CPU for VR

Commanders,

I'm planning on buying a new computer which will run VR in Elite Dangerous well. I've decided to go for a GTX1070 for the GPU but I'm extremely confused about CPU. I get the impression bigger numbers don't necessarily mean better CPU. I'd like a CPU which I won't need to upgrade for the next 5 years. I don't really want anything I can overclock, I'd be worried I might somehow set fire to it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Just my personal opinion but if you are considering the i7-6700k, I would look at the i7-5820k. Pricewise they are within $20 of each other, speed is roughly the same in benchmarks and when it comes to games that are unoptimized the 5820 stomps all over the 6700. And with all the early access games right now, there are a lot of them (not to mention Arkham Knight). imho
 
Just my personal opinion but if you are considering the i7-6700k, I would look at the i7-5820k. Pricewise they are within $20 of each other, speed is roughly the same in benchmarks and when it comes to games that are unoptimized the 5820 stomps all over the 6700. And with all the early access games right now, there are a lot of them (not to mention Arkham Knight). imho

The I7 4790k is almost $100 cheaper with slightly better performance overall.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K

You could put that money toward a GTX 1080 which will give you around 20% increase in performance over a 1070. The GPU is the biggest factor in VR gaming by far. A good example of this is here http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_1080_gaming_x_8g_review,28.html
Guru3d is using an I7 5960x in it's testbed and as you can see their Firestrike benchmark on a GTX 980 is 11168. Compare the increase to my 4 year old cpu in my last post(above) and you can see that cpu advancement hasn't been very much.

GPU is the biggest factor in VR gaming by far. I would concentrate your money there. Not needing to upgrade for 5 years is a lofty goal -Moore's Law and all. This will depend on what you want to play over the next 5 years. If you can wait till VRmark comes out sometime this month you may get more concise information on your hardware options.

All that being said if you wanted to play DCS World 2 in VR then the fastest cpu would merit more consideration as flightsims are very cpu intensive.
 
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The I7 4790k is almost $100 cheaper with slightly better performance overall.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-4790K

I agree the single core performance is better, but the price difference is only $30 between the 4790k ($290) and 5820k ($320) and I think multi-core (6) performance gain is worth it, even before overclocking. (Microcenter prices, the 5820k was down to $299 for a short while)

Also, if you go with the 4790k you will be using a LGA1150 motherboard. Very few of those motherboards have USB 3.1 and/or USB C, but they are out there so keep an eye out if buying.

That being said, the 4790k is no slouch but I think it would be my third choice right after the 6700k.
 
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I agree that single core and dual core performance are the most important. Speculating about applications using 8 cores in 5 years is pointless for obvious reasons.

I play a lot of flight sims and from personal testing, these are very CPU intensive. Difference between a high-ish i5 and and an OC'd i7 is dramatic. Not sure how VR work, but I don't think the CPU has to send two separate instructions for each eye, so its load shouldn't be doubled. If that is so, then unless you like flight sims and total war series games, your CPU is unlikely to be your bottleneck.
 
Given the original post, I was speaking to VR in general. The games being developed for VR will be mostly aimed at minimum spec to achieve best marker saturation for a while. If I was to upgrade to a top tier I7 I would see a 20% increase in DCS and will for that reason do so at some point. My point is for VR in general the cpu will not be the big factor as long as you meet minimum spec. Amd and Nvidia are driving the gpu tech forward for VR
 
Future proof with an i7 6700 a decent DDR4 MotherBoard and most importantly get a GFX card that's up to providing the goodies in VR; a non founders gtx1070 is my choice.

If you want flashing led's, bells and whistles spend more so people will like you more :p


edit but the multi core cpu and decent motherboard would be better for mostly non gaming use,, maybe... ?

it's sooo confusing as a Mac user ?
 
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