A question about GPUs.

[Mxpower76]

First, is it true that GPU prices are returning to normal? I haven't being following the market much lately, as I've focused on Xbox lately.

Secondly, I believe I just read somewhere in Dangerous Discussion, that someone says he gets a perfectly usable VR experience with Rift on a GTX 1060 6GB. Granted he has some kind of i7.

Here's my question.

I've got 16GB RAM right now, DDR3, an i5 4690 (not the K-unlocked model), and a GTX 960 4GB.

What I'm wondering is, if I replaced that 960 with a 1060, would I be looking at a PC that can play ED in VR?

Because if so then I'm going to seriously consider it.

I use a 1060 6gb card and it works fine. Almost no noticeable slow downs. I use the ED Profiler and most of my settings are on medium. I have a few on high which are... Texture Quality, Reflections and Terrain LOD. Super Sample is at 1.5 and HDM Quality is 1.00. My CPU is older but it's an i7. Basic specs:

i7 3770
16gb.....considering the age of the CPU I'm thinking it's DDR3
SSD
GTX 1060 6gb

I'd like to get a 1080 at some point this year but I'm happy with the performance of the 1060. It plays ED, Skyrim VR and Fallout VR just fine. I did have to lower the settings for ED so I'm thinking this is the minimum card you'd want to have for VR ED.

 

[Gortron]

First, is it true that GPU prices are returning to normal? I haven't being following the market much lately, as I've focused on Xbox lately.

Secondly, I believe I just read somewhere in Dangerous Discussion, that someone says he gets a perfectly usable VR experience with Rift on a GTX 1060 6GB. Granted he has some kind of i7.

Here's my question.

I've got 16GB RAM right now, DDR3, an i5 4690 (not the K-unlocked model), and a GTX 960 4GB.

What I'm wondering is, if I replaced that 960 with a 1060, would I be looking at a PC that can play ED in VR?

Because if so then I'm going to seriously consider it.

here is the thing:

You are looking at 45FPS or less with ASW engaged most (if not all) of the time with what you have now. If you replace the GPU with a 1060 you will probably not dip below 45FPS and maybe get 90FPS some of the time. The 1060 will be your bottleneck not your CPU and you will be able to play in VR but not at 90FPS.


If you had a 1080Ti then your CPU/RAM would become the bottleneck in some situations but you'd get 90FPS way more often.


If I were you then I'd buy a 1060 and a rift on the internet (14 days to change your mind) and see what you think. My guess is 45FPS ASW on most of the time; but I'd take that over 100FPS on a 4K monitor!

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Also a 1060 6gb user here, and I am also looking for getting a VR and a new GPU soon(ish) - the latter once the new generation arrives. I was led to believe the 1060 cannot provide acceptable performance, so I postponed getting a VR... perhaps I should give it a try...?

My specs:
i7 7700k 4.8GHz
16 gb RAM 3000MHz
1060 6gb 2100 MHz, memory clocked at 4600MHz

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Also a 1060 6gb user here, and I am also looking for getting a VR and a new GPU soon(ish) - the latter once the new generation arrives. I was led to believe the 1060 cannot provide acceptable performance, so I postponed getting a VR... perhaps I should give it a try...?

My specs:
i7 7700k 4.8GHz
16 gb RAM 3000MHz
1060 6gb 2100 MHz, memory clocked at 4600MHz

Well, it should work, it's about as good or better than a 970, but I would recommend something beefier and it seems you are just waiting for that to be released.
I certainly wouldn't buy a 1080ti right now either.

 

[Gortron]

Also a 1060 6gb user here, and I am also looking for getting a VR and a new GPU soon(ish) - the latter once the new generation arrives. I was led to believe the 1060 cannot provide acceptable performance, so I postponed getting a VR... perhaps I should give it a try...?

My specs:
i7 7700k 4.8GHz
16 gb RAM 3000MHz
1060 6gb 2100 MHz, memory clocked at 4600MHz

A 1060 won't be great and you will crave more power but it should work. I played on a 970 for about 3 months until I bought a 1080 and that was before ASW was a thing.... It was playable on a 970 but the more the power you can lob at the experience the better. If you are going to upgrade soon anyway and have decided on a Rift then I'd go for it and upgrade the GPU in a few months when the new cards come out.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

A 1060 won't be great and you will crave more power but it should work. I played on a 970 for about 3 months until I bought a 1080 and that was before ASW was a thing.... It was playable on a 970 but the more the power you can lob at the experience the better. If you are going to upgrade soon anyway and have decided on a Rift then I'd go for it and upgrade the GPU in a few months when the new cards come out.

That's the plan, it is just the question whether it makes sense to try the Rift with the above mentioned configuration, or I should refrain from buying it until I can upgrade my GPU and have the real deal right off the start. Probably the latter for the full wow effect I guess.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Well looks like new gpu are around the corner, 5-10 weeks or so.
Probably just the 1180 first. 1170 to follow on later towards Christmas.
Then around mid q1 2019 the rest of the series might launch.
How're I doubt we will see any TI's until at least q2 or q3 2019.

If you are prepared to get a new GPU in a few weeks when they launch I don't see a problem in just jumping in now.

It would probably only be a bad idea if it was a matter of VR vs new gpu, it will work with the 1060 and you will notice how much of an impact you get when you boost quality settings with the new one.

 

[dmulligan]

A 1060 won't be great and you will crave more power but it should work. I played on a 970 for about 3 months until I bought a 1080 and that was before ASW was a thing.... It was playable on a 970 but the more the power you can lob at the experience the better. If you are going to upgrade soon anyway and have decided on a Rift then I'd go for it and upgrade the GPU in a few months when the new cards come out.

You should have added that ASW makes the slower cards much more playable than before. I agree with everything you said too

 

[Gortron]

You should have added that ASW makes the slower cards much more playable than before. I agree with everything you said too

That is good point; ASW delivers 90FPS to your eyes even though the GPU is only rendering at 45FPS.

I'm a bit sensitive to motion sickness with ASW though. At first I didn't like the graphical anomalies but they improved the technology and now that bothers me much less, but I do get motion sickness from it even though I don't have a clue why. Everything looks pretty much the same but I want to barf :S

 

[Lestat]

One thing to make sure is can your Power supply can handle more powerful Graphics card.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Thanks for all the answers, I have a 600W PSU, which I guess should be enough for a top-tier card.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Thanks for all the answers, I have a 600W PSU, which I guess should be enough for a top-tier card.

Should be ok.

My rig with a 1080ti and i7 8700k etc should be somewhere in the 550w area.
But with a 600w psu I would feel that cutting it close.
A PSU has far less, heat loss, voltage errors etc at the <60% capacity mark, and prices shouldn't be that much more for few a few hundred watts.

Seems the prices go up not so much for watt's but the quality rating of the PSU, and if I was within 50-100 watts on a PSU I would want at least a gold or platinum rated device.

And you don't need much in terms of an OC to jump 100watt's consumption.
for instance I'm sure there are factory clocked cards out there that could by defualt exceed these estimates.

In short I recommend overhead.

Might be a bit off as an analogy.

But if you buy a sports car, would you run it on cheap tires ?

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Thanks for the note - I have read conflicting information on PSU needs, like also info that next gen GPUs should be more power efficient. And this 600W PSU came with a cofnig that was recommended for a 1080ti, I just decoded to exclude it gradually upgrade from 960 to 1060 as an interim solution, and wait for the next gen. I am more concerned whether the 7700k will bottleneck VR with its four cores.

In any case, I'll see how the rig works, and if any issue may hint at the PSU, I'll upgrade it.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

My cousin had problems with her system randomly crashing while in gameplay. As I had recently upgraded my PSU I offered her my 'old' 750W PSU (which she accepted and had fitted). Since then her PC has been stable.

 

[Lestat]

I always point out the power supply because it seems to be overlooked. Or that Boohoo my upgrade not working and we get the something wrong with my computer post.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Okay, I'm convinced.
I will follow closed the power requirement of the new 1180 or whatever it will be named, and will replace my PSU if there is a slightest hint of issue. It should be a small part of the budget anyway... I mean

 

[Jon flint]

Thanks for the note - I have read conflicting information on PSU needs, like also info that next gen GPUs should be more power efficient. And this 600W PSU came with a cofnig that was recommended for a 1080ti, I just decoded to exclude it gradually upgrade from 960 to 1060 as an interim solution, and wait for the next gen. I am more concerned whether the 7700k will bottleneck VR with its four cores.

In any case, I'll see how the rig works, and if any issue may hint at the PSU, I'll upgrade it.

My own PSU (Corsair hx1000i) has a handy little usb port that can link to my system and show me in real time how much power I'm using, how much I'm pulling from the wall, and the PSU's efficiency.

From my observations, under a heavy gaming load (far cry 5) i use around 415W, artificial stress tests can pull closer to 500W. That's with a 5.2GHz 8700k/1080ti@~2012MHz, 32gb ddr4 ram, a couple of SSDs, a mechanical HDD and a whole bunch of RGB and fans etc, never seen it pull more than 510w from the PSU.

If I were building this system again I'd go for something like a 750W supply, ideally you want to be drawing around 60% of the max rated wattage for the PSU to be operating at peak efficiency.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Actually a friend of mine advised not to go for stronger PSU saying that power efficiency is improving with each generation. A 1080ti is more power efficient than a 980ti he is running, and he has a 600W PSU.
I wasn't aware though that the safety margin should be that high.

But hey, four years ago I was playing on a PS3, so I am still learning this stuff.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Actually a friend of mine advised not to go for stronger PSU saying that power efficiency is improving with each generation. A 1080ti is more power efficient than a 980ti he is running, and he has a 600W PSU.
I wasn't aware though that the safety margin should be that high.

But hey, four years ago I was playing on a PS3, so I am still learning this stuff.

They really dont need to be, us nerds here mainly just have a hard on for over engineering certain parts.

Anandtech for instance has watt tests for most GPU's that include the whole system, and their 1080ti based rig was barely touching on 400 watt.
That's the whole kit and kaboodle, so an i7 4960x, that's a workstation CPU with 6 cores, 12 threads at 130 watt (from q3 2013).
The i7 8700k, only draws 95 watt in comparison.

The 1080ti was at least 50-70 watt less than a 980ti.
So by just rough guesstimation I suspect the 1180 would bare need more power than a 1070.
Granted this changes slightly with what level of factory overclocking there is on the card.

But advising against a beefier PSU is little odd, except it was to stay on a budget and increase the 80+ rating for it.
I would take a gold 600 watt over a bronze 800 watt, but I would also take a gold 800watt over the 600w.

Just because I have a 1000 watt PSU, doesn't mean it draws 1k watt from the mains, in fact since the power draw is on a ramped curve means it will draw less power, than a smaller one at the same rating, and generate less heat, meaning my computer runs colder.

The pc will certainly work, and work well for a good long while, but it there are only benefits to having a powerfull, high rated PSU.

Quite likely, unless you do hardcore over clocking no one needs ta 1kw PSU anymore, and even with a 600w PSU you quite possibly will be at or just over the golden 60% power utilization, and that's under load, idling on desktop most machines only run 60-80 watt now.

Also, a pet PSA peeve on my end.
Do not mix modular power cables, if you replace a PSU, replace all wires internally as well with those supplied.
there has been cases in the past where the pin out on the PSU side was so different components would get fried, even though the plugs where identical and it was a matter of swapping a brand x 500 watt gold, with a brand x 750 watt gold.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Does anyone here know how important CPU is for VR? Is my i5 4690 enough?

The CPU isn't very important for processing images and graphics (for gaming at least). The GPU is generally the bottleneck.

To be sure, you could see how busy your CPU is when using VR. If it's rather relaxed, it is not the bottleneck and you can get more juice from it.