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Red or Blue for VR Gaming

bbbearrr

bbbearrr

bbbearrr

Associate
Joined
8 Dec 2012
Posts
272
Hi All,

I'm struggling to decide which CPU to go for to get into VR Gaming. I have a GTX 970 in an old i7 920 set up so looking to get a new CPU, MOBO, Ram etc.

For around £160+/- for the CPU mark which way would you go? Giving myself a headache at the moment lol

thanks in advance
 
In my VR rig I've had:

i5 4670k
Ryzen 3 1200
Ryzen 5 1600
Ryzen 7 1700

They all performed exactly the same. With VR you're limited to 90fps so the CPU doesn't do a lot. You'll technically get less dropped frames with Intel, but they're so insignificant that they only show in precise benchmarks and aren't noticeable in gameplay.

I'm currently using the Ryzen 5 1600 and it works absolutely fine, and can be picked up for less than £150. But even the 1200 would work without issue.

This video explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DJdkDms7Y0
 
bbbearrr said:
Hi All,

I'm struggling to decide which CPU to go for to get into VR Gaming. I have a GTX 970 in an old i7 920 set up so looking to get a new CPU, MOBO, Ram etc.

For around £160+/- for the CPU mark which way would you go? Giving myself a headache at the moment lol

thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Is £160 your total budget or just for the CPU?

The thing is upgrading from an X58 platform you will need to change the motherboard and the Ram.

Realistically you couldn't do that for much less than £400, but TBH getting a new Intel or Ryzen probably isn't going to drive the GTX 970 much if any better than your current 920, which is still a good CPU and i would argue the 970 doesn't need anything faster, really.
 
Didn't think of the platform change.

In that case get a Xeon X5650 off of eBay. That will give you 6 cores 12 threads and be plenty for VR.
 
humbug said:
Is £160 your total budget or just for the CPU?

The thing is upgrading from an X58 platform you will need to change the motherboard and the Ram.

Realistically you couldn't do that for much less than £400, but TBH getting a new Intel or Ryzen probably isn't going to drive the GTX 970 much if any better than your current 920, which is still a good CPU and i would argue the 970 doesn't need anything faster, really.
Click to expand...

£160ish for just the cpu.

im looking to spend around £500+/- for CPU, MB, RAM, PSU.

im not looking to get into VR tomorrow, just starting to upgrade things so I can eventually :)
 
AiiR said:
Didn't think of the platform change.

In that case get a Xeon X5650 off of eBay. That will give you 6 cores 12 threads and be plenty for VR.
Click to expand...

I hadnt thought about that. my thinking was that I'm in a position to upgrade my hardware so should get something relatively current.

what is the lifespan of a motherboard, psu etc will i get much life out of them?
 
bbbearrr said:
Yeh, i've looked at that but i dont know wheter to go for a ryzen or intel chip around those price points
Click to expand...

Intel are a bit better in games, if you have the GPU power.

With the GTX 970 it just doesn't matter, if it was a GTX 1080TI the 8600/8700K would be 10% faster in games but slower than Ryzen in productivity type workloads.

If you had a GTX 1080TI i would have said go 8600K, but its £60 more expensive and TBH even if you was running a 1080TI you would only see a small diffrence.

So i think get yourself a Ryzen 2600 (£170)
This board (£140) https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...ocket-am4-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-6c3-as.html
And this memory (£209) https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-my-08l-tg.html

Comes to a total of £519
 
bbbearrr said:
I hadnt thought about that. my thinking was that I'm in a position to upgrade my hardware so should get something relatively current.

what is the lifespan of a motherboard, psu etc will i get much life out of them?
Click to expand...

Right, you know how old those X58 system are, nothing fundamentally wrong with them and still somewhat capable, but how long can one expect stuff that's knocking on for a decade old last?

At some-point one has to byte the bullet and get up-to-date, why not now.
 
Well since im crazy and thrown out everything besides sofa and pc from my living room to convert it in to full scale vr room i can say.

Going from 5820 to 1700x no difference
Going from 980ti to pascal titan MASSIVE difference :)

Go with Ryzen id say. You can alway drop last if AM4 cpus in to the board. With Intel its Game over what u get is what u will have.
 
AMD have said they'll support the AM4 socket until 2020, Ryzen tends to give you more cores and threads than their Intel counterparts so if you do anything other than gaming then they're a bit more future proof in this regard too.
 
koooowweeee said:
X5650 + GPU is the best option I think. The. When you have more cash next year (or whenever) upgrade the rest.
Click to expand...

Indeed £25 for a 5650, or about £40 for a 5675/5680, the higher chips clock to about 4.2-4.4GHz with non-pants cooling. Spend the cash on the graphics card, and sell your GTX 970 while people still think it's worth more than it really is. The graphics card isn't going to get any worse, and you can always move it into a new home at some point next year, when the 7nm Ryzen stuff is released.
 
humbug said:
Right, you know how old those X58 system are, nothing fundamentally wrong with them and still somewhat capable, but how long can one expect stuff that's knocking on for a decade old last?
Click to expand...
The X58 boards are generally built to a very high standard, at least the Asus and Gigabyte ones. They're expensive HEDT boards, and tbh I'd be surprised if most of them won't do another 10 years with ease.
 
koooowweeee said:
X5650 + GPU is the best option I think. The. When you have more cash next year (or whenever) upgrade the rest.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'm liking this idea now. I guess giving the platform I've got now some TLC and a new GPU could see me into vr. I've ran the steam vr performance test and vr mark and the cpu didnt pass 80% usage GPU at 100%
 
bbbearrr said:
Ok, I'm liking this idea now. I guess giving the platform I've got now some TLC and a new GPU could see me into vr. I've ran the steam vr performance test and vr mark and the cpu didnt pass 80% usage GPU at 100%
Click to expand...


It's all about the GPU for games. CPU just helps a little. I had a 5650 not so long ago and there's beasts. Very easy to overclock too. I had mine at 4.1 no problems with a h80i cooler. So if you have something half decent to cool the CPU you'll be fine.
 
bbbearrr said:
Ok, I'm liking this idea now. I guess giving the platform I've got now some TLC and a new GPU could see me into vr. I've ran the steam vr performance test and vr mark and the cpu didnt pass 80% usage GPU at 100%
Click to expand...

Indeed, shop around and you'll see 1080's starting to show up around £460-475 mark, not sure how much longer it is going to be before Nvidia release a new range of cards, could be as early as the end of May. So if that were the case, you'll probably be able to get the GTX 1080 performance down at around £350, whether that be a shiny new range, or just the older gen cards marked down (if there are any left). Jumping up to that level of GPU with VR will make an enormous difference compared with your GTX 970, which incidentally, are selling for circa £150+ on the big auction sites, and about the same price on some forums and classifieds. :)
 
ok, so i've got a couple of routes to think about...

get a xeon chip for my gigabyte ex58-ud5 board and get a new GPU now or wait and see what happens in the coming few months

get on a new motherboard now with a modern chip, hold onto the 970 for now and see what the market is saying.
 
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