Ryzen R5 2600x for VR ?

CMDR M Kozak

C
Greetings Commanders!

I mostly play ED with a Rift in VR.

I am currently running an i5 4460 with my newly purchased RTX 2070 graphics card. I had a 980ti (bought used) that burned out, so I have decided on an upgrade path going into the new year.

The graphics card was the first buy (as I didnt have one any more), but just like the 980ti I am very CPU bound. Although the 2070 does provide a smoother experience there is still a lot of ASW no matter how low the settings with the GPU topping out at 50% or so max load.

I have been taking a long look at the 2600x for its extreme value and "good" stock cooler paired with a B450 mobo (my case is Micro ATX) and 16 gigs of DDR 4 samsung b-die ram.

Are there anybody out there running a similar'ish setup in VR?

The question is if I should stretch the budget in to 2700x altitudes?
Or would that simply be waste of money as it is somewhat more expensive?

Disclaimer: I know the I7 top cpus perform better, but think they are too expensive.

Thanks alot!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
UPDATE I pulled the trigger. Read first impressions here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...2600x-for-VR?p=7313313&viewfull=1#post7313313
 
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Broon

Broon
I too was in the same quandary between the 2600x and the 2700x for a new build/upgrade. Incidentally I am also running an i5-4460 with 16GB DDR3 on a micro ATX board. (Dell XPS 8700)

The main difference is that I don't currently have VR but my goal is building a very capable VR rig. I have upgraded the Dell system as far as I can by putting it in a larger mid-tower Rosewill case (much better airflow/cooling), upgraded the PSU to a 550W and giving it an EVGA GTX 1080 to chew on. In that config it would have been able to handle VR but I guess I just wanted some shiny stuff.

I have been researching both the Ryzen 2600x and the 2700x quite a bit lately and have come to the conclusion that BOTH chips would be very capable in the VR arena. Aside from the price point vs Intel I like the fact that the Ryzens actually come with pretty decent stock coolers making that upgrade a choice, not a necessity.

In the end I went with the Ryzen 7 2700x and it was the cooler that was the final selling point for me at least. The 2700x doesn't perform all that much better than the 2600x but I am looking at it as future proofing a little bit more.

I was going to wait untill tax refund time here in the US but I couldn't wait. I was up in the big city recently and went into a Best Buy store and impulse bought the 2700x. I already had an AsRock Gaming K4 X470 board delivered a couple of weeks ago so then I just had to order the rest of the parts because I just can't sit here and look at a CPU and a MB getting dusty. Corsair Vengeance RAM, an XPG 250GB Gen3 x4 SSD and a new EVGA 750W PSU (for more power!) are inbound. Hopefully I can get it all built this weekend and up and running.

Then I just need a Rift!

Sorry about the rambling on there. But in my opinion the Ryzen 5 2600x will be quite a good upgrade and very capable to run a VR setup.
 
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Gortron

Gortron
I too think you will be fine with a 2600X.

I don’t have one but did some experiments the other week to try to pin down bottlenecks in VR using my i7 8700k and GTX 1080. All test done docked inside a station In the hanger in open mode with ASW off.

6 cores, 12 threads @ 4.9 GHZ
CPU load ~35%
GPU load ~90%
FPS 90

6 cores, 6 threads @ 4.9 GHZ
CPU load ~55%
GPU load ~90%
FPS 90

6 cores 6 threads @ 3.7 GHZ
CPU load ~93%
GPU load ~90%
FPS 90 with odd dip below

So the 2600X with 6 cores / 12 threads at 4.35 GHZ should perform better than an i7 8700 with hyperthreading off at 3.7 GHZ. From what I’ve read though it’s important to have fast low latency RAM in a Ryzen setup.

I did another test at 4 GHZ I’d forgotten about and it was pretty much the same as at 3.7 GHZ. The maximum CPU was 96%.
 
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CMDR M Kozak

C
Thanks for the replies so far.

Ram timings: Yes, that does seem important for Ryzen performance... at least for generation 1. For Gen. 2 the picture seems a bit more blurred depending on what you find on google

I7 8700K: Would anybody, seriously, recommend that I picked that on up instead? I just feel that the increased price vs the possibly perceived gain is too little. Reading charts is one thing though, which is why I am looking for actual usage reports.
 

Gortron

Gortron
mortenfischer said:
Thanks for the replies so far.

Ram timings: Yes, that does seem important for Ryzen performance... at least for generation 1. For Gen. 2 the picture seems a bit more blurred depending on what you find on google

I7 8700K: Would anybody, seriously, recommend that I picked that on up instead? I just feel that the increased price vs the possibly perceived gain is too little. Reading charts is one thing though, which is why I am looking for actual usage reports.
Click to expand...

The i7 8700k is shockingly poor value at the moment. It’s a stonking great chip but they have actually gone up £100 since I bought mine and that was a few months before Ryzen 2 came out. I got mine purely to improve my VR performance and it was significantly better than the Ryzen 1700X at high FPS games. I didn’t want to risk being disappointed after spending all that money.

Ryzen 2 seems to have closed the gap a fair bit now and it’s way better value. Plus Ryzen 3 is an upgrade path and sounds very promising. If I was doing it now I’d probably be going for a 2600X or 2700X. I’d probably go 2600X then see what the 3700X is like. Rumours are of 5 GHZ XFR!
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Gortron said:
The i7 8700k is shockingly poor value at the moment. It’s a stonking great chip but they have actually gone up £100 since I bought mine and that was a few months before Ryzen 2 came out. I got mine purely to improve my VR performance and it was significantly better than the Ryzen 1700X at high FPS games. I didn’t want to risk being disappointed after spending all that money.

Ryzen 2 seems to have closed the gap a fair bit now and it’s way better value. Plus Ryzen 3 is an upgrade path and sounds very promising. If I was doing it now I’d probably be going for a 2600X or 2700X. I’d probably go 2600X then see what the 3700X is like. Rumours are of 5 GHZ XFR!
Click to expand...

In Denmark the 8700k is twice the price from a 2600x.
The 8700 non K is about the same price as a 2700x.

You are right about the upgrade path, and thats a great bonus for AMD as I see it.

But still, I would hate to buy a new system based on 2600x and not feel it like an upgrade from i5 4460 so if there are anybody else with 2600x experience - please chime in.
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
So, I pulled the trigger on a 2600x.

Stuff that arrived today:
R5 2600X
Corsair Vengence LPX 3200/16 DDR4 (Hynix I think, not Samsung die)
Asrock B450m Pro4 mainboard

Stuff I already had:
RTX 2070, MSI Armor
Corsair RM 650 80+ Gold 650 Watt Modular
240gb PNY SSD
Run of the mills 7200 rpm HDD
Aerocool mATX case (https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9hW9TW/aerocool-case-en52285)

Overclocks done:
I activated the XMP profile in the bios so it reads out in CPU-Z as 3200/16 for the RAM.
I ran the OC scanner on the MSI armor, and it found that my card could handle an overclock of 260 mhz.


First impressions:
Massive upgrade from the I5 4460!
Where the 4460 was on 90-100% load, the 2600X sits at about 40-50% with an automatic overclock starting at 4.0, but as the case gets hot the frequency drops to 3.9. The first test runs with the case open had the auto OC locked on 4.0, so airflow is a thing now.

I havent played that much around with settings yet as i just wanted to see how it "felt" compared to the old system.
However, on VR High with ASW off, with SS at 1.0 and HMD Quality at 1.5 its only in stations that the fps drops noticeably.
I started a massive fight at a Nav Beacon and even that did not play in a way that I noticed in the headset (I forgot to peek at the counter during the action though).

Things to work on
Airflow in the case. When the case is all closed up the GPU temp peaks at 75c and it seems to hurt the CPU clock a little as well.

Key takeaways:
2600X is a great CPU for ED in virtual reality, and also for pancake gaming.
 
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Quiquag

Quiquag
I'm using a R5 1600, and have had no FPS issues when paired with a GTX1080 (Allowing ASW to pick up slack in stations)
Haven't noticed any bad FPS dips, max everything except pixel density which is either at 1.5 or 2...(either way, can read all text, no issues spotting targets, etc)
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Quiquag said:
I'm using a R5 1600, and have had no FPS issues when paired with a GTX1080 (Allowing ASW to pick up slack in stations)
Haven't noticed any bad FPS dips, max everything except pixel density which is either at 1.5 or 2...(either way, can read all text, no issues spotting targets, etc)
Click to expand...

I have the same perception of gameplay with my new setup. Stations are still a strain though, and a few (but far from all) planetary surfaces can be as well.

I ran the OC scanner on the MSI Armor yesterday and it was able to add 260 mhz to the clockspeed. This pushes the total speed under load to something between 1900 and 2000 mhz depending on case temp. Applying the overclock has further smoothed out things on planets while stations are still not reaching 60fps.

ED seems to consume more ressources than other games. Last night I played a few hours of Hitman2, and the system shows plenty of headroom in that game opposite to ED that acts like its at an "all you can eat" buffet.
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Milner said:
What level of CPU loading do you see across the cores and threads for elite?
Click to expand...

It appears to be fairly evenly distributed at about 40ish to 50ish percent, but I have not made any specific measurements over 6 cores / 12 threads. If I get the time I will update the thread.
 

Milner

M
mortenfischer said:
It appears to be fairly evenly distributed at about 40ish to 50ish percent, but I have not made any specific measurements over 6 cores / 12 threads. If I get the time I will update the thread.
Click to expand...
That would be great if you could, I'm thinking of upgrading this year.
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Milner said:
That would be great if you could, I'm thinking of upgrading this year.
Click to expand...

Here is a screenshot from MSI afterburner. It only shows 8 of the threads, but the tendency was equal for all.
To me that looks like an evenly spread out load.

The timeframe you are looking at here is about 15 minutes of hyperspacing about 10 jumps then 85kls of supercrusing to a station, docking and refueling etc.

With my overclocked 2070 it translated to a smooth 90 fps in space and outside the station at about 50% GPU load, but dropped to 45 while inside the station with 95-100% GPU load.

So, for the first time in my VR career, I am GPU bottle necked. VR settings used for this session is in the last image.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rql73mtmadu222e/2600xEDcores.PNG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2bvrvgnwvir6x6j/edvrsettings.PNG?dl=0
 
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Milner

M
That's pretty conclusive thanks. Elite scales very well in VR across multiple cores on ryzen.

Much appreciated for you taking the time to post that.
 

CMDR M Kozak

C
Milner said:
That's pretty conclusive thanks. Elite scales very well in VR across multiple cores on ryzen.

Much appreciated for you taking the time to post that.
Click to expand...

If you really want to get nitpicky about that chart I posted, you can see that the odd threads (1,3,5 etc) seems just a bit more loaded over time than the even threads. This COULD (speculatively) mean that ED likes physical cores more than just threads. The difference is minimal on that chart though.

Overall I think the 2600x is a great CPU and extreme value right now.
 

Milner

M
mortenfischer said:
If you really want to get nitpicky about that chart I posted, you can see that the odd threads (1,3,5 etc) seems just a bit more loaded over time than the even threads. This COULD (speculatively) mean that ED likes physical cores more than just threads. The difference is minimal on that chart though.

Overall I think the 2600x is a great CPU and extreme value right now.
Click to expand...
Yes it's great to see AMD have come back strong with their CPUs, the 2600 in particular.

Holding off for now on a new PC but the extra cores/threads and value of AMD over Intel is looking tempting for VR.
 
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