SpaceOctopus

@Whiro, @Lordofcheez Probably final update: Got OpenFanControl to work, gonna submit my patch for the mainboard to Libre Hardware Monitor asap to get it generally supported. Cooling is working perfectly. I am getting constant 56°C at 100% load which is a lot lower than before while the cooler is also much more quiet than the original one. Thank you all for your help with this.

I've been in the vr game for a while, so maybe I can help with this. 1. You want to get a pc-powered headset. Standalone vr is very limited in its capabilities and the headsets will (and some already have) become obsolete very quickly. PC-powered vr so far has a great history of compatibility and you can improve the experience going forward when you upgrade your hardware in the future. Which exact headset to buy is a bit harder to answer. For your specific case I would recommend looking for pre-owned options. You should be able to get something like the original vive at a decent price by now. Buying new will quickly exceed any sensible budget for what you want to do. Make sure you buy a kit that supports full room scale and has proper vr controllers, both are crucial to getting a good vr experience. 2. The screen door effect is simply the result of the relatively low resolution that most vr hmds offer. In my experience it does not keep vr from being enjoyable at all though. Most vr game developers are well aware of the resolution issues and make sure that their games work around it. The only way to fix the screen door effect is to use more high resolution screens which comes with a hefty increase in performance requirements. 3. "vr ready" is a marketing term and pretty much meaningless. You can run vr with any reasonably strong PC. The required software is provided by the manufacturers of the hmd and usually valve. 4. That build is very close to the PC I had when I started using vr. I was running an i7-4770, 16GB DDR3, and a GTX 970 as well. The hardware is just about sufficient to get started with vr. You will have to tweak some settings in your games and you will not be able to run most games at high settings. For the future, any current day medium spec PC will do. The performance hurdle to enter vr is not really much of a thing anymore with current hardware. 5. If you are buying used, now-ish is a good time. A lot of people are upgrading to an index for Alyx and will probably sell their old hmd for it. If you are buying new, the usual times for discounts on electronics apply. 6. Even if you don't have much space, "room scale" vr will make for the best experience. Most room scale games can be played while standing with just enough room around you to stretch your arms out. I cannot stress enough how important this is. Room scale allows your to freely turn, kneel, and otherwise move your body without losing tracking. It is much more immersive than pressing buttons to accomplish that, even if you can't walk around. VR as a whole is in a quite interesting phase right now. The past couple years have mostly seen somewhat experimental titles as devs were coming to grips with it. We are now at the point where it has really sunk in that VR is not just a new kind of controller, but an entirely new medium and we are getting the first games that really make full use of what it can offer. Many of the games that have come out so far are more "this thing but in vr" or "let's treat vr like it's a normal game with more restricted movement", but thankfully we are now leaving that behind. VR releases have been damn good lately and it seems like Alyx will do for vr what HL1 has done for shooters and HL2 has done for physics. Since you want to "experience vr", valve has made a game/experience that is perfect for getting you started. You can get "The Lab" for free on steam. The whole thing is a nice sample platter of various vr activities with very high production value. If you want to look further into vr and maybe get more specific advice on what hmd to buy and where I recommend visiting the vr related subs on reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/virtualreality/ is a god starting point as the sidebar points to a lot of relevant places.

I'd recommend the HyperX Cloud 2. Really good sound for a headset and the mic is quite good as well.

It should technically be possible with a PCIe hub. That would most likely produce more problems than pixels though (and would likely be very expensive). May I ask what you want to achieve by doing this? Maybe there is a better way.

@Whiro, @Lordofcheez Update on this matter: I have installed the G12 yesterday with a Corsair H55. Surprisingly easy to set up. Idle temps are amazing so far, 34°C on the desktop and 35°C when running a light load like Factorio. (at 20°C room temperature) Now I only need to find a fan control of some sort that allows me to bind the cooling to the gpu temperature. What did you use for that? late udpate: I just found the "OpenFanControl" tool in another thread on here, gonna try that later.

@Lordofcheez that sounds really nice. Did you use any additional heatsinks on the VRAM and/or VRMs? It appears like it's not necessary to do so, but I am thinking about using some anyway since they are really cheap to add.

Hi @Whiro, I have not contacted Gigabyte yet. Mostly because I find the idea of alternative GPU cooling solutions interesting and thought I'd use the opportunity to gather some experience in that area. The G12 really seems like the way to go. Looks like this is one of those things that everyone except me already knew about (going by the wealth of videos about that thing). I have looked into what other users reported on gtx1080 + G12 combinations and the results look rather impressive. Seems that even a small AiO like the X42 or even the H55 will work just fine. I should also mention that I am not looking for a super budget solution here, this would be a project that I am willing to put some money into. I just found full custom liquid cooling to be far too expensive to make any sort of sense for me.

@Skiiwee29 Do you have any experience with these adapters? They look like a good option, but I am not sure what radiator size I would need. Also they seem to require some sort of VRM heat sink. @Princess Luna Like I said, for me there is probably still a year or two of life in that card. I mostly found the adapter brackets for normal AiOs quite interesting since I could still use the AiO for other projects afterwards. That way I'd only lose the cost of the adapter. Even then, I could also use the adapter for other cards.

Hi there, I have a Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming 8G. The cooler on this card has never been on the quiet side, but with the sub-par fan control and the fans deteriorating over time it has become really loud. Are there any good options to swap out the stock cooler for an aftermarket one? I have looked at custom liquid cooling, but the prices are hardly worth it for a card that I will probably swap in a year or two. There are of course various options for third party coolers out there. From full cooling blocks like the Arctic Accelero Xtreme line to adapter solutions like the Kraken G12, I'd be willing to consider any of them. Does anyone have any experience with these aftermarket solutions? I don't know what to even really look for. Is there a recommended / common option? Thank you!