Upgrade Advice

Fireblade2K4 · 29 Nov 2017 at 21:16

I would like a few opinions on an upgrade I'm considering and which route to take.

My requirements are to be able to play games at 1080 at 60fps and also in VR on my Rift at a consistent 90fps, the games I play mostly are racing sims such as pCARS 2, Assetto Corsa, Elite Dangerous and so on, I also want to be able to stream VR gameplay.

I'm looking at two upgrade paths here either Ryzen 5/7 1600x/1700x or Intels i7 7700k, both with either a 1080 or a 1080ti.

I know for VR the i7 paired with a 1080ti would be the best performer (overkill for 1080p/60 I know), however for gaming in VR and also streaming I feel the Ryzen system would be the better performer due to the increased cores/threads, but how would the Ryzen system perform in VR with a 1080ti, would the CPU still bottleneck the GPU like it does at 1080p..? Would I be best going for just a 1080 instead of the ti with Ryzen or would the increase in resolution leverage the GPU fully..?

How well would the i7 7700k handle VR and streaming, I see a few people using this CPU with a 1080/1080ti and getting some really good results on a single machine but I'm just not sure about how future proof this is.

I just don't know which way to go...any ideas or thoughts anyone..?

Thanks.

ExRayTed · 30 Nov 2017 at 01:52

Depends on your budget. You should also discount the Kabylake 7700K and look at Coffeelake instead

Fireblade2K4 · 30 Nov 2017 at 11:38

My budget for my upgrade is around the £1300 - £1500 mark, and yeah I'd thought about Coffee Lake and the 8700k but availability is very poor at the moment, I was also thinking of waiting until AMD do the Ryzen refresh at the start of 2018 to see what performance increase that brings, so so many options... :rolleyes:

Amraam · 30 Nov 2017 at 11:49

Fireblade2K4 said:
My budget for my upgrade is around the £1300 - £1500 mark, and yeah I'd thought about Coffee Lake and the 8700k but availability is very poor at the moment, I was also thinking of waiting until AMD do the Ryzen refresh at the start of 2018 to see what performance increase that brings, so so many options...

I'm going to Coffee Lake, but you're right about availability and pricing. I'm hoping the 8700k will drop nearer to £300 than £400 in the new year, so I'm folding fire until then. Even if it doesn't, it at least means I've been able to cobble together some more pennies.

NeverWinter · 30 Nov 2017 at 13:24

As an FYI, when I upgraded from an overclocked 3570k to an overclocked 3770k (both paired with a GTX 1080) I noticed a performance improvement in VR for titles such as Elite and pCARS 2/AC. However I think if I streamed with this, performance would take a nose dive.

lee32uk · 30 Nov 2017 at 14:52

Fireblade2K4 said:
My budget for my upgrade is around the £1300 - £1500 mark, and yeah I'd thought about Coffee Lake and the 8700k but availability is very poor at the moment, I was also thinking of waiting until AMD do the Ryzen refresh at the start of 2018 to see what performance increase that brings, so so many options...

The 8700K is in stock (If you don't mind paying the inflated price). The i5 8600K should be on par with an i7 7700K as it is now 6c/6t.

Fireblade2K4 · 30 Nov 2017 at 21:00

The thing is, I keep putting off upgrading because lately there have been so many processor releases this year I'm seriously stuck in making up my mind, the amount of times I've put a build in my basket and almost completed the checkout process only to cancel it is getting stupid now

My main concern is with the GPU, choosing either a 1080 or 1080ti, I know the 1080ti would be the best GPU to pair with either the 7700k or the 8700k for VR, however if I were to go down the Ryzen route for example the 1700x or 1800x whilst it is on offer, which would be the best GPU to pair with that CPU as I have seen that the 1080ti is a little bottlenecked by it at lower resolutions such as 1080p but is pretty much on par with the 7700k/8700k when playing around the 4K, would playing in VR eliminate this bottleneck as the base resolution is higher than 1080p and quite a bit more if I were to use super sampling at level 1.3/1.4 for example?

Am I wasting my money on a 1080ti over a standard 1080 just for VR, would the performance increase be worth the extra cost..?

I hope this makes sense, I'm just trying to get the best performing build I can for my money (without making any blunders) for streaming in VR, I'm not really bothered about performance at 1080p 60fps because that will be more than satisfactory whichever way I go.

At the moment I have an old AMD FX-8350 @ 4.5Ghz and a Radeon R9 290 and currently manage to play and stream pCARS2 in VR without any issues (albeit at 45fps using ASW), any of the above will be better than this, but I'm all about getting the best that I possibly can for the money I am going to spend, but with my budget at the moment I think it puts a 8700k out of reach.

NeverWinter · 30 Nov 2017 at 21:18

It depends on the VR titles from my experience.

Fireblade2K4 · 30 Nov 2017 at 21:21

NeverWinter said:
It depends on the VR titles from my experience.

The VR titles are pCARS2, Assetto Corsa, Dirt Rally, RaceRoom, Elite Dangerous and a few others but these are the majority of the main ones I play in VR.

NeverWinter · 30 Nov 2017 at 22:25

For those you want the best GPU you can get ideally, CPU would be secondary.