huge majority of the flight sim enthusiast, I've been enjoying MSFS with my rig just fine and dandy.  

Sure, a 3xxx series card would be a nice upgrade, but I'll wait until the Super or TI versions of these guys come out before I decide to pull the trigger on a new purchase.  

Alex, thanks for the note. Happy to post and glad to hear you are enjoying the sim. Smart move waiting for the 30xx. Right now it's all hype and 10gb for the 3080 isn't worth the even 700 dollar price tag. These cards and drivers are going to undergo alot of changes. I waited for the 2080ti and I am happy I did. I scored an extra 2080ti on ebay for 400 bucks right before the 3080 launched. People were trying to off load them and I kept shaking my head. Putting the cart in front of the horse is never a good idea. Suddenly 2080ti prices are back up because people are realizing the 2080ti is an awesome card. If someone really wanted to profit he or she could of bought quite a few ti cards and just waited for after the launch for prices to go and now people are in buying any card they can mode because they get the 3080 or 90. Glad there are others out there who can wait and see right through the marketing...

JS_MC

@JmOverclock That's a pretty good deal on a 2080 ti. Nice get!

I too am still waiting for more info on the new 3000 series cards, I think it's best to wait, and I do for most new products that I'm interested in. Kinda waiting for the manufacturers to get the kinks out before I buy-in. I recommend doing that for most new products. That being said, going from a 1080 ti. The performance increase is substantial and I'm very intrigued. Still more shopping to do! 😊