Please help me find best bang for bucks CPU etc

[VR andysonofbob]

Hi

It's me, seeking information again. I'm seriously considering an upgrade and looking for frugal min/max style advice i.e. maximum bang for bucks. I mainly play ED and racing games Assetto Corsa / PCars2. VR obviously. I am generally happy with ED but it is far from perfect. PCars2 is a right system hog and I think my CPU is showing it venerable age.

Currently have i5 2500k @ 4.4GHz and run NVidia 1070 gpu. I won't be upgrading the gfx card this gen.

Do I need i7 for VR? How far back in the CPU generations can I go from current, thinking of price - bang for bucks. Theoretically, for VR, how much difference would the i7 version of my chip have made e.g. the i7 2600k. Oculus mentioned i5-4590 being the minimum back in the day. That's an i5?
I AM NOT SEEKING ENTHUSIAST PERFORMANCE!!! Just something with more breathing room.

I live in the UK. Would someone recommend a decent supplier plus bare bones build (CPU, MB, RAM and Fan). I guess I am willing to go up to £600 but would really rather not and could probably do that without asking for advice here. Within £500 would be better.

Would the i7 6700K make a noticeable difference? This plus 16GB of bog standard ram and MB comes to less than £500.

Thanks!

 

[Gortron]

My suggestion would be to forget intel and get a Ryzen 5 2600X. 6 cores 12 threads 3.6Ghz base and 4.2Ghz boost. Very good bang for buck. That or the Ryzen 2600 which is not much slower but a tad cheaper.

There is a thread a bit further down [Ryzen 2600x for VR?] where someone has done just that and they seem really pleased.

I like to buy parts from www.scan.co.uk they aren’t always the cheapest but I’ve had nothing but great experiences with them. They also offer insurance for a small fee that covers you for damage done to parts while building your system.

Pretty useful review here. https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd-ryzen-5-2600-review-benchmarks Knowing how demanding VR can be I’d probably opt for the X

 

[Gortron]

Doh, replied to my own post by mistake instead of editing... on phone haha.

 

[Strife]

Currently have i5 2500k @ 4.4GHz and run NVidia 1070 gpu. I won't be upgrading the gfx card this gen.

I live in the UK. Would someone recommend a decent supplier plus bare bones build (CPU, MB, RAM and Fan).

Would the i7 6700K make a noticeable difference? This plus 16GB of bog standard ram and MB comes to less than £500.

I am in a similar situation, with a i7 3770 cpu and 1080 gpu, I was going to upgrade the CPU+MB+MEM this year and wait for next gen GPU next year, but next year brings DDR5 compatible MB's and I have read that at the same clock speed DDR5 will perform ~30% faster than DDR4 and with the faster clocks you could be looking at ~80% improvement in memory performance.

Now I am going to wait for DDR5 and also see who is on top in the CPU battle before buying, this should also future proof the PC by a few more years.

For UK suppliers CCL Computers have always been competitively priced: https://www.cclonline.com/

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Ryzen R5 2600X on a B450 chipset. Crazy value.

No, you dont get to see much more than 4.0 to 4.1 ghz on load, but this chip is more than a match for my RTX 2070.

See my thread here
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/466411-Ryzen-R5-2600x-for-VR

 

[CylonSurfer]

I like to buy parts from www.scan.co.uk they aren’t always the cheapest but I’ve had nothing but great experiences with them. They also offer insurance for a small fee that covers you for damage done to parts while building your system.

+1 for Scan. They're a great supplier and actually do some nice pre-built mobo + cpu + ram combos.

Personally I'd stay away from AMD, I read about VR related issues often enough to make me want to steer clear - the hasstle I read about just doesn't seem worth the cash you save by using their stuff. Personal opinion of course.

I used a 6700K for quite some time(OC'd and water cooled), it was a good upgrade from the 2600k I had before. I now have my 6700k setup in a second machine (my other halfs), just waiting for some cash to add a decent enough GPU to the rig so I can connect up my old Rift and use it as a second VR PC.

 

[CMDR M Kozak]

Personally I'd stay away from AMD, I read about VR related issues often enough to make me want to steer clear - the hasstle I read about just doesn't seem worth the cash you save by using their stuff. Personal opinion of course.

The latency issues of the first gen has been compensated in the new zen+.
I run VR with it now and have no issues.

But if you want ghz and use it as the only parameter (and want to pay for those extra frames that your headset wont need) then THATS a personal opinion.
The rest is just hearsay by now.

Edit: I have had zero hazzle with it. None what so ever. I havent even yet clean installed windows, something I will do at somepoint - just because.
But in general I just plugged and played.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

WAIT.

CPU upgrade, while it might be a bottleneck, won't give you the benefits you expect. You basically have to upgrade the GPU as well if you want supersampling higher than steamvr's 1.3. I have i5-3570k@4.4GHz and 8GB of DDR3 1866MHz RAM, and while it's usable in VR, it doesn't leave you much room for supersampling which gives the best results. The only CPU-bottlenecked games I see are Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR. Fallout got borked hard by windows Fa(i)l Creators update on release, and Skyrim is plain and simple long in the tooth. Both these games max my poor i5, but are still pretty playable even with mods (Skyrim). Project Cars 2 on the other hand is not a marvel of optimisation from what I heard (have only PC1), while Asetto Corsa runs quite nice even on Pimax 5k+ 150-deg fov. Basically few VR games are optimised enough, and could probably run on worse hardware if proper money was put into optimisation. But that's not what the industry trend is, currently.

I was able to procure a 1080Ti for a decent price, and it helped a lot, RAM / CPU is still holding me down but it is not as crucial as efficient GPU. You need to render a frame for each eye so that makes twice as much work for the GPU... The sub-par cpu might cause some stuttering, but it really isn't that big of a deal as the GPU. Moving from an old i5 to an old i7 won't give you pretty much anything IMHO. It's faster IPC you're looking for, and no bottlenecks between other components (SSD, RAM, GPU). Most VR games prefer single threaded performance anyway and are mainly using 1-2 cores.

Best advice now is wait, and also look kindly on AMD CPU offerings. They are to release 7nm Ryzen processor this year which will probably cause prices of other CPUs to adjust (downm hopefully). Plus with AMD you can upgrade to a faster chip as they boast socket compatibility for future generations, unlike Intel. At least 16GB RAM seems to help with some issues on slower processors, like loading more things into RAM and not having stutters or missing textures later.

So, while it might not be the opinion you want to hear, sell that 1070, invest the remainder into second hand 1080Ti (with the intent of selling it further when next gen RTX cards drop), donate the rest of your system somewhere ;-) and build a new rig with faster RAM, SSDs and a better GPU. Also your statement that you don't want enthusiast level performance sadly contradicts with VR, which pretty much REQUIRES enthusiast grade gear for smooth operation. Of course tolerance levels for what "smooth" is vary from individual, there are people who get nauseous with minimum "frame dips" and for others it won't be a problem. Depends on the game also, DCS F18 has horrible frame drops on the airport ground, but it's still (barely) playable. You can definitely run VR with your setup, i7 won't help much, faster GPU and then faster Instructions Per Cycle processor will, but in that order. Number of cores is (currently) less relevant.

 

[Gortron]

WAIT.

CPU upgrade, while it might be a bottleneck, won't give you the benefits you expect. You basically have to upgrade the GPU as well if you want supersampling higher than steamvr's 1.3. I have i5-3570k@4.4GHz and 8GB of DDR3 1866MHz RAM, and while it's usable in VR, it doesn't leave you much room for supersampling which gives the best results. The only CPU-bottlenecked games I see are Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR. Fallout got borked hard by windows Fa(i)l Creators update on release, and Skyrim is plain and simple long in the tooth. Both these games max my poor i5, but are still pretty playable even with mods (Skyrim). Project Cars 2 on the other hand is not a marvel of optimisation from what I heard (have only PC1), while Asetto Corsa runs quite nice even on Pimax 5k+ 150-deg fov. Basically few VR games are optimised enough, and could probably run on worse hardware if proper money was put into optimisation. But that's not what the industry trend is, currently.

I was able to procure a 1080Ti for a decent price, and it helped a lot, RAM / CPU is still holding me down but it is not as crucial as efficient GPU. You need to render a frame for each eye so that makes twice as much work for the GPU... The sub-par cpu might cause some stuttering, but it really isn't that big of a deal as the GPU. Moving from an old i5 to an old i7 won't give you pretty much anything IMHO. It's faster IPC you're looking for, and no bottlenecks between other components (SSD, RAM, GPU). Most VR games prefer single threaded performance anyway and are mainly using 1-2 cores.

Best advice now is wait, and also look kindly on AMD CPU offerings. They are to release 7nm Ryzen processor this year which will probably cause prices of other CPUs to adjust (downm hopefully). Plus with AMD you can upgrade to a faster chip as they boast socket compatibility for future generations, unlike Intel. At least 16GB RAM seems to help with some issues on slower processors, like loading more things into RAM and not having stutters or missing textures later.

So, while it might not be the opinion you want to hear, sell that 1070, invest the remainder into second hand 1080Ti (with the intent of selling it further when next gen RTX cards drop), donate the rest of your system somewhere ;-) and build a new rig with faster RAM, SSDs and a better GPU. Also your statement that you don't want enthusiast level performance sadly contradicts with VR, which pretty much REQUIRES enthusiast grade gear for smooth operation. Of course tolerance levels for what "smooth" is vary from individual, there are people who get nauseous with minimum "frame dips" and for others it won't be a problem. Depends on the game also, DCS F18 has horrible frame drops on the airport ground, but it's still (barely) playable. You can definitely run VR with your setup, i7 won't help much, faster GPU and then faster Instructions Per Cycle processor will, but in that order. Number of cores is (currently) less relevant.

There is a real misconception about how well coded for multi thread CPU’s ED is. It doesn’t throw everything at one or two cores/threads like you think at all. Probably a couple of threads on 12 are used a bit more than others but it is actually balanced quite evenly. Unlike in some games where one thread is pegged at 100%.

If you have SS set high enough that your GPU is the bottleneck then you are right that the CPU is less important and is likely the case with a 1070. But for 90FPS in VR an old i5 is not anywhere near good enough.

Going from an i5 4670K to a i7 8700K on a 1080 the performance difference was astonishing. I think it’s down to more than just the CPU. RAM speed and chipset all add to the mix but the CPU makes a lot more difference in ED than you think. My i5 was often pegged a 100%, my i7 never goes over around 40% and the whole experience is much smoother.

That said waiting is pretty sound advice but need to bite the bullet at some point.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Thank you very much for the replies.

@CylonSurfer
That is really encouraging, especially as you upgraded from the i7 version of my chip!

I can wholeheartedly recommend the Ryzen R5 2600X on a B450 chipset. Crazy value.

No, you dont get to see much more than 4.0 to 4.1 ghz on load, but this chip is more than a match for my RTX 2070.

See my thread here
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/466411-Ryzen-R5-2600x-for-VR

I haven't used AMD for years. I am hearing good things with these bad boys. It is a massive gamble though. As you can tell from the fact I am still on 2500k!

Something to look at though!

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Core count and ghz is at best on par in importance right now.
Give a year or two anything under 6 cores will be seriously anachronistic.

Bang for buck is easily the new Zen's and you will want 3000mhz+ RAM yes it does matter.
Especially in VR.

Bottlenecking is a seesaw.
If you hit the max capacity on one part you won't hit it in another.

my i5 4690k was dragging my 980ti back.
I upgraded to a 4790k and I was held back by the 980ti.
Upgraded that to the 1080ti, and the cpu revealed itself as not capable of maintaining 90fps either.

I wasn't able fully use the 1080ti until I made the expensive move to an i7 8700k and DDR4.

Now that on the other hand has oodles and oodles of cpu headroom.

I probably won't need to upgrade from that for a very long while until games do more cpu intensive tasks or VR headsets double their framerate.
Granted I would need a 2880ti for that..

 

[CylonSurfer]

Core count and ghz is at best on par in importance right now.
Give a year or two anything under 6 cores will be seriously anachronistic.

Bang for buck is easily the new Zen's and you will want 3000mhz+ RAM yes it does matter.
Especially in VR.

Bottlenecking is a seesaw.
If you hit the max capacity on one part you won't hit it in another.

my i5 4690k was dragging my 980ti back.
I upgraded to a 4790k and I was held back by the 980ti.
Upgraded that to the 1080ti, and the cpu revealed itself as not capable of maintaining 90fps either.

I wasn't able fully use the 1080ti until I made the expensive move to an i7 8700k and DDR4.

Now that on the other hand has oodles and oodles of cpu headroom.

I probably won't need to upgrade from that for a very long while until games do more cpu intensive tasks or VR headsets double their framerate.
Granted I would need a 2880ti for that..

I must admit I've been pretty happy with my 8700k / DDR4 combo as well

 

[Gortron]

Thank you very much for the replies.

@CylonSurfer
That is really encouraging, especially as you upgraded from the i7 version of my chip!



I haven't used AMD for years. I am hearing good things with these bad boys. It is a massive gamble though. As you can tell from the fact I am still on 2500k!

Something to look at though!

I don’t think it’s that big a gamble. If you upgrade to an i7 6700K then you are doing a dead end upgrade. If you got a Ryzen then you still have the upgrade path to Ryzen 3 when it comes out.

Also the Ryzen is around £100 cheaper in the first place. I do understand the reservation though as I chose an i7 over a 1700X but AMD have closed the gap a fair bit. I also agree with TorTorden that anything less than 6 cores will be outdated soon.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Thank you very much for the thoughtful and helpful replies.

For £470 I can upgrade my i5 2500k @ 4.4GHz to a i7 6700K Processor @ 4.0 GHz. That is a fair price but one I can stomach.

I guess I should find out where the bottleneck is. I can tell TorTorden and StarLightPL are concerned regarding this.

What programs do you use to track CPU and GPU load?

Thanks again!

 

[Gortron]

Thank you very much for the thoughtful and helpful replies.

For £470 I can upgrade my i5 2500k @ 4.4GHz to a i7 6700K Processor @ 4.0 GHz. That is a fair price but one I can stomach.

I guess I should find out where the bottleneck is. I can tell TorTorden and StarLightPL are concerned regarding this.

What programs do you use to track CPU and GPU load?

Thanks again!

I just use the performance tab on the task manager and peak through the nose gap.

I did a video for a question about settings a while ago and it shows the load on mine at 90FPS on the rift with my settings. It may be useful for you. https://youtu.be/CsmhijQzvbs

As TorTorden said, as you get rid of one bottleneck another one will appear. My GPU is now the limiting factor. Before the i7 my CPU was often holding back the GPU.

 

[Andrej]

I would recommend i7-8700K with decent watercooler, good Z370/390 motherboard (Z370 AORUS Gaming 5 for example) and overclocked DDR4 memory with XMP profile, it might be slightly over yours budget, but with little overclocking (real easy, just select CPU upgrade to 5.0 and XMP enable in BIOS), you can easily get enthusiast level CPU performance, even without deliding CPU and put it on liquid metal (but that helps).

It probably will be cheaper in the long run, because lifecycle of that that system will be longer.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

I just use the performance tab on the task manager and peak through the nose gap.

I did a video for a question about settings a while ago and it shows the load on mine at 90FPS on the rift with my settings. It may be useful for you. https://youtu.be/CsmhijQzvbs

As TorTorden said, as you get rid of one bottleneck another one will appear. My GPU is now the limiting factor. Before the i7 my CPU was often holding back the GPU.

So i did the performance thingy

In solo, sat in a quietish coriolis station. I am getting slightly higher load on my CPU. All 4 cores are at similar load:
CPU 74% - 90% hovers around 79%
GPU 67% - 70% hovers around 69%

There tends to 10% more on CPU

Worth upgrading?

EDIT

Wow! I have just monitored PCars2 (the game I was most concerned about)
CPU 100% all 4 cores
GPU 75 - 80%

Me thinks CPU?

 

[TorTorden_VR]

So i did the performance thingy

In solo, sat in a quietish coriolis station. I am getting slightly higher load on my CPU. All 4 cores are at similar load:
CPU 74% - 90% hovers around 79%
GPU 67% - 70% hovers around 69%

There tends to 10% more on CPU

Worth upgrading?

I find in VR my old cpu would start causing a bottle neck at about 75-80% utilization.
If it got over that I wouldn't even hold 45fps well.
That quickly becomes barf city.
And spacewarp actually adds a little cpu load so even though fps is halved the benefit from engaging spacewarp is less simple.
And it wouldn't disengage ASW until it was well below half of its original triggering value so if your cpu was a little on the low side you would quickly engage spacewarp and have hard time reaching enough headroom for it to disengage.

As for direct advice.
what I would consider most ideal as in bang for bucks would be something like the Ryzen 2600(x)
Should be able to find a mobo and cpu combo for what just the i5 9600k would cost alone.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Yeah I'm getting good results with my i7 8700k but that's $450 alone and you want a really good cooler.
I'm running mine with a corsair i115, and I have been lucky enough with to be running a 4.9ghz oc
Ram is a bit disappointing. I got 32GB of 3200mhz Ram but after putting the last two 8GB chips in I get POST errors if I go beyond 3000mhz, don't think I can tell much difference between 3000mhz and 3200mhz though.

That could possibly be a mobo issue but spending several hundreds on upgrading that for a possible few hundred mhz on the ram doesn't really seen like a good idea.
The one thing that holds me back now is the 1080ti.

And honestly a 2080ti wouldn't be enough either.
So right now the goal is to wait for the next cycle of GPU's and enjoy what I got, cause quite frankly it's a pretty kick butt rig.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

I find in VR my old cpu would start causing a bottle neck at about 75-80% utilization.
If it got over that I wouldn't even hold 45fps well.
That quickly becomes barf city.
And spacewarp actually adds a little cpu load so even though fps is halved the benefit from engaging spacewarp is less simple.
And it wouldn't disengage ASW until it was well below half of its original triggering value so if your cpu was a little on the low side you would quickly engage spacewarp and have hard time reaching enough headroom for it to disengage.

As for direct advice.
what I would consider most ideal as in bang for bucks would be something like the Ryzen 2600(x)
Should be able to find a mobo and cpu combo for what just the i5 9600k would cost alone.

I have just tested: Assetto Corsa and PCars2.
100% CPU on all 4 cores
70% and 80% GPU on AC and PC2 respectively

So the Ryzen R5 2600X? People seem quite happy with it!