Upgrade or new premade VR pc?

Merlin5 · 12 Mar 2016 at 14:45

Thinking about a fairly painless way to get VR ready. Either spend over a grand and buy one of the OCuKs pre made VR ready pcs, or replace some bits in my very old pc.

I was considering this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tita...-nvidia-geforce-gtx-980ti-6gb5-fs-002-og.html

Can I configure it to remove the SSD and HDD so I can use mine and save some money? And how is that i5 compared to an i7?

Alternatively, I could replace my graphics card, cpu and memory but I think it's going to be too much hassle, not much cheaper and quite limiting. This is what I have.

OS Windows 7 HP x64 SP1
CPU Phenom II x2 550BE @3.1Ghz
Motherboard GA-MA770-UD3 rev 2.0
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 Low Latancy Dual Channel
Graphics Card Sapphire HD5850 Extreme 1GB
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
thermalright ultra 120 extreme cpu cooler
Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Case
XFX pro core edition 650w

The motherboard is very old and only for AMD, so I'd have to replace it. The CPU and graphics card wouldn't work with VR. The ram probably isn't good enough. And I'm not sure if the case is big enough to accommodate a 980 or Radeon Fury as GFX cards seem to be huge these days.

So am I wasting my time upgrading my old pc and should I just buy a new rig? I built that pc back in 2009 but these days can't be bothered to start from scratch, I'd rather plug and play and just change the odd component.

AllBodies · 12 Mar 2016 at 21:15

You probably can't get rid of the M2 SSD on that pre-built, because it has Windows pre-installed on it.

If you wanted to go as cheap as possible you could just replace your CPU + motherboard + RAM + GPU, and keep everything else you already have. If you're happy with your case, and the CPU cooler is compatible with socket 1151.

Depends how much effort you want to go to, versus how much money you want to spend.

Also have you already ordered a Rfit/Vive? When is your shipping date, to know whether you should wait for new graphics cards to come out (3-4 months).

Merlin5 · 12 Mar 2016 at 22:14

AllBodies said:
You probably can't get rid of the M2 SSD on that pre-built, because it has Windows pre-installed on it.

If you wanted to go as cheap as possible you could just replace your CPU + motherboard + RAM + GPU, and keep everything else you already have. If you're happy with your case, and the CPU cooler is compatible with socket 1151.

Depends how much effort you want to go to, versus how much money you want to spend.

Also have you already ordered a Rfit/Vive? When is your shipping date, to know whether you should wait for new graphics cards to come out (3-4 months).

Thanks AllBodies. Ah, my cooler isn't socket 1151 compatible, only LGA775 Socket, Socket AM2, Socket AM2+, LGA1366 Socket, Socket AM3. Hmm, I think I'll just buy a new rig and sell the old one for whatever I can get for it, and just keep my hard drives.

I haven't ordered yet but it will 99% be a Vive. Not sure of my exact purchase date for everything as I'm currently spending thousands on my property and then selling it. So assuming I have any money left over, I'd be happy to budget around £2000 for a VR + new PC rig, to future proof a little rather than just scrape through with bare minimum. Good point though about new graphics cards so probably prudent to wait a bit.

Does it matter much if I buy an i5 or i7 in terms of VR performance, and would you recommend nvidia over AMD?

AllBodies · 12 Mar 2016 at 22:35

I'd aim to get the i7 6700k, unless it turns out you need to save a little, and then the i5 6600k is still a beast.

There's been a lot of talk in the CPU section about the 6700k vs Haswell-e CPUs (the socket 2011 stuff), and it looks like the 6700k is actually the fastest CPU for gaming right now, particularly for minimum frame rates (which is good for VR).

As for the graphics front, it LOOKS LIKE AMD may be the way to go for VR and the upcoming DX12 games. So far, in Hitman and Ashes of the Singularity, AMD has made dramatic gains in performance because they support a higher level of DX12 than Nvidia, and something called Asynchronous compute.

This could change when Nvidia bring out their 16nm GPUs in a Summer-ish. But AMD seems like the more future-proof architecture right now. Coming from someone with a GTX 780 right now.

AMD are supposed to be launching new stuff first, in May or June. So not long.

Short version: As things look now, I'd plan to get an i7 6700k based PC, with the fastest 14nm AMD card which they're about to launch in ~3 months.