New PC P3D v5

[MHargrove]

The base clock is what seems to make the most difference for performance, and a 3.0 GHz clock, even though specified as the 'minimum requirement' really just won't do it. An i7-6700K or better, overclocked as high as it will remain stable is what's really needed. The i7-6700K is quite old now -- I'm just using it as an example of what I'd consider the bare, rock-bottom minimum. My six-PC sim still has two PCs in it with those old CPUs and they still "work" as external scenery display systems but are noticeably less smooth compared to the other three 'scenery' displays that run i7-9700K or i9-9900K CPUs. All of my CPUs are water-cooled (with AIO coolers) and overclocked to the max I can get out of them with the 'AI tuning' assistants that come with my Asus motherboards. I'm not brave enough to try to crank even more out of them.

Bottom line, while P3D will make use of whatever cores you've got, the main rendering thread seems to be most positively affected by the highest clock rate you can achieve on a single core.