Help a pc illiterate ( Sort of) with view to a new system for Vr in future.

Zorada

Zorada
Hi thanks for reading.

I really am a noob when it comes to motherboards and parts of a pc and with that in mind i would love some help guys.

I want to run ED and other games at Ultra settings and when i can afford it VR would be awesome too. I just do not know enough about the i5 i7, motherboards, and all that jazz to make a choice that will potentially be a waste of money.

I have looked about for a pre built system and one i have found i THINK may be good is in the following link.

http://www.fiercepc.co.uk/destroyer-gt-overclocked-gaming-pc

If you have any advice i would really appreciate your time.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
You've seen my thoughts already I think but just to get the discussion going and to help bump this thread a little ...

I went for an i5-4690K + GTX 970 + 240GB SSD + 1TB hard drive + 16GB RAM.

The i5 choice was made before FD announced their minimum Horizons spec's which mentioned an i7. There was a small outcry about that at the time but I'm running Horizons in 1920x1080, Ultra settings, getting 60fps everywhere so I still think the i7 would have been overkill (and remember, every component choice you make has a price trade-off ... it's VERY easy to spend a little bit more ... and then a little bit more).

I VERY nearly went for a GTX 980Ti but thankfully got talked out of it at the last minute. The additional bang-for-buck just wasn't worth it IMHO (it was like an extra £300 or something).

Of course there was then talk of a GTX 980 being minimum for VR Horizons (although Oculus themselves say 970). With yesterday's price announcement I'm no longer about to rush out and buy an Oculus so only time will tell on that score.

With the money I saved from not going GTX 980 I increased RAM from 8 to 16GB (more RAM is always good right?), and increased the size of my SSD to comfortably hold both Windows 10 and Elite. The startup speed of Windows with an SSD is stunning (about 10 seconds?).

Lastly I got myself some extra USB 3.0 slots (the Oculus needs 4 I believe!) and increased the power supply I was considering up to 750W for a little bit of future proofing (don't get people started on power supplies tho! they can go on for hours).

Anyway ... good luck with this thread and with your final choice!
 
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shadragon

shadragon
When building a gaming PC don't focus on just the CPU & GPU. High quality RAM, a Motherboard, power supply, monitor (you'll need that for general use when not VR'ing) and cooling are just as important and need equal investment.

A gaming PC needs the sum of all parts to work correctly.
 

Iain L

Iain L
Rift is 3x3.0 and 1x2.0 on the USB slot front. But it's also wanting all the GPU power in the world to keep those high resolution screens running at a rock-solid 90fps. Given you won't be having a headset before June even if you dropped €700 today, I'd seriously recommend looking at whether you can hold off until the successor to Maxwell drops.

Both NVidia and AMD have die-shrinks coming later this year, which should bring boards capable of VR and/or 4k gaming to more mainstream prices.
 

Deadspin

Deadspin
Iain L said:
Rift is 3x3.0 and 1x2.0 on the USB slot front. But it's also wanting all the GPU power in the world to keep those high resolution screens running at a rock-solid 90fps. Given you won't be having a headset before June even if you dropped €700 today, I'd seriously recommend looking at whether you can hold off until the successor to Maxwell drops.

Both NVidia and AMD have die-shrinks coming later this year, which should bring boards capable of VR and/or 4k gaming to more mainstream prices.
Click to expand...

This is good advice.
.
Wait until this summer or fall to start shopping for new computer parts.
Build it yourself (there's a certain satisfaction involved with that).
Don't buy pre-built.
Let the OR and Vive fight for a bit so we can see who the true winner is via consumer review.
.
Don't buy a 970. Just spend the extra money on a 980 Ti if you're going to go single card.
 

Zorada

Zorada
I do understand what you are saying about waiting but is that not always the case that something else is coming?. I digress the issue for me is my need is kinda now i am afriad, the pc i featured has a gtx 980 but not a ti version
 

B1ll Adama

B
If you need to build a PC now then I would echo the above advice, dont get a 970.... despite being a great card it wont really have the oomph to drive CV1 despite what Oculus say.

If you cant hold off and want to get something that stands a chance of lasting a year or more, my opinion is 980ti is the way to go. Painful to click the order button, however if you dont come 6 months you will need to buy another card.

I have a 970 - am now in poisition where ill need to upgrade for CV1 so either another 970 in SLI or a big£££ Pascal... however it was justifiable last Christmas when i bought it, got a year out of it... in fact still surprises me that the price has only dropped by £20 during a whole year.
 

Iain L

Iain L
The price of a 980Ti is excruciating, sure. But it's the only card that will reliably meet Oculus's crazy demand for pixels. You -will- lose a lot of money by not waiting; this is the first die-shrink we've had in years, and so will make a pretty huge difference in comparison to previous suggestions that people wait a bit.

Personally, I'd buy a 970 now, forget about VR for at least 12 months until all the competing standards are out and people with fatter wallets have sorted out which ones are worth buying (and that's before fully expecting a cheaper Rift for the mass market next year) and be happy playing Elite on a monitor until everything settles.
 

B1ll Adama

B
Iain L said:
The price of a 980Ti is excruciating, sure. But it's the only card that will reliably meet Oculus's crazy demand for pixels. You -will- lose a lot of money by not waiting; this is the first die-shrink we've had in years, and so will make a pretty huge difference in comparison to previous suggestions that people wait a bit.

Personally, I'd buy a 970 now, forget about VR for at least 12 months until all the competing standards are out and people with fatter wallets have sorted out which ones are worth buying (and that's before fully expecting a cheaper Rift for the mass market next year) and be happy playing Elite on a monitor until everything settles.
Click to expand...


This is the sensible approach :)
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
As a PC builder, or at least ex-PC builder (can't be bothered now)
I'd stick with an Intel i5 6600k
No idea on the motherboard (at work, can't be bothered to research. Lol), full ATX size.
8GB DDR4 ram (8gb is still more than enough for 2016.)
A decent 7200rpm hard drive. Size is entirely dependent on what you use it for.
250gb ssd drive
Geforce GTX 970 should be sufficient.
A GOOD 500w minimum powr supply.
Decent IPS monitor. 1080p minimum.
And windows. 7, 8 10, whatever.
Oh, and a case. Lol Full ATX will give you better airflow at the cost of space.
mATX is small, but you also need an mATX motherboard, which aren't as good.
And whatever keyboard, mouse joystick etc, you like

That'll do elite. Never used VR. Too expensive to support. Lol
 

Bran Tse Mallory

Bran Tse Mallory
Alec Turner said:
You've seen my thoughts already I think but just to get the discussion going and to help bump this thread a little ...

I went for an i5-4690K + GTX 970 + 240GB SSD + 1TB hard drive + 16GB RAM.

The i5 choice was made before FD announced their minimum Horizons spec's which mentioned an i7. There was a small outcry about that at the time but I'm running Horizons in 1920x1080, Ultra settings, getting 60fps everywhere so I still think the i7 would have been overkill (and remember, every component choice you make has a price trade-off ... it's VERY easy to spend a little bit more ... and then a little bit more).

I VERY nearly went for a GTX 980Ti but thankfully got talked out of it at the last minute. The additional bang-for-buck just wasn't worth it IMHO (it was like an extra £300 or something).

Of course there was then talk of a GTX 980 being minimum for VR Horizons (although Oculus themselves say 970). With yesterday's price announcement I'm no longer about to rush out and buy an Oculus so only time will tell on that score.

With the money I saved from not going GTX 980 I increased RAM from 8 to 16GB (more RAM is always good right?), and increased the size of my SSD to comfortably hold both Windows 10 and Elite. The startup speed of Windows with an SSD is stunning (about 10 seconds?).

Lastly I got myself some extra USB 3.0 slots (the Oculus needs 4 I believe!) and increased the power supply I was considering up to 750W for a little bit of future proofing (don't get people started on power supplies tho! they can go on for hours).

Anyway ... good luck with this thread and with your final choice!
Click to expand...

^ Good advise.

I would only add for balance the R9 390 8G from MSI as an alternative tot he 970 but as others have also said there is a new GPU coming from Nvidia and also AMD will be putting out some new parts later this year to mix things up a little - both companies are promising huge improvements with these new cards. Which will get it right is anyone's guess right now.
 

Remo

Remo
If your desperate for the an upgrade I would go for a 970 and leave VR for now as mentioned by others this will allow you to run the game at high settings with a good FPS without breaking the bank. Once all the hype is out of the way and supply is less of an issue and more competition then look at a your dream machine and the best VR headset at the time.

I personally have very expensive taste when it comes to building PC's and I'm currently saving up and will hopefully be building it later this year but that will be massively overspecced and will look at the both the Vive and Rift.
 

xyphic

X
Here's a build similar to the one that I specified at the end of last year. You should be able to come down on some of the parts (e.g. motherboard) to save money, but don't skimp on the power supply. The EVGA SuperNova is top quality with internals by SuperFlower who are very well regarded. The i7-6700K is slightly faster and has hyperthreading so 8 cores rather than 4, but I don't think you'll notice much of an effect in games (if you do a lot of video processing this is where you'll notice it). This build doesn't have a DVD drive so a different case would also be in order if you want one of those. If you're not planning on seriously overclocking, an air cooler should be fine. A build like this should max out pretty much any current game and should be fine for current-gen VR.

Obviously this is only an idea, and if you're not confident about building your own there are plenty of places that allow you to configure or to buy one pre-configured.

My basket at Overclockers UK:


Total: £1,350.53
(includes shipping: £14.70)
​


​
 

Zorada

Zorada
Thanks for the info all your great. As i said i cant wait this pc is all but dead.

xyphic thank you for going to the trouble of doing all the parts that is very good of you. I will check it out
 

Deadspin

Deadspin
980 Ti isn't too expensive considering that the 780 Ti's were $800 USD when they first dropped.

Glad I grabbed a 980 though. Ti or not, still a great card and they'll be cheap enough to SLI when the next cards drop, perfect timing for grabbing whatever VR headset has come out on top at that point. The lower power requirements are great as well.

Now I just need to upgrade my CPU/Mobo/Ram (i5 2500k/Asus P87Pro/8GB DDR3).
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
xyphic said:
if you're not confident about building your own there are plenty of places that allow you to configure or to buy one pre-configured.

My basket at Overclockers UK:


Total: £1,350.53
(includes shipping: £14.70)
​
Click to expand...

I wasn't confident about building so bought mine from pcspecialist. Similar spec's I believe (except I went GTX 970 rather than 980Ti, thereby sticking v. close to my £1k budget).

Motherboard ASUS® Z97-E: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690K (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
1st Hard Disk 240GB HyperX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
Processor Cooling CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler
Graphics Card 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - DVI, HDMI, mDP - 3D Vision Ready
Power Supply CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
2nd Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
Case InWIN 503 MID TOWER GAMING CASE (WHITE)
Memory (RAM) 16GB HyperX FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)

Total price £1,088.00 inc. VAT, build, test and delivery
 
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