New dedicated VR Pc - £1500 reasonable?

katie279 · 12 Oct 2019 at 17:56

Hi all,

Got a new garden room being built where we'll have 8.5m x 4.5m of beautiful space for VR...

So looking to kit out a couple of PCs to have VR headsets - lost track of all the GFX cards, CPUs, RAM latest news, so appreciate if anyone could spec or point me to a decent set up for VR?

Can be flexible on price if more needed, just don't want to get silly.

Many thanks in advance!

ExRayTed · 16 Oct 2019 at 15:17

£1500 per pc? Very do-able then

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Six Core 4.2GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £179.99
1 x MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £106.99
1 x Kingston Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C18 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX432C18FB2K216)= £89.99
1 x Samsung 1TB 860 QVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-76Q1T0BW)= £119.99
1 x Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Glass Midi Tower Case - Black= £94.99
1 x Alpenfohn Matterhorn Black CPU Cooler - 120mm= £46.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC 8192MB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £749.99
1 x Super Flower Leadex III 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply - Black= £89.99

Total: £1,493.62 (includes shipping: £14.70)

katie279 · 17 Oct 2019 at 06:48

Thanks ExRayTed - very useful, this looks like it'll do nicely!

Quick question - what's a decent super tower style case at the moment? (I can never be bothered to be cramming the motherboard, oversized GFX cards, CPU coolers etc into little cases - I know it's physically possible, just a faff!)

EsaT · 17 Oct 2019 at 11:41

ExRayTed said:
1 x Samsung 1TB 860 QVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-76Q1T0BW)= £119.99

1 x Alpenfohn Matterhorn Black CPU Cooler - 120mm= £46.99

Scythe Mugen 5 is higher end cooler for £43
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html
Though for six core Ryzen 3600 cheaper one would be enough.

And that Samsung is three year warranty QLC flash drive at price of five year warranty TLC drive.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0a-hd-54j-wd.html

ExRayTed · 17 Oct 2019 at 13:07

Yup, I know. I just prefer the look of the black, have a white and black one in two of my builds

HeraldG · 17 Oct 2019 at 17:49

Heard that Tomahawk had a bad VRM. Also wanted that MBD...

katie279 · 17 Oct 2019 at 19:02

Heh, this is why I love these forums!

Ok, so will shuffle the SSD to new choice, might as well go with better cooler, just in case upgrade in future.

Thoughts on:
- big case
- motherboard - dodgy or not??

chroniclard · 17 Oct 2019 at 22:31

Full/Super tower cases are massive, you can just get a nice mid tower case and have plenty of room in it. The Phanteks Enthoo above is an excellent sized case.

drakulton · 17 Oct 2019 at 22:46

What VR headsets are you planning to purchase, as the really high end ones need more grunt than the enthusiast ones?

drakulton · 17 Oct 2019 at 22:51

ExRayTed said:
Yup, I know. I just prefer the look of the black, have a white and black one in two of my builds

They won't see what colour it is with their VR headsets on.

katie279 · 18 Oct 2019 at 06:06

Heh, good point, well made...

VR headsets - have a vive currently, so probably going to upgrade that - but thoughts welcome!

drakulton · 18 Oct 2019 at 19:49

Well a decent upgrade for the vive would possible be the valve index or even higher end with a pimax. So it may be worth upgrading the system but keeping your GPU until next gen.
Also what games do you currently play/intend to play?

lee32uk · 19 Oct 2019 at 19:42

HeraldG said:
Heard that Tomahawk had a bad VRM. Also wanted that MBD...

Nope that is wrong. Perfectly fine for a 3700X or stock 3900X.

katie279 · 20 Oct 2019 at 07:39

drakulton said:
Well a decent upgrade for the vive would possible be the valve index or even higher end with a pimax. So it may be worth upgrading the system but keeping your GPU until next gen.
Also what games do you currently play/intend to play?

Useful advice - yes have half an eye on the index, although I thought the pimax was very good res/gov but lacking in other areas?

Would above rig run index fine without lag?

Games are pretty much anything - usual VR party games, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Elite Dangerous, Project Cars etc etc

drakulton · 20 Oct 2019 at 10:42

katie279 said:
Useful advice - yes have half an eye on the index, although I thought the pimax was very good res/gov but lacking in other areas?

Would above rig run index fine without lag?

Games are pretty much anything - usual VR party games, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Elite Dangerous, Project Cars etc etc

Yes, the above rig would handle VR comfortably. If you were going pimax 8K, you may need more grunt for buttery smooth frames or next gen GPU

katie279 · 30 Nov 2019 at 07:52

Hi all,

Am snapping up all the parts for this through black Friday, cyber Monday, Mug's Tuesday and all the other silly sales events we've recently invented....!

Quick question - is there a major difference between the different models of the same graphics card?

Ie is one 2080 Super noticeably different to another?

Eg I've noticed OC have this almost £100 cheaper than above:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-35m-ms.html

And then there's this one which is even cheaper but seems to be the same apart from the 'xs':
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...0TayRt31SSAJ0wtQMKIuSpnahE9uKnrUaAqNcEALw_wcB

What I can't tell is if this is a good deal for the same thing or if it's a lesser card - seems to be same manufacturer, same ram, same model etc........ Any hints???

There seems to be so many sub models from each firm now I'm struggling to see benchmarks etc

Thanks in advance!

drakulton · 30 Nov 2019 at 21:40

katie279 said:
Hi all,

Am snapping up all the parts for this through black Friday, cyber Monday, Mug's Tuesday and all the other silly sales events we've recently invented....!

Quick question - is there a major difference between the different models of the same graphics card?

Ie is one 2080 Super noticeably different to another?

Eg I've noticed OC have this almost £100 cheaper than above:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-35m-ms.html

And then there's this one which is even cheaper but seems to be the same apart from the 'xs':
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...0TayRt31SSAJ0wtQMKIuSpnahE9uKnrUaAqNcEALw_wcB

What I can't tell is if this is a good deal for the same thing or if it's a lesser card - seems to be same manufacturer, same ram, same model etc........ Any hints???

There seems to be so many sub models from each firm now I'm struggling to see benchmarks etc

Thanks in advance!

To be honest, you may get a lot more advice/help from the gurus if you posed this question in the graphic card forum.

i_am_jon · 30 Nov 2019 at 23:34

katie279 said:
Hi all,

Am snapping up all the parts for this through black Friday, cyber Monday, Mug's Tuesday and all the other silly sales events we've recently invented....!

Quick question - is there a major difference between the different models of the same graphics card?

Ie is one 2080 Super noticeably different to another?

Eg I've noticed OC have this almost £100 cheaper than above:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-35m-ms.html

And then there's this one which is even cheaper but seems to be the same apart from the 'xs':
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...0TayRt31SSAJ0wtQMKIuSpnahE9uKnrUaAqNcEALw_wcB

What I can't tell is if this is a good deal for the same thing or if it's a lesser card - seems to be same manufacturer, same ram, same model etc........ Any hints???

There seems to be so many sub models from each firm now I'm struggling to see benchmarks etc

Thanks in advance!

I've just ordered the 2080 SUPER VENTUS XS. Think out of the box performance should be the same but the larger triple fan cards have better cooling which may effect overclock potential. Still a decent brand with 3 year warranty.

The XS is also missing the Usb-C virtuallink port. Not sure how much this matters since as far as I know none of the released VR headsets use it anyhow.

katie279 · 10 Dec 2019 at 20:25

<embarassed shuffling>

Ok, so the PC components arrived today and, er, guess who forgot to order a motherboard........ :rolleyes:

Can't seem to find anywhere with the Tomahawk Max still in stock, so any other suggestions for that range?
MSI's B450 Gaming Plus Max seems to be pretty close?

lee32uk · 10 Dec 2019 at 22:14

katie279 said:
<embarassed shuffling>

Ok, so the PC components arrived today and, er, guess who forgot to order a motherboard........

Can't seem to find anywhere with the Tomahawk Max still in stock, so any other suggestions for that range?
MSI's B450 Gaming Plus Max seems to be pretty close?

Oooops

Here are a couple of options.

The B450-A Pro which is on par with the Tomahawk (VRM wise), although not quite as aesthetically pleasing to the eye. You also have the more expensive B450 Gaming Pro Carbon. You might need to update the bios with bios flashback, although there have been people getting these boards with an up to date bios installed.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x MSI B450-A PRO MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £88.99
1 x MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £119.99

Total: £220.08 (includes shipping: £11.10)