What's up with VR benchmarking?

[nicklmg]

Amazon: http://geni.us/JGUwc

 

The RX 480 has arrived, and it has proven itself as a very capable gaming card. But how does it fare in VR? Well, that question doesn't have a simple answer...

 

 

[Techicolors]

funny this video was made 'cause the 480 was commonly tested in the usual benchmarks, rather than VR. 

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

Shouldn't the 1060 be way better than the 480 due to Single Pass Stereo and Lens Matched Shading? Can't wait to see a direct comparison. 

[handymanshandle]

20 minutes ago, LeapFrogMasterRace said:

Shouldn't the 1060 be way better than the 480 due to Single Pass Stereo and Lens Matched Shading? Can't wait to see a direct comparison. 

It might...Though the thing is, is that VR performance can't really be tested the same way like Luke said.  

Either way the 480 is a great 1080p card and will be able to play VR titles when you can get an HMD.

 

Personally (otherwise, Imo) the 1060 only makes really sense if it is significantly cheaper or more available where you live, or if you're thinking about upgrading to 1440p in the nearer future or are looking for more raw performance.

 

I think that we need to give AIB 480s a shot because Jayztwocents tested a non-FE/non-Reference 1060 against a reference 480. A lot of reviewers tested the 1060 with the FE cooler but also what I think helps the 1060 is the higher base clockspeed and the reference 480 struggles to hit its 1266MHz boost clock. The AIB cards sound like they'll fix that or at least Sapphire's will.

 

Anyways, it'd still be interesting to see more VR testing with certain GPUs regardless. With not just the Vive but maybe even the Rift too because AwesomeSauce Network did a video about a $550 rig for VR with the 480 and said the over-all experience was better with the Rift on the 480 though the Vive wasn't too bad either so that's something that'd be interesting to see.

[DrMikeNZ]

5 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Personally (otherwise, Imo) the 1060 only makes really sense if it is significantly cheaper or more available where you live

That would be most countries then.

 

2 minutes ago, wcreek said:

I think that we need to give AIB 480s a shot because Jayztwocents tested a non-FE/non-Reference 1060 against a reference 480

AIB 1060's were available on day one no sign of reference cards. AIB RX 480's however are still more or less rumour, or at least haven't been released yet in NZ with no ETA.

Reviewers compared what was available to them. I do hope the AIB cards succeed in fixing the RX 480's limitations.

[handymanshandle]

Just now, DrMikeNZ said:

That would be most countries then.

Yeah the RX 480 is a bit of a Unicorn and if it is available it costs quite a bit more. Damn over-hyping causing high demand and subsequent low supply. See I had theories as to where the performance might land and I was hoping that maybe it'd aim for the 1070 and I was wrong... Though I had decided I wanted to lower the amount of money I was willing to save up I figured that the 480 would probably fill that desire/want to achieve 1080p 60fps at high settings and it seems that it will achieve that. Now it's just finding a job and hoping that everything I want will be in stock by the time I'm hoping to build this PC (sometime during Fall (or Spring for the southern hemisphere?).

Just now, DrMikeNZ said:

AIB 1060's were available on day one no sign of reference cards. AIB RX 480's however are still more or less rumour, or at least haven't been released yet in NZ with no ETA.

Reviewers compared what was available to them. I do hope the AIB cards succeed in fixing the RX 480's limitations.

Yeah, I think that's especially what plagued the RX 480 so far is the super steep demand for the RX 480 in the first place making it hard for AIBs to get their custom cards in production because AMD and them needed to take care of the backlog that was created due to the high demand.

[DrMikeNZ]

6 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Now it's just finding a job and hoping that everything I want will be in stock by the time I'm hoping to build this PC

You would certainly hope so. There can't be that many people needing to horde graphics cards to mine cryptocurrencies.

 

1 minute ago, wcreek said:

sometime during Fall (or Spring for the southern hemisphere?).

Yeah, we have seasons out of sync down here. It makes Christmas odd when you are out for the summer barbecue listening to holiday songs about snow.

 

3 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Yeah, I think that's especially what plagued the RX 480 so far is the super steep demand for the RX 480 in the first place making it hard for AIBs to get their custom cards in production because AMD and them needed to take care of the backlog that was created due to the high demand.

I am also baffled by the GTX1080's high demand. The card costs $1500 here ($1080 USD), and it is still frequently out of stock. AMD and Nvidia must both be doing quite well for themselves not trying to directly compete.

[handymanshandle]

2 minutes ago, DrMikeNZ said:

You would certainly hope so. There can't be that many people needing to horde graphics cards to mine cryptocurrencies.

Yeah hopefully there's not like a second coming of the bitcoin or cryptocurrency where some currency is super easy to mine on AMD GPUs like that craze I heard about in 2013 and 2014.

3 minutes ago, DrMikeNZ said:

Yeah, we have seasons out of sync down here. It makes Christmas odd when you are out for the summer barbecue listening to holiday songs about snow.

Interesting.

2 minutes ago, DrMikeNZ said:

I am also baffled by the GTX1080's high demand. The card costs $1500 here ($1080 USD), and it is still frequently out of stock. AMD and Nvidia must both be doing quite well for themselves not trying to directly compete.

I do agree it is pretty interesting all the demand that the 1080 had, but Yeah probably.

[Taf the Ghost]

It strikes me that the direction people want to take Testing isn't what is actually important.  FPS in 2D setups is important because of the smoothness at a specific Resolution through the course of play.  Thus why Min/Max/Average are generally presented for GPU benchmarking.

 

For VR, the FPS and Resolution would appear to be fixed by device for the foreseeable future.  This means that the Texture Quality at X Distance from the user is the important detail.  I'd recommend 4-6 feet (1.5 to 2 meters).  That's going to require some sort of tracking software (and a very large comparison sample size for computers), but that's really what's most important to really measure.  "Does it look good at normal viewing distance?" 

 

I'm also still seeing a lot of people commenting (other places) about why talk about VR on a $200 USD card, when all of the VR headsets are >$600 USD.   There's going to be a lot of VR headsets on the second-hand market in a year, especially when new versions come out.  You have all of the Christmas gifts later in the year, plus people giving it away because they just didn't find it that enjoyable.   There is a lot of future utility for people that know they need to drop in a graphics card that can handle VR.  They'll then think "RX 480".  And AMD will have carry-through sales for the next 2 years as a result.

[7850OC]

so... is an affordable VR "for 200 bucks" just like AMD say  yey

[zMeul]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/08/01/amd_nvidia_gpu_vive_vr_performance_in_raw_data/6#.V5-UizW7iQ-

 

[Taf the Ghost]

HardOCP's first data run is interesting, but it's a tad bit disingenuous to give buying recommendation.  The R9 Fury X being under the GTX1060 screams Engine issues.  Though the GTX1080 should be expected to be at the top.

 

Though the real problem appears to be that no one really has 2-card setups working properly.  VR is the single most logical place to run multi-GPUs, which means so much of this tech is still just out of the Alpha stage.  It's going to be a while, still.

[ArmorPig]

Just wondering whether LTT will produce video showing us which graphic cards can run a decent VR and which aren't able to and etc.