Would getting a 4060 ti with the extra VRAM (16 GB) help improve VR performance?

[cmorris975]

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking of upgrading my old 1070 ti card with a 4060 ti in order to improve VR performance. This will be on a 9700k system with 32GB ram running IL-2 from a SSD into a Quest 2 headset. I'm aware of the  fairly negative reception on the 4060 ti, but I only have a 600 watt PSU, so the low power requirements on the 4060 ti are attractive. If I had a non-OEM 600 watt power supply, I might be inclined to get a 4070, but alas I just have what came with the system.

I can run VR *almost* OK on my system, but as soon as I try to run any mission with a reasonable amount of in game planes/objects, it has always stuttered too much to be enjoyable. If I just ran quick 4 vs 4 dogfights, I'd be fine, but I want to run small campaign generator missions in VR if possible. I'm fine keeping the graphics settings low.

 

Thanks for any thoughts!

 

Chris

[sevenless]

Hi,

 

the 4060 Ti seems to be roughly in the same performance ballpark as the 3070 with much better power consumption. So if you switch from a 1070 to a 4060 Ti you should be seeing a significant improvement in performance. If the 16 Gig version and the extra price (ca. 500 EUR) versus the 8 Gig version (ca. 400 EUR) will be worth it, I can't answer.

 

 

 

[1Sascha]

On 10/26/2023 at 8:06 PM, cmorris975 said:

This will be on a 9700k system

I'd call that less than ideal, no matter what sort of current GPU you'd plop into your system.

IIRC, IL-2 is pretty CPU heavy (especially in VR) - and will benefit especially from higher single-thread performance.

 

I just upgraded my i5-12600K to an i7-14700 KF and that not only gave me a surprising performance uplift in GPU-heavy benchmarks and other games (rest of the system is unchanged) but it also made things in IL-2 VR quite a lot smoother. I'm fairly certain that my GPU (RTX 4070) was a bit bottlenecked by that 12600K. For example: 3DMark Time Spy does factor in CPU performance but is quite GPU-centric. I'm on my fourth GPU in this system, and my scores went like this (ignoring the GTX 1060 3GB I used initially):

 

12600K/RTX 2070 Super: 10600 overall TS-score - 10300 GPU score

12600K/RTX 3070: 13700 overall - 13800 GPU score

12600K/RTX 4070: 17500 overall - 18700 GPU score

14700KF/RTX 4070: 19030 overall - 19100 GPU score

 

While the jump between 12600K/4070 and 14700KF/4070 may not look huge, I can definitely say the performance increase in IL-2 is very noticeable for me in VR.

 

Speaking of benchmark-results:

 

Time Spy results for 9700K systems with 4060Ti 16GB (left) and 4060Ti 8GB (right). As you can see, the average total score results are virtually identical. There are probably only very few instances where this card could benefit from the added VRAM - and those scenarios would probably be too much for the card, anyway. Like playing a GPU-heavy game with graphics settings cranked to the absolute maximum.

 

Generally speaking, I think that 9th gen CPU of yours is probably too old to take full advantage of a current graphics card. You'll definitely see improvement, but you will be CPU-bottlenecked with that 9th gen CPU/GF 40xx GPU combo.

 

More importantly: From all the reviews/comparisons I've read on the 16GB 4060Ti, it seems like a waste of money to get those 8 extra GB of VRAM. VRAM-usage for me in VR has always been well below 8 GB with any of the cards I used and both on my Rift-S and now on the Reverb G2 (which I run with ~9.5 million pixel res). Even in VR-benchmarks with super high IL-2 graphics settings (which I'd never use while gaming), I never saw anywhere close to 8 GB of VRAM usage. And that's with both the 2070S/3070, which only have 8 GB and the 4070 which has 12GB.

 

Basically, I think you're at that point where upgrading the GPU to a current model won't yield enough performance increase to justify the cost - especially not the extra cost that 16GB version would incur. Time to start thinking about a new PC, I think ...

 

As an interim solution: Why not look for a second hand GPU like a 3070? I ran my 3070 on a 550W PSU - and I *think* my 12600K was more power-hungry than your 9700K.

 

You might also want to consider getting a 2nd hand CPU and/or board to do a "proper" upgrade. I haven't checked prices yet, but I would imagine that 12th gen Intel CPUs are now pretty reasonably priced second hand with 13th/14th gen available. Yes: 12 to 13 is a pretty significant performance update but even a 12th gen 12600K would be a vast improvement over your current CPU. I would offer you my 12600K, but I don't think that wouldn't make much sense due to cost of shipping/import duties, etc.

 

EDIT:

Or, since you seem to be willing to spend ~$500 on that 16GB 4060 Ti: Why not spend a *little* more and get a more thorough upgrade?

- Used 12600K or perhaps 13500 ... ~$100 if you're lucky? Not sure about 2nd hand prices for CPUs.

- used Z690/Z790 motherboard (although I'd probably try to go new on the motherboard).

- assuming those 32 GB of RAM you already have are DDR4, you could re-use that.

- $150 for a decent CPU cooler plus a 650W Bronze PSU from a reputable manufacturer

- M.2 SSDs are real cheap at the moment, so unless you're already on an M.2, throw in another $60/70 for a solid 1 TB SSD as your new system drive

- used 3060 Ti, 3070 or even 2070 Super ... any of these would be a big step-up from your current card.

 

With a bit of luck (and Black Friday just around the corner), you might be able to pull this off for ~$700 or so. Which is only $200 more than you're willing to spend anyway and would result in a much bigger uplift than dropping a 40xx card into your current system.

 

I'd make sure to get a motherboard with as many USB-sockets as possible. My board "only" has seven Type A and one Type C on the I/O-panel and, thanks to all my HOTAS-crap and the VR-set, they're all in use. If it wasn't for the x4 USB-hub on my monitor, I'd be panicking a little.. ?

 

Also: You want to avoid the cheapest chipsets B660/B760 - those boards are cheap but not really what you want for a gaming PC. There seems to be little price-difference between boards with the middle of the road chipsets (like the H670) and high end ones ATM, so I'd only consider the high end ones (Z690/Z790).

 

And finally, since I also play a lot more SP than MP: Slight hiccups in very busy career missions (and on certain maps) in VR are *kinda* normal in IL-2. They have been for me with all three cards I used in VR. Since I upgraded the CPU, I haven't come across a career mission that would trigger hiccups yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they still occurred.

MP has always been very smooth for me in VR, even with the 3070 and the 12600K - as were quick missions, even with max number of planes in the air. I don't think this is a hardware-thing, but more a problem with the game. I would fully expect to still get those hiccups in very populated career-missions, even if I was running a 14900K and an RTX 4090.

 

 

 

 

 

S.

Edited November 9, 2023 by 1Sascha