Upgrade my GPU or CPU for better VR?

A

atarumoroboshi18

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2013
Messages
286
Alright, my VR Rig has been sitting on a strong, but dated foundation and I've been heavy into VR games especially now. What is the smart play for an update right now?

Here are my specs:
ASUS ROG Strix Z370i Gaming mobo
i7-8700k CPU
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
1TB NVMe drive
3080 FE GPU
650w Seasonic SFX PSU
Lian Lu TU150 Mini ITX Case

Basically, I've been getting good performance on my system in a good bunch of my VR games, but I've been mulling over what to update for my system. I can't decided on a new current gen CPU/Mobo, on either Intel or AMD CPU, or on a newer GPU with more VRAM like a 3090 or higher GPU(if possible). Pretty much at a crossroad as to what would be the smart upgrade. What are some recommendations? Who or what should I be looking for?
 
Depends on what you're playing, and if it's something like DCS World or No Man's Sky, word of warning: your wallet is going to hate you from having to buy a new CPU and mobo (possibly RAM too if not going the Zen 3 or Alder/Raptor Lake route to carry your DDR4 forward) together just to try and keep the reprojection at bay, and for MSFS2020 and certain VRChat worlds, I don't think the hardware needed to maintain a consistent 90 FPS on a Valve Index even exists right now.

VR is as GPU-intensive as it gets; you want at least an RTX 4080, ideally a 4090, and the RX 7900 XTX isn't even worth your consideration right now because AMD drops the ball hard on VR with RDNA 3's launch drivers. Ask me how I know...

But on the other hand, good VR performance is about the 1% lows, minimum framerates being as high as possible, and that usually takes something like a 5800X3D or a 12700K/13600K-class CPU (whichever one being better depends on the game). I'm keeping my eyes peeled for 7800X3D and 7950X3D benchmarks soon, as they have the potential to be the unquestionably best VR gaming CPUs with all that cache and the more modern Zen 4 architecture.

I'm inclined to recommend one of the Micro Center CPU/mobo combo deals out of simple cost-effectiveness ($370 right now, used to be $350 or even $325 a few months back).
https://www.microcenter.com/product...s-tuf-gaming-wifi-ddr4,-cpu-motherboard-combo

Not only does that make the mobo practically free, you can carry forward your existing DDR4 kit for even more savings. Can't do that with AM5 (DDR5 only), and building a dead-end AM4 system just to use the 5800X3D makes no sense.

In the meantime, since the 3080 really isn't that bad of a GPU (most VR games should be playable save for the unoptimized ones), you can try and hold out for price drops later on. You'd be bottlenecking a 4090 somewhat on current high-end CPUs as it is, never mind an old Coffee Lake system that's well behind on single-threaded performance compared to what we have now.

...and then I realize I just made a major oversight: you're using a mini-ITX case. Micro Center isn't bundling motherboards in that form factor, and I have very real concerns about being able to even fit a non-FE 4080 or 4090 in that PC-TU150 case. No, seriously, the Zotac 4080 that I ended up with is about 14" long and takes up about four slots in practice due to how huge the heatsink is, and most other AIB designs aren't much better in terms of size.

650W isn't going to cut it for a 4080, either, never mind a 4090. 900-1000W seems to be the expectation for running these new GPUs comfortably alongside a high-end CPU that'll put an 8700K's core count to shame, and you'll have a hard time getting those wattage ratings without ATX-sized PSUs.

Do you value SFF portability, or are you willing to step up to a larger case for more motherboard and PSU options?
 
Yeah you're going to have to go down one hell of a rabbit hole once you start upgrading one thing you need to upgrade the other and then something else and something else. Any GPU that's going to give you a worthwhile upgrade is going to need a better CPU and you certainly need more than just 16 gigs of system ram if you're going to have a high-end GPU and high-end CPU. And then you need a better power supply. Looks like you'll be building a new computer and selling off your current hardware...
 
Pretty much, I enjoy the Mini-ITX form factor. I do have a spare 450I Mini ITX Mobo that I could swap out and use a 5800X3D. Looks like from the specs, that Mobo can take a 5000 Ryzen chip, so I could potentially put a 5800X3D in it based on the CPU Support Page saying it's capable. If I just simply wait, I'll never upgrade/update, I can wait on the GPUs for now and update my CPU. When it comes to this particular system, I want it to be small and out of the way, but powerful enough for a VR setup. If needed, then an upgrade to a Micro-ATX case wouldn't be out of the picture, but I don't need all the additional slots and extraneous other things that come with bigger Mobos, since the only slot that will be used is the main GPU slot, so I could easily stick with a Mini-ITX mobo.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about this. My current wireless VR system doesn't stream directly from my PC, it streams from my PC to my router, so maybe I could test this out and move my VR Rig to another room and still play without issue in my VR room as long as one of my mesh routers is in the room. If that's the case, I can basically make any system I want and hook it into my mesh system...

Edit 2: Yeah, if this is the case, then I can simply put my current VR Rig on the back burner and update my main rig(in a huge Coolermaster Storm Trooper case) to pretty much any configuration I want and wirelessly stream from it to my headset.
 
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If you already have an AM4 mobo that will accept a 5800X3D, then that's definitely the most cost-effective route to take for CPU upgrades. Just make sure you can get the UEFI upgraded first! (This is actually what holds me up from using a B450 mobo I have laying around, since I don't even know if it works and lack a CPU to test with it.)

Using wireless streaming definitely gives you more flexibility of the sort I don't have with my Valve Index; you could just have some ridiculously huge and loud VR computer tucked away in a server room and tap into its power remotely, free of all the noise, ideally in a room with more open space if you plan on room-scale gaming.
 
Yeah, I tested this yesterday and can confirm that I can simply connect my VR Rig to my router in the other room with nothing else connected besides power, use Virtual Desktop, and simply play in a now perfectly quiet room with fantastic results. As long as one of my Wifi mesh satellites is in the room with me, it is silky smooth wireless PCVR gaming. Until something utterly mindblowing comes down the VR pipeline, this is going to be my VR setup for the foreseeable future.

So I'm going to keep my GPU the way it is and just seek to upgrade my Main Rig for future proofing which has none of the constraints of my VR Rig. What upgrade path should I consider going to a full size case for the smoothest VR experience?
 
Well, I was looking at the wrong system to update. My inclination was to upgrade my VR Rig with my spare AM4 mobo and a 5800x3D for a full Mobo swap out. I took a look at my other systems and realized that my TV Rig is nearly identical in basically all specs, except it has a 1080 Ti and an 450m AM4 Mobo. So I'm getting the 5800x3D and plopping it in my TV rig and swapping out the 1080 Ti with the 3080 and moving the necessary M.2 drives so there wouldn't have a single difference except for the CPU/Mobo.

TV Rig specs:
Ryzen 1600x
MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC mobo
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
EVGA 1080 Ti 11GB
Seasonic SFX 650w Gold PSU
Arctic Freezer Liquid 120mm AIO Water Cooler
250GB NVMe M.2 System Drive
500GB SATA M.2 Storage Drive

Getting the 5800X3D on Monday and I've already updated the B450i to the latest version which supports the 5800X3D CPU, so everything good. Going from an 8700k to a 5800X3D should hopefully net me some solid VR improvements!
 
atarumoroboshi18 said:
Well, I was looking at the wrong system to update. My inclination was to upgrade my VR Rig with my spare AM4 mobo and a 5800x3D for a full Mobo swap out. I took a look at my other systems and realized that my TV Rig is nearly identical in basically all specs, except it has a 1080 Ti and an 450m AM4 Mobo. So I'm getting the 5800x3D and plopping it in my TV rig and swapping out the 1080 Ti with the 3080 and moving the necessary M.2 drives so there wouldn't have a single difference except for the CPU/Mobo.

TV Rig specs:
Ryzen 1600x
MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC mobo
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
EVGA 1080 Ti 11GB
Seasonic SFX 650w Gold PSU
Arctic Freezer Liquid 120mm AIO Water Cooler
250GB NVMe M.2 System Drive
500GB SATA M.2 Storage Drive

Getting the 5800X3D on Monday and I've already updated the B450i to the latest version which supports the 5800X3D CPU, so everything good. Going from an 8700k to a 5800X3D should hopefully net me some solid VR improvements!
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Oh heck yes, that thing looks pretty darn solid, except for that ancient CPU. A 1080 Ti isn't bad, even now. If you upgrade into a 5800X3D then you'll be incredibly happy, I'm sure. mITX is a seriously nice form-factor, because you can keep it small and meek, or just put in the right CPU and suddenly you have an absolute demon PC.
 
1337Goat said:
Oh heck yes, that thing looks pretty darn solid, except for that ancient CPU. A 1080 Ti isn't bad, even now. If you upgrade into a 5800X3D then you'll be incredibly happy, I'm sure. mITX is a seriously nice form-factor, because you can keep it small and meek, or just put in the right CPU and suddenly you have an absolute demon PC.
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention that the case is also a Lian Li TU-150. This should hopefully keep me in good performance for VR for some time. This is the biggest and best CPU upgrade I've made in a LONG time and I have no reason to update my CPU or GPU in my other systems now for the foreseeable future because all I play is VR games like Into the Radius. If it can give me a meaningful or substantial performance boost in that game, then the purchase was absolutely worth it. Mini-ITX is so much fun to work in and I'll be working to get my system as cool as possible by also transferring some fans too to get some additional cooling.
 
Alright, I received it and did the complete swap...but now my 5800x3D rig just immediately goes into the bios and I'm wondering if the M.2 slot it has is NVMe compatible or not. Everything should have gone perfectly, but it's not showing the Windows OS. My other system swapped perfectly fine and came up without a hitch. Even loading Optimized Defaults and shorting the BIOS Clear Jumper on the board isn't working. First time something like this has happened, if this doesn't work, I may have to do a complete Mobo swap for the Gigabyte AORUS one that I was originally going to swap out my Z370i rig with.

Edit: Just plugged in the drive I think is the OS drive and I was right. It came up perfectly on my other system and by using a SATA to USB cable...this SATA drive might be incompatible with the mobo...sigh.

Edit 2: Well, I have a spare 1TB SSD that I can use as a replacement. I'm using Macrium Reflect and have cloned my drive and am currently imaging my 1TB SSD with it. I hope this fixes it.

Edit 3: Alright, I'm fully inside my system now. Found a random thread that had a similar problem as myself and he simply switched from UEFI to CSM in the BIOS and everything worked perfectly. That's what I did and I'm up and running right now.

Edit 4: Before you ask, I used mbr2gpt to convert my OS drive to GPT so now I can turn on UEFI. I also enabled a few additional options in my BIOS as well such as Resizable BAR and XMP.

Edit 5: Also just discovered that my MSI Mobo has Kombo Strike built right into the BIOS...
 
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Well, there you go. After a few missteps(UEFI issue, temp issue, etc.) I just got through a 2-hour+ session of Into the Radius and this thing barely ever kissed 60 degrees(Solid 55-59 degrees throughout). There are incredibly rare stutters, but that's obviously not my system anymore and can be chalked up to the game itself. Absolutely love this, it was incredibly smooth and an incredibly worthwhile upgrade! Thanks for the assistance and guidance.





Also, when you swap the radiator for an AIO cooler to a different location...make sure to reverse the fan, or you'll create a hotbox in your system causing horrible temperatures...ask me how I figured this out. :LOL:
 
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