Upgrade old rig for VR/1440p ultra wide

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Hi all,

I need some advice with regard to my current PC and what&when to upgrade to give me good performance in VR/1440p ultra wide. Its base build was 2012 and pretty much been left alone apart from the removal of 2x 7970s and the installation of the 980ti.

It was all originally water-cooled however I've removed this although it can be reused with the correct parts in the future (air cooling works very well and often I'm not in the same room so noise is not an issue).

Current specs:

  • i5 3570k @ 4.2
  • Gigabyte Z77X D3H
  • 256GB SSD & 512GB SSD
  • Silverstone Strider Plus 750W Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply
  • Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB
  • Zalman Midi Case
  • Zotac GeForce GTX 980Ti AMP Omega Edition 6144MB GDDR5 @ +20 Core & +340 Mem
  • 34" QHD ultra wide monitor
  • Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler
  • Oculus Quest connects via virtual desktop (wifi) or link cable to play Steam VR games/ Oculus.
So, hardware that has lasted very well since the original build but is showing its age. I feel that games in VR would benefit from more horsepower. I've not been disappointed but do occasionally feel the PC to struggle and I suspect I will be interested in buying a PCVR headset should I continue to enjoy VR.

Realistically I'm wanting to get the best bang for the buck which is why I'm considering a motherboard/CPU/RAM upgrade initially and seeing how this performs with the 980ti - if I still have issues either look for a deal on a 2070s/2080s/5700XT which should tide me over for at least two years?

New Spec

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £388.97 (includes shipping: £0.00)

This seems to be the best set of components for my requirement, however - should I buy the graphics card first and upgrade the above list at a later date, if so what kind of bottleneck is my CPU & Ram going to create?

Thanks,
 
Associate
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12 Oct 2013
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I have a 980 Ti and used to have a 6600k and then upgraded to a Ryzen 3700X and it was well worth it. The 3600 will be just as good I'd imagine. Definitely upgrade that CPU first and then look to upgrade the GPU in the next few years.
 
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OP
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6 Apr 2006
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Thanks for that.

I've considered the 3700x, it's an additional £170 over the 3600 considering a good deal on a bundle. I just don't see the performance to cover that amount.

The 980ti is a great card, I am considering a 2060s to tide me over however I'll see how it performs before i part with any money.

noticed that afew VR games have auto set to low/medium and I've noticed micro stutters which im sure is CPU bound.
 
Soldato
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manchester,uk
Thanks for that.

I've considered the 3700x, it's an additional £170 over the 3600 considering a good deal on a bundle. I just don't see the performance to cover that amount.

The 980ti is a great card, I am considering a 2060s to tide me over however I'll see how it performs before i part with any money.

noticed that afew VR games have auto set to low/medium and I've noticed micro stutters which im sure is CPU bound.

The 3700X is £97 more than the 3600 on here. You don't need to change the board from the Tomahawk MAX.
 
Soldato
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Finland
I've considered the 3700x, it's an additional £170 over the 3600 considering a good deal on a bundle. I just don't see the performance to cover that amount.
Are you plannng to have CPU as place holder for future update when Zen3 comes out?
Next-gen consoles will bring variant of 3700X as base level hardware for next-gen games before Christmas.
So if wanting longer higher end time six core isn't good.

Before updating graphics card would definitely wait for next-gen graphics cards to come out, if you want long time return for money.
Except for 5700 XT cards are historically horribly Nvidia overpriced for performance/lack of real future proofness.


No sense to pay £100 for 3600MHz kit.
This is the most sensible kit for £80.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-blac-my-0a3-tg.html
 
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OP
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Refering to the price difference, elsewhere bundles for the 3600 can be had for around £350 + RAM which seems to be where the price difference as opposed to a standard part picked 3700x set up.

Realistically I would be keeping this set up for a good while so would prefer the future proofing the 3700x would give if the price difference makes for a worth while investment.

I am happy to wait for the next gen Nvidia if the 980ti can give suitable performance for the next 6-9months.

Worst case a second hand keenly priced card could tide me over for minimal outlay..
 
Soldato
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Posts
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Location
Finland
Realistically I would be keeping this set up for a good while so would prefer the future proofing the 3700x would give if the price difference makes for a worth while investment.

I am happy to wait for the next gen Nvidia if the 980ti can give suitable performance for the next 6-9months.
Improved architecture Zen3 CPUs are coming for current AM4 socket.
So upgrade from 3600 to those would be one possible path.

And that's exactly the wrong thing to say, unless you want to get screwed into butt with even bigger caber.
You should be waiting for who gives performance for reasonable money before deciding anything.
With people lining up to demand more rape&robbery Nvidia is sure to keep horrible pricing, propably even trying to go for another butt.. er price pump up if getting to release first.

AMD has cards coming out with raytracing architecture developed also for next-gen consoles.
For example next Xbox will come out with 2080 Super level GPU, estimated very conservatively from number of processing units...
And no doubt that architecture has been AMD's long term GPU goal with improvements everywhere.

Actually even Intel should be bringing some discrete graphics cards out this year.
Though they're most likely to be mid range products.
Although Intel would certainly also have bank account size to aim higher, if they want to surprise.
 
Associate
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I am happy to wait for the next gen Nvidia if the 980ti can give suitable performance for the next 6-9months.

Worst case a second hand keenly priced card could tide me over for minimal outlay..

the 980Ti should be able to run pretty much anything at 1440p with compromises where needed... Hell I run some games at 4k but of course I want better frame rates.

Don't waste your money on a 2060 imho, what you want is what a lot of us want a 2080Ti level of performance without the over inflated price tag which hopefully will start to correct soon. Whilst a used 1080Ti might make sense its again way overpriced because of the demand don't pay more than £300 for one imho.
 
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