Upgrade GPU or CPU?

[Rosie199226]

Hey!
With Black Friday around the corner I was thinking about upgrading my three year old build. I built my PC for VR gaming (I play on an HTC Vive) and three years ago I was able to play everything on ultra graphics. Lately I've noticed that VR games are slowing down and I have to turn down the graphics for it to run smoothly.

Current Build:

CPU: Intel i7 6700K 4Ghz Quad-Processor

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6 GB Video Card

Running with 3 monitors, one of them is a 4k monitor. When I connect my VR headset I disconnect one of the regular monitors so I can use that display port.

 

Should I upgrade my GPU or my CPU?

When I first built my rig I had the option of having 2 980ti cards in SLI but at the time I had read that VR gaming didn't cope well with cards in SLI, could this be an option now a days?

 

Any advice is appreciated!

[Slottr]

SLI is pretty redundant nowadays

 

I'd upgrade the gpu, to a 2070 or 5700 XT  at the least 

[MartinKweh]

GPU. that 6700k if it is overclocked can actually still  go toe to toe with a 2600.

[Streetguru]

18 minutes ago, Rosie199226 said:

Hey!

Probably just try reinstalling windows and overclocking that 980ti to 1400+mhz? As it's basically a 2060 super/2070/1070ti1080 at that point.

Doesn't seem like you'd need to upgrade, are you referring to newer VR games that are more graphically intense? Probably just stick to high settings there, not like ultra really improves visuals a ton.

Upgrading to a 3700X doesn't really change your per core performance, but it does give you a lot more cores/threads which can help with fps dips in some games, would want 3600mhz CL16 RAM for it
 

 

[WickedStarfish]

23 minutes ago, Rosie199226 said:

Running with 3 monitors, one of them is a 4k monitor. When I connect my VR headset I disconnect one of the regular monitors so I can use that display port.

 

22 minutes ago, Slottr said:

I'd upgrade the gpu, to a 2070 or 5700 XT  at the least 

also if you plan on gaming on the 4k monitor you may want to move to a 2080 super or 2080ti

[i_build_nanosuits]

VR games can be extremely GPU demanding...and i've yet to play a VR game that was CPU intensive.

Your CPU is plenty for every VR games, i would upgrade your graphics card to a 2070 super or 2080.

[Queen Chrysalis]

I wouldn't upgrade yet.  The only card out there worth really upgrading to from a 980ti is the 2080ti and its too expensive right now.  That 980ti should still be fine until the next gen cards come out, at which point the 2080ti will be much cheaper.  Likewise, the 6700k is like a 3600x with 2 fewer cores, also similar to the 9600k (a little slower) which is fine.  Your system is fine man, people around here are to eager to always having the newest stuff.

[Rosie199226]

12 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

Doesn't seem like you'd need to upgrade, are you referring to newer VR games that are more graphically intense? Probably just stick to high settings there, not like ultra really improves visuals a ton.

I don't play VR as often as I used to, but every once in a while when I pick it up I've noticed new games have to go down to mid graphic settings and games I used to play on ultra have to go down to mid/high settings. It could be because the older games have been updated and maybe are more graphically demanding?

 

Arizona Sunshine is a good example of this. When it first came out I would play it at max graphics, now a days I have to go down to mid graphics for it to not lag.

[Queen Chrysalis]

Furthermore, when something really nice hits the market in a few years, you'll be happy to have waited and saved your money.  Especially with CPUs, which have REALLY stalled on the intel side.  Intels 10nm/7nm and AMDs 7nm++ will be much more worth haviing, along with better ray tracing GPUs (even the 2080ti can barely do it).

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Rosie199226 said:

I don't play VR as often as I used to, but every once in a while when I pick it up I've noticed new games have to go down to mid graphic settings and games I used to play on ultra have to go down to mid/high settings. It could be because the older games have been updated and maybe are more graphically demanding?

 

Arizona Sunshine is a good example of this. When it first came out I would play it at max graphics, now a days I have to go down to mid graphics for it to not lag.

You probably just have some windows or driver issue, reinstalling windows should fix any software issues. There's no reason for performance to go down over time like that.

[Rosie199226]

12 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

VR games can be extremely GPU demanding...and i've yet to play a VR game that was CPU intensive.

That's what I had read, but when I brought this question to my local computer store, the "computer expert" said that I should upgrade to having my games on an SSD instead to fix the gaming lag. That didn't sound right to me so i figured I'd bring the question here.

[Rosie199226]

6 minutes ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

I wouldn't upgrade yet.  The only card out there worth really upgrading to from a 980ti is the 2080ti and its too expensive right now.  That 980ti should still be fine until the next gen cards come out, at which point the 2080ti will be much cheaper.  Likewise, the 6700k is like a 3600x with 2 fewer cores, also similar to the 9600k (a little slower) which is fine.  Your system is fine man, people around here are to eager to always having the newest stuff.

Thanks for the advice! I wasn't sure if after three years I would need an upgrade or not. The 2080ti would be my next option for GPU, but as you mentioned, it's a bit on the expensive side right now...

[Queen Chrysalis]

12 minutes ago, Rosie199226 said:

Thanks for the advice! I wasn't sure if after three years I would need an upgrade or not. The 2080ti would be my next option for GPU, but as you mentioned, it's a bit on the expensive side right now...

Yeah.  Most of these chips are rated to last 10 years thermally.  3 years is just a bit quick on the draw.  Think about it, you could buy a new mid range system every three years, or a new extremely good system every 5.  during those extra 2 years, that extremely good system will still be as good as a new midrange system, as perfectly exemplified by your 6700k/980ti.  Almost any game you have should still be able to run on ultra at 1080p.  Even then, most of the differences between high and ultra are barely noticable, and it still looks leagues better than console.

[Rosie199226]

21 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

You probably just have some windows or driver issue, reinstalling windows should fix any software issues. There's no reason for performance to go down over time like that.

Never thought of that. I'll try it out when I can and see if it fixes anything.

Thanks!

[Rosie199226]

5 minutes ago, Queen Chrysalis said:

Yeah.  Most of these chips are rated to last 10 years thermally.  3 years is just a bit quick on the draw.  Think about it, you could buy a new mid range system every three years, or a new extremely good system every 5.  during those extra 2 years, that extremely good system will still be as good as a new midrange system, as perfectly exemplified by your 6700k/980ti.  Almost any game you have should still be able to run on ultra at 1080p.  Even then, most of the differences between high and ultra are barely noticable, and it still looks leagues better than console.

A few people here also mentioned overclocking, so I'll look into that to get some more performance out of my parts.

[Queen Chrysalis]

Just now, Rosie199226 said:

A few people here also mentioned overclocking, so I'll look into that to get some more performance out of my parts.

Oh yeah.  Its free performance.  The 980ti OCs pretty well, and the 6700k is night and day.  4.6GHz is easy, 4.7 is reasonable, and 4.8 is possible.  Its basically a whole new chip.  And while I nor anyone I know has ever damaged a chip from overclocking, there's no real downside if that were to happen, as the worst outcome would just be you having to upgrade a little early.  Hell, you basically have two years to overclock the bejeezus out of it with no worries whatsoever.  Have fun!

[Streetguru]

5 minutes ago, Rosie199226 said:

Never thought of that. I'll try it out when I can and see if it fixes anything.

Thanks!

Best to keep windows on it's own 120-150GB partition so it's easy to reinstall in the future.

[Rosie199226]

Thanks everyone for all the help!

It looks like I'm going to hold off on upgrading for a bit and look into overclocking my parts and re-installing windows.

 

If I find I'm still having performance issues, I'll grab a new GPU.

 

You guys have been great

[Streetguru]

25 minutes ago, Rosie199226 said:

Thanks everyone for all the help

If anything else you can just try running older drivers

 

but ya an OC'd 980ti is still just fine for 1440p medium-high gaming.

[i_build_nanosuits]

11 hours ago, Streetguru said:

If anything else you can just try running older drivers

 

but ya an OC'd 980ti is still just fine for 1440p medium-high gaming.

VR can be A LOT more demanding than that though...even 4K is easy when compared to VR.