Is it worth it to go to the most expensive rig for Elite?

[BinakAlgo]

I know this is not a specialized subforum for rig construction, but you guys are the expert of rigs to play Elite on VR, so I would like to know your opinion.

I'm seriously considering buying a new rig. Video cards are out of the question by now, but I'm in serious need of a CPU upgrade (the current one is a 4th gen i7) and I am in that moment when I question myself if buying the most expensive thing is worth it, considering that I try to use them for a long time (5+ years) but I don't want to overkill just to play Elite or MS flight sim with an Oculus Rift.

So, in your opinion, is it worth it to go for the most expensive processor? Everyone seems crazy about the new AMD 5000 series but if it is that good maybe the Ryzen 5 or 7 are enough instead of the 9? or are people exaggerating and intel is still competitive?

 

[Pville_Piper]

I'm running an I7 6700k with a GTX 1080 and using the Rift and it still runs ok on medium settings. I'm considering an upgrade myself and I've been looking at a lot of videos and such, looking over prebuilds from various manufactures. I never see anything about gaming in VR in any of the reviews I've seen, but then I haven't thought to look...

If you are going to buy from a builder, you might just want to pickup what they have in stock, but research the manufacturer and watch out for cheap components. Dell is really weak lately, I would absolutely stay away from them and their G5 "gaming". I think their Alienware is over-rated, over-priced and just damn ugly. Watch out for a common trick that some like to do by selling a computer with one stick of ram. Really? In a gaming system?

I'm leaning getting something with an 8/16 core processor, 16 gigs of ram that compliment the CPU but any of the 6 or 8 core offerings from Intel or AMD would work well since I pretty much only game on my computer. There's really not enough difference to sweat the small stuff. If you are doing a lot of varied workloads I would go with AMD.

As far as the GPU, get the best you can afford, I'd want at least a RTX 3060ti. I'm in the que with EVGA for both the 3060ti and the 3070, but it's been 4 months, not much hope there. I would prefer a 1tb SSD or NVMe drive over a disc drive and that there is also an open NVMe slot to expand with as I have a 2 tb NVMe drive that I just bought.

If EVGA finally sends me the OK, I will most likely upgrade what I have. I'm actually in a pretty decent position as I have a really good NVMe drive, 16 gigs of DDR 3200, a platinum 750w power supply and a decent AIO cooler. I'm not sure if I would upgrade my case, but I would like to, I've had this one for a long time.

With all of that, an I7 10700 and a nice motherboard would be a good system for the next few years. Tempting...

 

[Ian Skippy]

Ryzens are crazy good value for money for this generation, but honestly it isn't that much needed for VR in ED. I have a measly ol' 9400F and its fine. Bottleneck is still the 2070S. VR is just a GPU slayer, it is what it is. Mind you, I am not recommending a 9400F, the 'value' of a Ryzen is much better. But dont expect miracles from any CPU when it comes to VR in ED, you'll get more out of the CPU with games like FS2020.

 

[Koben]

Until a few months back I was running Elite at 4K with a GTX1060 6Gb Strix overclocked (using some balanced custom graphics settings) and it was locked at 60fps... only during glide down to the planets it would drop to 50fps due texture loading and would return to 60fps once driving an SRV.

Considering Odyssey would improve/demand graphics, I'd say anything about a GTX1080 or better would suffice.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Ryzens are crazy good value for money for this generation, but honestly it isn't that much needed for VR in ED. I have a measly ol' 9400F and its fine. Bottleneck is still the 2070S. VR is just a GPU slayer, it is what it is. Mind you, I am not recommending a 9400F, the 'value' of a Ryzen is much better. But dont expect miracles from any CPU when it comes to VR in ED, you'll get more out of the CPU with games like FS2020.

Have you seen the prices lately? It's crazy. You can pick up a I9 10900k cheaper than the Ryzen 5600x. Ridiculous!

 

[mikael]

Demanding VR games run best with an 8 core modern architecture cpu. (10 core if you plan on using cpu encoding for streaming.)
I have a 5900x @ 5 ghz and it makes the 1070 (until I can find a replacement) perform way better than before in every game and especially VR.

 

[HeavyGroovez]

I have a 5950x/X570 rig and a Z590/11600k rig and both give identical VR experiences in Elite when paired with a 3090 and a Reverb G2.

You are fundamentally GPU limited and any CPU frametime spikes are pipeline performance anomalies that are not overcome by brute force power.

Conversely, when it comes to processing astronomical AVX workloads the 16 core 5950x absolutely destroys the 6 core 11600k (no surprises there) so if you are doing any heavy multi core work the Ryzens are in a class of their own.

 

[gorankar]

6700K, 16Gb ram, 1080 FE, runs a Steam Index fairly well.
5900x, 64Gb ram, 3090, runs it noticeably better. It maintains the max resolution at max FPS almost all of the time. It is a much better experience.
That said there is a significant price difference between my 2016 PC, $2k at the time, vs. my 2021 PC which was over $4k.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

No.

It's sad but i wouldn't expect much vr oriented for elite going forward so spending a lot of money for it would not be recommended.

For a rig as is.

I'd consider something like a Ryzen 5600 and 3070.
Anything more is really just throwing money at FD's lack of optimizing the game.

 

[moogleslam]

For VR, yes, it's worth building the fastest gaming PC you can afford, and this is especially true if you have a high resolution and/or high refresh rate headset.

If you have the best hardware, and if you max everything in game, and put super sampling high enough to the point where you cannot see an improvement from increasing it further, you will not be able to maintain 90 FPS in game at all times. Not to mention if you have a 120/144/160/180 Hz headset (not that I think you need 180Hz for ED )

 

[CMDR VR]

I have an RTX 3080 and a Ryzen 5800x and im nowhere close to a stable 90fps whit maxed graphic in VR, so yeah aim high for the new computer