Seeing if I can upgrade for VR

Lord Spence

Hi All,

I built my custom PC back in Early 2013. Looking to upgrade it to be Vr compatible. Wondering if it is even possible and if it is any advise and what I need to change in order to upgrade. Thanks.

Current Setup:

RAM: 8GB G.Skill kit RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL9
Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Socket AM3
Motherboard: ASRock 970DE3 / U3S3, AM3 +, ATX
Case: Cooltek CT K5 3.0, without power supply
Power Supply: be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 400W
Graphics Card: MSI R7790-1GD5 / OC, 1024MB GDDR5, PCI Express (Think this is faulty as I keep getting blue screen crashes)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb / s

K.O.Kiki

Go for a full rebuild, the only parts you can salvage are the case & HDD.
It's simply too many generations behind overall - 6 10 years is an eternity.

https://babeltechreviews.com/vr-wars-the-rtx-2060-super-vs-the-rx-5700-xt-vs-the-rtx-2070-super/


New AMD RX 5700 or used GTX 1080 is probably your best bet under €400 for GPU.

Lord Spence

Yeah thought as much, oh well. Thanks for the reply.

Saadyst

I built my current PC back in 2011 or 2012 - i5-3570k and 8GB RAM. Not sure how that compares to the AMD Phenom, but I'm doing fine in VR...

Have a 1080ti, an HTC vive and no real issues (mostly play Elite).

I think you're always going to have to compromise in VR games - it's that much more demanding. AA etc. have a lot less of a noticeable impact when you have the screendoor effect a lot of the time. FPS is more important. The immersion does take over after a while so you stop noticing the minor details.

Before I rebuild/upgrade, I'm going to wait on an improved headset to come out that has a higher resolution, and/or foveated rendering.

K.O.Kiki

Saadyst wrote: »

I built my current PC back in 2011 or 2012 - i5-3570k and 8GB RAM. Not sure how that compares to the AMD Phenom, but I'm doing fine in VR...

AMD Phenom II X4 965 is a 140W CPU originally released in 2009...

Clock-for-clock (e.g. at 3.4GHz) the 3570K is probably 60-80% faster, if not more. And it can be OCd to 4.5GHz with ease IIRC

The Phenom is a dinosaur, it needs to be put away.

Lord Spence

With the motherboard and power supply I have would I simply be able to upgrade the processor and graphics card?

M00lers

Lord Spence wrote: »

With the motherboard and power supply I have would I simply be able to upgrade the processor and graphics card?

You could but you shouldn't. An overclocked FX8350 and a newish graphics card would yield you some improvement but you really are throwing good money after bad.

Your experience would be sub par and leave you frustrated and that's even if the motherboard was up to the task of safely powering the 8350 (unlikely) which is a power hungry ****er. VRM and chipset cooling would need to be top notch and IIRC that mobo isn't.

Just spotted your PSU.... not advisable to use that with anything that uses more power than what you already have..

Just save up for a budget Ryzen build.

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£49.17 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£60.48 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£44.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II EVO 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £204.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-16 11:09 BST+0100

€235 CPU/mobo/RAM/PSU upgrade

Then add a GPU - even a €100 RX 570 would be a huge upgrade.

Lord Spence

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 1200 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor (£49.17 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£60.48 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£44.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II EVO 520 W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £204.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-10-16 11:09 BST+0100

€235 CPU/mobo/RAM/PSU upgrade

Then add a GPU - even a €100 RX 570 would be a huge upgrade.

Would that run VR though?

M00lers

Lord Spence wrote: »

Would that run VR though?

Yes, it beats minimum requirements by a decent amount but newer demanding games will probably have to be played with lowish settings. Spend more on a better GPU if you can but the CPU(which can be upgraded whenever it suits) and motherboard,RAM etc. is a solid base to start with.

Lord Spence

M00lers wrote: »

Yes, it beats minimum requirements by a decent amount but newer demanding games will probably have to be played with lowish settings. Spend more on a better GPU if you can but the CPU(which can be upgraded whenever it suits) and motherboard,RAM etc. is a solid base to start with.

Great thanks for the advice

K.O.Kiki

Oh, forgot the most important upgrade:
SSD!

A 480-512Gb drive (€55-60) is a must.