I need help prepping my pc for VR.

[deserteagle421]

(Specs down below) Hello, I was looking to upgrade my pc to hopefully make it VR capable. I'm still a novice when it comes to building pc's. My mobo's website says that I have best cpu compatible with it. At least I think it does. Anyway, I was planning on upgrading my graphics card to a nvidia gtx 970. I did test's on the HTC VIVE Sys Req. which said I need to upgrade my GPU. But, the tests for the Oculus Rift say I will need a cpu upgrade as well as a GPU upgrade. Now, am I boned because of my cpu to make my pc VR capable? Or, should I consider overclocking my CPU to eliminate the bottleneck? Also, I am confused about my CPU not being an Intel Core i5- 4590 equivalent because the specs say its has 3.3 ghz quad core and my cpu is an AMD FX 4.0 GHZ 8-core? I suppose this is where my lack of knowledge about cpu's lies. Anyway, any help would be appreciated.
SPECS
CPU : AMD FX 8370 8- core 4.0 ghz
GPU : Radeon R9 280X
PSU : Thermaltake 750w + gold
RAM : 8 GB Corsair
MOBO : Gigabyte 9070A-UD3P
Case : CoolerMaster Elite

 

[Samat]

When are you planning to buy a VR set? Looking at the availability and delays with delivery for preorders on both Oculus and HTC sets I'd recommend waiting before any upgrades solely for VR readines. Also both AMD and nVidia will release new products during the summer (AMD is promising GTX 980 TI or better performance level at 300$ price point), so you would be wasting a lot of money now if you are only going to get the VR set in a year or so. Also AMD should release it's new Zen CPU this year, so depending on how well it can compete against Intel in performance we might see some price changes on CPU side aswell.

 

[Gallarian]

I agree with the above;

By all means pre-order your VR system now, but wait until you have a delivery date before you upgrade your PC - there are a lot of new releases on the horizon that could turn out to be great for VR-spec systems!

As for some of your other questions - Your CPU is much less important for VR, as currently most VR titles are single player or feature only limited player counts or NPC counts. This means that the your CPU isnt having to work that hard. Meanwhile, your GPU is taking the vast majority of the strain to try and keep frame rates above 90fps at 1920x1080 resolution. So that should be your main concern.

Games do benefit from more CPU cores, but don't really see any benefit from any more than 4. They perform much better on a quad-core that has faster cores, than an 8-core with slower ones. Unfortunately for AMD, it recently put all its money on the latter, so Intel CPUs are definitely better for gaming right now.

I think holding out for the new graphics cards to launch would be your best option, as a good GPU upgrade is going to be all you need to run VR well.

Have you ran the Steam VR test? Thats usually a good place to start if not.

 

[deserteagle421]

Ok, I think you are right by waiting seeing as how the pre-orders wont be out for a while. If amd is promising a good gpu for the summer I think I can wait. I wonder when new tech like gpus come out do they usually early or middle summer? I don't know I suppose I can do some research. Thanks for the info I really appreciate it! Im just really excited for the simulation aspects of VR and Horror. I can already see those genres are really going to flourish for VR. Whoo hoo! It's like I finally get to dogfight with my neck craned up and all over the place in a F/A-18 hornet, it may sound like a pain in the neck but I can't wait lol

 

[deserteagle421]

I agree with the above;

By all means pre-order your VR system now, but wait until you have a delivery date before you upgrade your PC - there are a lot of new releases on the horizon that could turn out to be great for VR-spec systems!

As for some of your other questions - Your CPU is much less important for VR, as currently most VR titles are single player or feature only limited player counts or NPC counts. This means that the your CPU isnt having to work that hard. Meanwhile, your GPU is taking the vast majority of the strain to try and keep frame rates above 90fps at 1920x1080 resolution. So that should be your main concern.

Games do benefit from more CPU cores, but don't really see any benefit from any more than 4. They perform much better on a quad-core that has faster cores, than an 8-core with slower ones. Unfortunately for AMD, it recently put all its money on the latter, so Intel CPUs are definitely better for gaming right now.

I think holding out for the new graphics cards to launch would be your best option, as a good GPU upgrade is going to be all you need to run VR well.

Have you ran the Steam VR test? Thats usually a good place to start if not.

Thanks for the info Gallarian. I ran the test and it said I should consider updating my cpu. But, I will wait for the next wave of tech to come out this summer. I'm starting to build a collection of spare computer parts, I wonder if it would be wise to build another computer to sell or try and sell my old tech (cpu, gpu ect.) after I make an upgrade? I don't know haha anyways have a good one.