VR Rig Upgrade Questions

[Belisarius1]

Hi folks,

 

Long-time reader, first-time poster here  ?

 

I am planning to upgrade my rig within the next couple of months, and I would like to seek your advice as my own tech knowledge is pretty limited.

 

I currently have a GTX 980Ti with a i7-6700 CPU.  My current HMD is an Oculus Rift CV1, but I am seriously considering getting a new Samsung Odyssey Plus soon (I’ll see if I can try one on for size at my local Microsoft store).

 

Regardless of whether I get the Odyssey+ or stick with my current CV1, I am thinking of upgrading my GPU to an RTX 2080.  I noticed that the GTX 1080 Ti is roughly about the same price as the RTX 2080 – is there any reason why I should consider getting a 1080 Ti, or is it a no-brainer to go for the newer 2080?

 

Which brand(s) of GPU would you recommend?  Does it matter much?

 

Eventually, I also plan on upgrading my CPU (and probably get a new motherboard too).  My current thinking is that I will replace my GPU first, and then replace my CPU a few months later – or do you all think I should do it the other way around?

 

Not sure if that's much of a factor for this question, but I probably spend about 80-90% of my VR time in Il-2, both in SP and MP.

 

Looking forward to reading your all's thoughts.  Thanks in advance everyone!

[dburne]

I think you are on the right path doing the GPU first.

The 1080 Ti is a great card and would do well for you. Only card in the 20x series I would consider over 1080 Ti would be a 2080 Ti. 

It will allow to run a little higher graphics settings, but really probably not worth the big price difference. ( I went from 1080 Ti to 2080 Ti).

As far as brands, I am big fan of EVGA and have had their cards for many years. Plus their support is awesome.

 

Is that i7 6700 chip a K version? If it is , they are fairly easy to overclock and VR loves higher CPU clocks.

But in any event, yes I would keep eyes on the 9xxx series of Intel CPU's for when you can upgrade MB and CPU. A new Z390 board and CPU would certainly help also.

 

 

[BroGrimm1tkcamp]

I went from a 980ti to a 1080ti and it helped VR a lot. I have a I7- 4970k not OCed

 

[BroGrimm1tkcamp]

32 minutes ago, dburne said:

I think you are on the right path doing the GPU first.

The 1080 Ti is a great card and would do well for you. Only card in the 20x series I would consider over 1080 Ti would be a 2080 Ti. 

It will allow to run a little higher graphics settings, but really probably not worth the big price difference. ( I went from 1080 Ti to 2080 Ti).

As far as brands, I am big fan of EVGA and have had their cards for many years. Plus their support is awesome.

 

Is that i7 6700 chip a K version? If it is , they are fairly easy to overclock and VR loves higher CPU clocks.

But in any event, yes I would keep eyes on the 9xxx series of Intel CPU's for when you can upgrade MB and CPU. A new Z390 board and CPU would certainly help also. 

 

 

I have never Over Clocked anything.  Would I be ahead to try to OC my 4970K or better to upgrade my CPU + MB. Also My memory is only 1600mz

[dburne]

1 minute ago, tkcamp56tkcamp said:

I have never Over Clocked anything.  Would I be ahead to try to OC my 4970K or better to upgrade my CPU + MB. Also My memory is only 1600mz

 

IMHO ideally an upgrade would give you the most benefit.

 

However you can gain some with no cost by overclocking your CPU some. That is a great CPU to overclock and pretty easy.

[BroGrimm1tkcamp]

I downloaded and installed Afterburner. Bought a liquid cooler and never went any farther with it. I'm a little intimidated by it all

 

Also my MD won't let me into my BIOS. after two days of trying I gave up. I have a Asus z97-e

 

[Belisarius1]

Thanks guys!  This is very helpful.

My CPU is not a K version, so I can't overclock it.  I'll keep my eyes open for the new 9- series chips and upgrade my MB+CPU when the time comes.  In the meantime, I'll look into maybe getting a 1080ti instead of a 2080.  Unfortunately, the 2080Ti is a bit above my price range...

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

1 hour ago, Belisarius1 said:

Thanks guys!  This is very helpful.

My CPU is not a K version, so I can't overclock it.  I'll keep my eyes open for the new 9- series chips and upgrade my MB+CPU when the time comes.  In the meantime, I'll look into maybe getting a 1080ti instead of a 2080.  Unfortunately, the 2080Ti is a bit above my price range...

Before you buy anything, check what’s actually limiting your performance. If your GPU is not at 100% most of the time, you’ll know you have a CPU bottleneck. Depending on your settings, a new GPU might not improve frame rates all that much, although it will certainly allow you to increase certain settings. Il-2 is heavily CPU-bound in VR.

[dburne]

2 hours ago, Belisarius1 said:

Thanks guys!  This is very helpful.

My CPU is not a K version, so I can't overclock it.  I'll keep my eyes open for the new 9- series chips and upgrade my MB+CPU when the time comes.  In the meantime, I'll look into maybe getting a 1080ti instead of a 2080.  Unfortunately, the 2080Ti is a bit above my price range...

 

I doubt you would go wrong with a 1080 Ti - and whenever you do upgrade you will have a great card for it already.

[-332FG-Gordon200]

3 hours ago, tkcamp56tkcamp said:

Also my MD won't let me into my BIOS. after two days of trying I gave up.

 

 

You can access bios through Win10 Settings. Easy to do. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/access-bios-windows-10

[kissklas]

4 hours ago, Belisarius1 said:

Thanks guys!  This is very helpful.

My CPU is not a K version, so I can't overclock it.  I'll keep my eyes open for the new 9- series chips and upgrade my MB+CPU when the time comes.  In the meantime, I'll look into maybe getting a 1080ti instead of a 2080.  Unfortunately, the 2080Ti is a bit above my price range...

 

I agree that the next upgrade should be a GPU. This game is very much CPU limited, but a new GPU will still get you a good increase in frames, and just as important; a steadier flow of frames.

 

Have you had a look at the 2070? It is not far behind the 1080ti, and it has the bells and whistles for the years to come.

 

Also, you CAN overclock the non K! But just via the base clock (bclk) . And only if you have a Z type motherboard. Z170, Z270 etc.

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by kissklas
1080ti

[Alonzo]

With the state of IL2 at the moment, it's difficult to get much benefit from going above a GTX 1080 for the GPU. Yes, you can go to a 1080ti, 2080 (like I did) or 2080ti, but really all you're going to be able to do is increase the supersampling. The basic 1080 (and now the 2070, which is equivalent horsepower) are pretty good for IL2. Depending on how your budget looks, I would go for a baseline of a 9000-series (9600K or 9700K with 280 or 360mm liquid cooler) CPU with fast RAM (16GB 3200Mhz CAS-14) coupled with a GTX 1080 or RTX 2070. If you have more budget, then think about maybe going 1080ti (if they're still available) or 2080.

 

The only thing that gives me pause is that the 1080 might not be enough grunt for the Odyssey's pixel count, in which case the 1080ti might be the minimum card you want, but *only* if you're sure you are going for more pixels than a basic Rift.

[dirtyburgerss]

9 hours ago, tkcamp56tkcamp said:

I downloaded and installed Afterburner. Bought a liquid cooler and never went any farther with it. I'm a little intimidated by it all

 

Also my MD won't let me into my BIOS. after two days of trying I gave up. I have a Asus z97-e

 

Press "Del" when the ASUS logo appears on the screen to enter the BIOS. Press "Ctrl-Alt-Del" to restart the computer if the PC boots to Windows before loading the setup program. I have the Exact same Mother board and also using the I7 4790K cpu as well.Im not over clocking at all cause i really don't have to yet.But im running oculus rift touch which is amazing.Even on my GTX 970.But i will be updating that card soon.Im not running any water cooling.Just using a cooler master 212 cpu cooler which is fine for me.

[Belisarius1]

Thanks you all, this is really giving me some interesting things to think about.

 

Looks like the price of a new 1080ti is going up pretty fast, since they've stopped producing them.  It might be another month or so before I'm able to actually pull the trigger on anything, and at this rate there's a chance that they will be more expensive than the 2080 by then.  There seems to be some interesting deals on E-bay, but would that be a bit risky?  Even if the seller describes it as new or like-new, there's no reliable way of telling if that's true or not, right? 

[[PFR]Sarpalaxan]

From what I see with my 1080 and Vive It's mostly the CPU Limiting my Performance while the GPU runs at about 40%.

[JonRedcorn]

Dburne was so cpu limited he couldn't even get his GPU to go into boost with this game. That's insane, this game cares about one thing and that's the fastest IPC cpu available, being anything from a 8350k to a 9900k. Any 8/9 series intel chip that can hit 5 ghz is what you need. We still need better than that, hoping one day intel get off the 14nm node they've been on for like ten years and finally release something new that has actual IPC and single thread gains, until that day or AMD pull a miracle off with Zen 2 we are stuck throwing 1500 dollars at a gpu for 5 fps.

Edited November 10, 2018 by 15th_JonRedcorn

[dburne]

6 hours ago, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

Dburne was so cpu limited he couldn't even get his GPU to go into boost with this game. 

 

That has  been resolved.