CPU Performance In VR: 11 Games Benchmarked

[cangelini]

We test five platforms across 11 Oculus Rift games using a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in order to determine how your choice of CPU affects performance.

CPU Performance In VR: 11 Games Benchmarked : Read more

 

[lightofhonor]

At the end you recommend the Ryzen 5/i5 but don't actually test it. Also, a 1700 or 1700X would be a better apples-to-apples 7700K price comparison.

 

[zippyzion]

Great article and lots of good testing. Now, since we've determined the best CPU for VR, do you think, perhaps, that you could take different GPUs and slot them into a 7700K system to give us relative GPU performance? Say from the RX 480/580, 1060, 1070, 1080, and 1080Ti? Or possibly throw a Vega into the mix?

You might also consider doing a VR at budget review pairing components that make sense in different budget segments. Like an i3 or i5/RX 480 or 1600, i5/1060 or 1070, i7/1070 or 1080, or something like that.

If the goal is to help speed up VR adoption we need ideas of how VR would work on a variety of system configurations. If people don't know if their borderline system can handle VR without an upgrade, they aren't going to even try it.

 

[Sakkura]

I don't know why you disregard the minimum requirements specified by Oculus, when your tests confirm that a Core i3 and FX CPU both run well with ASW. That was the whole point of Oculus lowering system requirements - the ASW feature means the system can be basically half as powerful and still deliver a playable experience.

Of course you wouldn't want to combine a GTX 1080 Ti with a low-end CPU like that, but a Core i3 or FX CPU with a GTX 1050 Ti will get you going in VR.

I'm also disappointed that you didn't include Lone Echo in the test. A lot more relevant than a mobile port like Gunjack, and it seems to be one of the most CPU-intensive VR games so far.

But at the end of the day it's still great to get some data on general VR performance.

Next up, maybe a Core i5-7600K and some older-gen chips from Intel? People don't all have the newest hardware, and might want to see if they can get a VR headset without a PC platform upgrade.

 

[cangelini]

The Core i3 had dropped-frame issues in CryEngine-based games that ASW didn't fix--for that reason, I'd try to free up budget for a quad-core if possible. The FX, of course, simply isn't balanced with a 1080 Ti (a point I tried to make in the conclusion after looking at the experiment's data). In the ends, as with regular PC gaming, it's a question of whether you want to "get going in VR" or have some room to turn up details and render 90 real frames per second. Leaning on ASW exclusively does introduce artifacts of its own--maybe we can illustrate that with slowed-down video in an upcoming piece (screenshots from the primer story may not be enough?). Thank you for the feedback!

Chris

 

[kokolordas15]

Please retest Pcars with a proper framerate.If you could also specify how many cars you have enabled in the run that would be nice.

The CPU gets hit extremely hard the more cars you add.

 

[artk2219]

These results are great data points but as other have pointed out, it seems you opened up a can of worms :-/. What about different configurations, different settings, older hardware, R9 290's instead of RX 480's / 580's etc etc. I love what you've given us so far, and i know you are definitely under time and budget constraints, but this begs a follow up article with more data points. Thanks for all you guys do though, i know you work hard and put out the best that you can, its just never enough for some of us .

 

[pdlevers]

I would be curious to see how a 2600k/2700k overclocked stacks up. A lot of people are stilling running those workhorses, and in many games they perform quite well despite being 5-6 years old.

 

[sucker25]

Well I have a 3770k running at 4.6 ghz with a 1080 ti ...............with the htc vive all my vr games run flawlessly.
neither my video card nor cpu hit the 100% utilization mark.
if I had to I could still get a little more out of my cpu as I'm only hitting 40 degrees c.
was thinking of upgrading to 7700k but imo the difference in performance would be marginal.......so I will wait a little longer.

 

[chalabam]

I watched all those games on youtube, and not a single one made me want to play the game.

Sorry, but 3D by itself is not a good reason to buy VR. All 3D games suck.

 

[Scarystuff1970]

I wonder why every test have dropped frames? Have you done any investigation into what causes them? Even Gunjack with more than 400 fps have dropped frames? There must be a problem with a Windows process halting everything else? Maybe the same problem that have plaqued Win10 since the Creators Update with lag spikes in all games?

Also I think it would maybe have been more appropiate if you had disabled ASW in these tests?

 

[Sakkura]

I watched all those games on youtube, and not a single one made me want to play the game.

Sorry, but 3D by itself is not a good reason to buy VR. All 3D games suck.

You cannot judge a VR game by a flat youtube video. It's simply impossible to convey the experience in that format.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Agree with Sakkura. Watching a video of VR is utterly insufficient to convey the experience. It's amazing just doing something as basic as flying around in Valkyrie's tutorial areas or watching the Apollo 11 VR experience.

Worth every penny today and it's only getting better as more games/experiences come out.

For me, it supplements my "normal" gaming habit, it doesn't replace it. For now...

 

[dbrees]

It would be interesting to see where an i5-7600 non K sits on the chart. I picked it up for an SFF build and didn't want overclocking so it would stay cool.

 

[John Nemesh]

A shame you didn't include Threadripper in your analysis! I would also have liked to see numbers with the Ryzen overclocked to 4Ghz...as this is very common. Also, I think it would have been good to test with the HTC Vive as well, to eliminate any possible differences due to the VR platform.

 

[Sakkura]

A shame you didn't include Threadripper in your analysis! I would also have liked to see numbers with the Ryzen overclocked to 4Ghz...as this is very common. Also, I think it would have been good to test with the HTC Vive as well, to eliminate any possible differences due to the VR platform.

I dunno about Threadripper, the extra cores would probably just have been sitting idle, the same way they did on the Core i9. Overclocking would have been nice, but it's a lot of added work for the reviewer.

HTC Vive tests would also have been nice, but it's another doubling of the entire workload. And aside from ASW, performance in the same games should be very similar (not that it wouldn't be nice to have that assumption put to the test, but I'm still pretty confident in it).

 

[decapitatedkm]

It doesn't make sense to recommend an 7700k over a ryzen. There's not need to buy 1800x, 1700 will suffice and it's cheaper than the 7700k. AMD B350 motherboard (enough to overclock) is also a bit cheaper.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Please retest Pcars with a proper framerate.If you could also specify how many cars you have enabled in the run that would be nice.

The CPU gets hit extremely hard the more cars you add.

Isn't that the point of this? To hit the CPU hard to see how well it will handle the games? I wouldn't want it so weak on the CPU in a CPU benchmark that everything looks great then when you try to crank up details the game becomes worse.

I wonder why every test have dropped frames? Have you done any investigation into what causes them? Even Gunjack with more than 400 fps have dropped frames? There must be a problem with a Windows process halting everything else? Maybe the same problem that have plaqued Win10 since the Creators Update with lag spikes in all games?

Also I think it would maybe have been more appropiate if you had disabled ASW in these tests?

What lag spike? I have been on every 10 update on launch and no games I have played have shown this lag spike.

It doesn't make sense to recommend an 7700k over a ryzen. There's not need to buy 1800x, 1700 will suffice and it's cheaper than the 7700k. AMD B350 motherboard (enough to overclock) is also a bit cheaper.

The i7 7700K is clocked, stock, at a higher speed than most people have gotten the 1700 to OCed. It also outperforms the 1700 in most games pretty handily stock and more OCed.

Also the price difference is $40 bucks (Newegg $295 for the 1700 and $340 for the 7700K). Motherboards are well within each other but that depends on the person and what they want for it.

So if the 7700K OCs better, costs just slightly more and provides and overall better VR experience, why not recommend it?

 

[jdwii]

I hope they used a MSI board as they are VR ready out of the box lol

 

[AlcaloidedoErgot]

I would like to see Elite: Dangerous to the mix and i5 2500k overclocked too. This article is so nice and welcome that I believe the site should continue on more VR benchmarks... VR is growing.

 

[randomizer]

So my i7 920 might have trouble it seems.

 

[dark_lord69]

I wanted to see i5 CPU's
7600 or 6600 class would have been nice to see the benchmarks.

 

[artk2219]

So my i7 920 might have trouble it seems.

At stock speeds, probably. An overclock to around 4ghz should help out quite a bit though, and as im sure you know, that 920 is a bit long in the tooth. I wonder how an overclocked 970 or 980 would do though, or any of the 6 core xeons you can get for much cheaper and overclock.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/TYPE-Xeon%203600.html

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/TYPE-Xeon%205600.html

 

[cinergy]

AMD CPUs tend to be faster with AMD GPUs. Having gayforce here gives intel CPUs and edge.

 

[bitboyben]

You did Pcars wrong. Delete your gtx config file. It will make one for VR. AA is garbage so get rid of as much as you can. Use super sampling instead. Also turn off Interleve reprojection. Or whatever the Occulus version of that is. If you can't quite make 90 fps it drops to 45fps. You just can't run Pcars any where near max settings but if you do it right it looks amazing and is very playable.