Upgrading hardware for HTC VIVE

[Deleted]

Update: Thank you very much, guys. I am confident with my current build but would embrace your feedback.

Proposed build:

Mainboard: Gigabyte Ga-H77M-D3H Socket 1155 (stays the same)
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 Box Socket 1155 CPU (4x 3.2 GHz) (stays the same and I will overclock it. I have to learn how, though)
GPU: AMD R9 Fury (upgrade!) 428.93 €
RAM: DDR3RAM 4x 4 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston HyperX (upgrade!) 34.01 €
HDD: Barracuda 7200.14 2 TB (upgrade!) 67.06 €
SSD: MyDigitalSSD 240GB (256GB) BP5e Slim 7 Series 7mm 2.5" SATA III (6G) SSD (upgrade!) 53.19 € (59.99$)
Power: 1000 Watt be quiet! Power Zone Modular 80+ Bronze (upgrade!) 158.81 €
(Case: Sharkoon Vaya MidiTower
Fan: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 CPU Cooler
OS: Windows 10) (upgrade :/ )

742.00 € in total

GPU: The low frame time variance convinced me to get the Fury.
RAM: 16 GB because why not? same sticks I use now
SSD: I will install Windows 10 (*sigh*) on the SSD and play games on the HDD. Do I have to get my hands on a better HDD?
HDD: Apparently, my old hdd sucks a$$
PSU: 1050 W may be over the top, but it's only 40 € more than the one with 850 W and will be sufficient for a decade. There is a good chance that I will use 2 GPUs in 5 years, too.

__________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________
Original Post:

Hey guys, I figured that lots of you guys know a whole lot more about computer builds (Srsly, I am rather clueless) and could give me an advice or two (PLEASE). I expect my HTC Vive to arrive here in May. Until then, everything has to be ready. I somehow managed to build (like, with hands) my PC on my own last time, although I got someone choosing the hardware for me.

These specs are pretty much three years old:

Mainboard: Gigabyte Ga-H77M-D3H Socket 1155
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 Box Socket 1155 CPU (4x 3.2 GHz)
GPU: Asus Geforce GTX660-DC2-2GD5
RAM: DDR3RAM 2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston HyperX
HDD: 500 GB Seagate Barracuda Spinpoint SATA 3 Gb/s
Power: Suepr Flower Amazon 80 Plus 550W ATX 2.2
(Case: Sharkoon Vaya MidiTower
Fan: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 CPU Cooler
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit)

I do not just want to hit recommended requirements, I want my machine to be considered awesome in 1 year to play VR games with very good/ultra setting.
However, here is what SteamVR recommends:

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 970, AMD Radeon™ R9 290 - equal or better
CPU: Intel® i5-4590, AMD FX 8350 (4x 3.3 GHz) - equal or better
RAM: 4 GB+
Video output: HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2 or newer
USB Port: 1x USB 2.0 or better
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10

Now I have a whole lot of questions.
1) Does the choice of my motherboard matter in any way or can I keep mine?

2) Apparently, my GPU is my biggest weakness. I always had Nvidia/Pentium Systems. However, following another discussion on MMOC led to believe I might want to have the Radeon R9 390 (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-please-thanks!). Besides, it is in the same pricerange, but tops the recommended R9 290, right? RIGHT? Should I get this one? Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 is just hitting the requirements and the improvement to 980 comes with a higher price not quite worth the extra-money. Did I get this right?

3) An employee in a major shop selling consumer electronics once told me to combine >ATI with AMD< only and >Pentium with Nvidia< only. Is it true? Are there any known smaller incompatibilities and do I HAVE to get an ATI processor? If not, is my processor good enough for now or shall I definately get a new one?

4) 8 GB Ram seem to be enough, don't you agree? Are their major differences depending on the manufacturer?

5) My motherboard allows to add a second graphics card. Meaning, I could upgrade my system in 3 years by adding another R9 390 (leading to 1.5 times the performance, right?). Do I need to have a power adapter with bigger wattage if I decide to do so? I need 750 W power supply anyway, don't I? Boy, how do I decide which one?

6) Should I get a SSD? People told me it is nice to install your OS on it, but it is not as rewritable as it should be to store your games on it. So combining HDD and SSD? Is there even a benefit?

7) Is my fan alright?

I do not have a 4k monitor, btw. Thanks guys!

[Fascinate]

Your system is fine just upgrade to a 390 or 970. VR does not work well with crossfire/sli right now and its gonna take a long while until it will.

[Deleted]

I appreciate the quick answer. However, I'd like to encourage everyone to share his opinion, so all the questions will be answered in the end. For instance, I do not know if I have to buy a new power generator.

I will be sleeping now, though. I'd love to see some discussion after logging in.^^

[Fascinate]

I purposely did not answer any of the other questions because you are overcomplicating this lol, your rig is fine for VR other than GPU

[Vash The Stampede]

Ashes of Singularity just came out and AMD cards are destroying Nvidia. A 390X is outperforming a 980 Ti. But anyway, don't buy a graphics card until AMD/Nvidia release new products this year. Better wait and see.

[mittacc]

I'm gonna hijack this thread for a bit.

I would like to buy an htc vive but I have a few questions.

1) Will my r9 290 really be enough? I'm planning on upgrading this summer to either the new cards or maybe a 390 depending on how much money I have then.

2) What type of output does it need? My displayport is...broken. So if it uses a displayport will I be able to use some kind of adapter or does it really require it?

3) I've heard people saying that it costs 800 dollars but I've only seen 899 when I looked at steam. Is there some kind of special offer that I can use?

Thanks!

[Lathais]

I'm gonna hijack this thread for a bit.

I would like to buy an htc vive but I have a few questions.

1) Will my r9 290 really be enough? I'm planning on upgrading this summer to either the new cards or maybe a 390 depending on how much money I have then.

2) What type of output does it need? My displayport is...broken. So if it uses a displayport will I be able to use some kind of adapter or does it really require it?

3) I've heard people saying that it costs 800 dollars but I've only seen 899 when I looked at steam. Is there some kind of special offer that I can use?

Thanks!

1) Would definitely wait and get one of the new cards, not a 390. The 490 should fall right into the same price bracket. It should be 20-40% more powerful for right around the same price.

2) As far as I know, it connects through HDMI.

3) https://store.htcvivecart.com/store/...870.1460397255
$799.00 direct from their website, at least in the US.

[Vash The Stampede]

I'm gonna hijack this thread for a bit.

I would like to buy an htc vive but I have a few questions.

1) Will my r9 290 really be enough? I'm planning on upgrading this summer to either the new cards or maybe a 390 depending on how much money I have then.

2) What type of output does it need? My displayport is...broken. So if it uses a displayport will I be able to use some kind of adapter or does it really require it?

3) I've heard people saying that it costs 800 dollars but I've only seen 899 when I looked at steam. Is there some kind of special offer that I can use?

Thanks!

#1 The 290 is a 390, but with a lower clock speed and 4GB less VRAM. Just overclock it and you'll have a 390.

#2 DisplayPort is needed, and how is it broken?

#3 HTC Vive's website has it for $800.

Here's a game to get you excited for it.

[Artorius]

Now I have a whole lot of questions.
1) Does the choice of my motherboard matter in any way or can I keep mine?

Keep yours.

2) Apparently, my GPU is my biggest weakness. I always had Nvidia/Pentium Systems. However, following another discussion on MMOC led to believe I might want to have the Radeon R9 390 (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-please-thanks!). Besides, it is in the same pricerange, but tops the recommended R9 290, right? RIGHT? Should I get this one? Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 is just hitting the requirements and the improvement to 980 comes with a higher price not quite worth the extra-money. Did I get this right?

The 390 is better than the 970 and is considerably better at VR than the 970.

3) An employee in a major shop selling consumer electronics once told me to combine >ATI with AMD< only and >Pentium with Nvidia< only. Is it true? Are there any known smaller incompatibilities and do I HAVE to get an ATI processor? If not, is my processor good enough for now or shall I definately get a new one?

ATI doesn't even exists anymore. And no, your CPU choice have nothing to do with your GPU choice. Both stick at the same place at the mobo and work just fine.

4) 8 GB Ram seem to be enough, don't you agree? Are their major differences depending on the manufacturer?

Yeah it might be fine but since RAM is cheap we tend to recommend 16 anyway. No, not really.

5) My motherboard allows to add a second graphics card. Meaning, I could upgrade my system in 3 years by adding another R9 390 (leading to 1.5 times the performance, right?). Do I need to have a power adapter with bigger wattage if I decide to do so? I need 750 W power supply anyway, don't I? Boy, how do I decide which one?

You'll do better just selling the old card and buying a stronger single-card solution when you need the upgrade. DX12 might fix multi-GPU setups so this might change in the future =)

6) Should I get a SSD? People told me it is nice to install your OS on it, but it is not as rewritable as it should be to store your games on it. So combining HDD and SSD? Is there even a benefit?

For overall computing usage a lot of people will say that a SSD is addicting because it'll cut your loading times by a lot, but your gaming experience won't really change. Completely optional.

7) Is my fan alright?

Most likely yes.

I'm gonna hijack this thread for a bit.

I would like to buy an htc vive but I have a few questions.

1) Will my r9 290 really be enough? I'm planning on upgrading this summer to either the new cards or maybe a 390 depending on how much money I have then.

They're the same card, don't waste your money.

2) What type of output does it need? My displayport is...broken. So if it uses a displayport will I be able to use some kind of adapter or does it really require it?

I think it connects with a displayport.

3) I've heard people saying that it costs 800 dollars but I've only seen 899 when I looked at steam. Is there some kind of special offer that I can use?
Thanks!

Someone else linked it for you =)

- - - Updated - - -

2) Depends on what you're doing. Nvidia still outperforms AMD in a number of areas.

Not really, and the thread is about VR which in itself is an area that AMD is way better than Nvidia.

[Lathais]

#1 The 290 is a 390, but with a lower clock speed and 4GB less VRAM. Just overclock it and you'll have a 390.

#2 DisplayPort is needed, and how is it broken?

#3 HTC Vive's website has it for $800.

Here's a game to get you excited for it.

-snip video-

DisplayPort is not needed:
http://www.htcvive.com/us/support/faqs/329207.html

It can use HDMI 1.4 or DisplayPort 1.2, according to the System requirements on their site.

[mittacc]

#2 DisplayPort is needed, and how is it broken?

A while back a cord got stuck somehow and had to drag it out in order to tinker with the computer and the connector broke when we tried to forcefully pull out the connector and half of it is still inside the port.

[Vash The Stampede]

A while back a cord got stuck somehow and had to drag it out in order to tinker with the computer and the connector broke when we tried to forcefully pull out the connector and half of it is still inside the port.

Sounds like an easy problem to solve?

[Jakexe]

Quick run down of how current cards are performing in the steam VR test. A score of 7+ puts it in the high zone which is generally the lowest you want to go. I personally get 8.6. I would recommend waiting until the new cards are out, they're getting shown june/july so IF you can wait that long that'd be the way to go.

[mittacc]

Sounds like an easy problem to solve?

Not sure how I could remove it when it was so stuck that the connector itself broke in half :/

[Deleted]

Keep yours.

The 390 is better than the 970 and is considerably better at VR than the 970.

ATI doesn't even exists anymore. And no, your CPU choice have nothing to do with your GPU choice. Both stick at the same place at the mobo and work just fine.

Yeah it might be fine but since RAM is cheap we tend to recommend 16 anyway. No, not really.

You'll do better just selling the old card and buying a stronger single-card solution when you need the upgrade. DX12 might fix multi-GPU setups so this might change in the future =)

For overall computing usage a lot of people will say that a SSD is addicting because it'll cut your loading times by a lot, but your gaming experience won't really change. Completely optional.

Most likely yes.
- - - Updated - - -

Thank you for your extensive reply! After reading a little bit, this is the setup I came up with:


Mainboard: Gigabyte Ga-H77M-D3H Socket 1155 (stays the same)
CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 Box Socket 1155 CPU (4x 3.2 GHz) (stays the same)
GPU: Radeon R9 390X (upgrade!)
RAM: DDR3RAM 4x 4 GB DDR3-1600 Kingston HyperX (upgrade!)
HDD: 500 GB Seagate Barracuda Spinpoint SATA 3 Gb/s
SSD: MyDigitalSSD 240GB (256GB) BP5e Slim 7 Series 7mm 2.5" SATA III (6G) SSD Solid State Drive - MDS7-BP5e-0256G (Upgrade!)
Power: XFX ProSeries P1-1050-BEFX 1050W ATX12V 2.2 / ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power PSU: (upgrade!)
(Case: Sharkoon Vaya MidiTower
Fan: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 CPU Cooler
OS: Windows 10) (upgrade :/ )


GPU: GTX980 or R9 390X. Are these two on par? GTX980 might be more expansive than Radeon's 390X, but I do not want to upgrade my GPU in a few years again. Is there any chance that it consumes less energy and might save me some money over the years? Besides, there are 10 different GPUs called R9 390X (see http://www.mindfactory.de/search_res...listing_sort/7). How to decide which one to take?
RAM: 16 GB because why not? same sticks I use now
SSD: I will install Windows 10 (*sigh*) on the SSD and play games on the HDD. Do I have to get my hands on a better HDD?
PSU: 1050 W may be over the top, but it's only 40 € more than the one with 850 W and will be sufficient for a decade. There is a good chance that I will use 2 GPUs in 5 years, too.


Could you comment on my choice? I will paste the new setup into the original post as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm I might want a quiet PSU...

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/1000-Watt-be-quiet--Power-Zone-Modular-80--Bronze_931033.html

comments?

[Remilia]

Quick run down of how current cards are performing in the steam VR test. A score of 7+ puts it in the high zone which is generally the lowest you want to go. I personally get 8.6. I would recommend waiting until the new cards are out, they're getting shown june/july so IF you can wait that long that'd be the way to go.

[IMG]http://media.bestofmicro.com/2/R/565155/original/image060-2.png[IMG]

You're missing the other half. Valve's scoring is based entirely on frame count, but nothing else, which is very misleading.

The other other half (whatever) that's missing in TH's is latency. This is something that AMD's is better at, where as Nvidia is quoted as "potentially catastrophic", even behind Intel's Skylake IGPU.

To illustrate (well link images).
This is the 980 Ti's frame time in VR.


This is the 960


This is the 380


And this is the Fury


One of the strongest card has relatively the same (if not worse) frame time as a mid low end AMD card and the Fury just stomps it.

And this is consistency.
AMD's


Nvidia's

[Jakexe]

You're missing the other half. Valve's scoring is based entirely on frame count, but nothing else, which is very misleading.

The other other half (whatever) that's missing in TH's is latency. This is something that AMD's is better at, where as Nvidia is quoted as "potentially catastrophic", even behind Intel's Skylake IGPU.

True. Thanks for adding the other half.

I'm just not sure how how latency affects the experience atm. If the card can hold well above 90fps then it shouldn't matter too much, then again latency does make you sick. I just have no idea what kind of levels result in what kind of experience. I think the fury would be the best option without knowing those.

I still have a fairly long wait on mine so I won't know for awhile.

[Artorius]

The difference should be clear once you experience both, regardless of the framerate.

[Deleted]

You're missing the other half. Valve's scoring is based entirely on frame count, but nothing else, which is very misleading.

The other other half (whatever) that's missing in TH's is latency. This is something that AMD's is better at, where as Nvidia is quoted as "potentially catastrophic", even behind Intel's Skylake IGPU.

Whoa, where's that one coming from suddenly?^^ I felt like people talk about 390 and 970/980 only. So due to low variance I should get myself a XFX Radeon Fury? It appears to have a better framerate than the 390, too. I thought VRAM was rather important for VR as well, but this one has 4 GB only.

[Evildeffy]

Whoa, where's that one coming from suddenly?^^ I felt like people talk about 390 and 970/980 only. So due to low variance I should get myself a XFX Radeon Fury? It appears to have a better framerate than the 390, too. I thought VRAM was rather important for VR as well, but this one has 4 GB only.

Well do you remember the reports about nausea when wearing VR headsets.
Most of that has to do with the frame-time variance, if the speed of the frames lag a bit behind (since FPS is not uniform) your brain has a difficult time understanding it and it will cause that.

Hence why the lower the variance the better the experience .. and in this case that means AMD is the victor for this generation of GPU tech.
This MAY or MAY NOT change with Pascal.. but only time will tell on that one.