Good GPU Upgrade Options for VR?

[ThePinda]

My current system, constructed back in 2015, is starting to show its age a little bit:

CPU: i7 4790K @ 4.7 GHz

RAM: 16GB DDR3

GPU: Radeon R9 390 @ 1040 MHz

 

Specifically, although it can handle light VR applications well, it tends to rely very heavily on reprojection in heavier/more unoptimized titles (like Fallout 4 VR), even on the lowest settings. Although it's usually smooth, it's not the best experience. I'm considering upgrading my GPU to get a better experience -- currently looking at the RTX 2060 SUPER and the RX 5700 XT. I also understand that my CPU might bottleneck the system somewhat, but I don't think a CPU upgrade is worth it at the moment (correct me if I'm wrong), especially considering that the main issue seems to be the graphics.

 

Would the two graphics cards I mentioned be a good pick for my system to give a decent VR experience at medium-high settings, maybe even with some increased supersampling? Are there any other GPUs that might fit the bill better?

[Guest]

what's your budget?

[KnowledgeByTech]

Used 1080Ti`s are the best bet rn, they are faster than both 2060 Super`s and 5700xt`s, plus they`re priced similarly at roughly $400-$450 USD for a good A.I.B. card when you price filter your search on ebay. I personally bought an EVGA FTW3 1080Ti for just $431.60 USD today.

[ThePinda]

2 hours ago, uTogglin said:

what's your budget?

Around $400 would be the sweet spot, lower would be nice if possible. I don't mind going up to $450, but probably not higher.

 

1 hour ago, KnowledgeByTech said:

Used 1080Ti`s are the best bet rn, they are faster than both 2060 Super`s and 5700xt`s, plus they`re priced similarly at roughly $400-$450 USD for a good A.I.B. card when you price filter your search on ebay. I personally bought an EVGA FTW3 1080Ti for just $431.60 USD today.

That seems like an interesting choice. Do the ray tracing capabilities of the RTX cards help them in any significant way in VR?

[Dash Lambda]

37 minutes ago, ThePinda said:

Around $400 would be the sweet spot, lower would be nice if possible. I don't mind going up to $450, but probably not higher.

 

That seems like an interesting choice. Do the ray tracing capabilities of the RTX cards help them in any significant way in VR?

I don't know of any raytracing VR games, and it would feel very strange for that to exist right now, at least for me.

 

The thing is, raytracing is an extremely demanding feature, and VR games are probably the most sensitive to performance in the industry. The minimum expected framerate is 90hz, and if it isn't stable people tend to get motion sick very quickly. You'll notice that most VR games either use very simple graphics or find clever ways to eliminate certain details or effects, because they have to. Unless something's changed, enabling RTX generally almost halves the framerate and makes it considerably less stable.

 

Essentially, if a VR game did implement raytracing, one of two things would happen: It would compromise so much in other ways that it wouldn't matter anyway, or there wouldn't actually be a video card on the market right now capable of running it.

 

So I wouldn't worry about RTX for VR right now. Give it about two generations.

[Guest]

I had been happily running my Rift S on an RX580Nitro+ for the last couple of months (until it started to coil whine so I returned it and am replacing with an r5700xt)

But the RX580 Nitro+ was handling everything I was playing in VR (I had the rift set to prioritize quality over performance) and I was also supersampling the resolution at 1.2 all the time.

Beat Saber, Gun Club, Minecraft, Assetto Corsa all ran very nicely indeed.

 

In addition to that my son occasionally borrows the Rift S and uses it on his rig which is using a GTX1060 6gb and without any super sampling and using the default Oculus settings all the games were running just fine for him too.

 

As for 2070 Super s 5700XT I'd expect you would have a great experience with either but as I've been learning recently not all 5700XTs are created equal.

I had no idea that there could be good ones and bad ones. So whatever you go for, nvidia or amd, I'd post a follow up question asking which 2070 super or which 5700xt to go for and see what people advise