PC Upgrade For VR Help

[Henstergamer523]

Hello All

After Building A Gaming PC and having it for around 2 years I thought I was time for an upgrade.
I was thinking about getting an oculus rift cv1 or htc vive (i tried the dk1 and was blown away by the immersion). I am on an extremely tight budget as i don't have a job (i am 13). i was thinking about upgrading my pc for VR and overall performance.

I do quite a lot of 3d rendering and simulation in blender and After Effects.

SPECS:
CPU: A8-5600k (excuse this poor decision, AMD GPUs where high priced at the time because of the cursed bitcoin mining and I wasn't planning on getting a dedicated GPU because i couldn't afford any. I didn't know it was bitcoin mining that brought the price up 200% or i would have waited :\)
GPU: Sapphire R9 285 2Gb (all i could afford at the time)
MOBO: A88x - Gamer Edition
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury 8Gb
PSU: 550w Cooler Master ( not sure *watt kind) (*get my pun?)



Any Help Would Be Great

 

[lifespill]

What's your budget?

 

[Henstergamer523]

~$400 AUD
around that

 

[Henstergamer523]

I was thinking an RX 480 would be a decent upgrade. Not sure if it worth the $350 on newegg.
The performance doesn't seem to different from a 285. I'm not sure if I should upgrade the cpu or gpu? I'm pretty sure I am getting a bottleneck.

 

[lifespill]

Occulus and htc vive both have for minimum requirements,i5 4690-fx 8370,gtx 970 r9 290.And these are the minimum requirements which propably mean low settings or resolution for vr gaming.So you will need a cpu upgrade for sure and only an i5 makes sense for now,also the rx 480 i think will be ok.But in general i dont think its worth the whole cost(plus the vr headset) for a new tech without any decent game at this moment,better to wait some time.

 

[Henstergamer523]

I was gonna wait till early 2017. Do you know if oculus and steamvr games us DX12? Because the rx480 destroys the 970 at dx12 games/apps. Do you think the A8 is giving me a bottleneck?

 

[helpstar]

yes the A8 is a huge bottleneck

 

[lifespill]

Yes absolutely,the a8 is too weak for vr even for normal gaming it will bottleneck any card above the 750ti.
What i said before is that vr may be cool,i have not tried it myself,but for its budget(500-600 the headset plus gpu 200-300 plus a decent cpu mobo psu another 200-300)and the games are available for its a no go.The only vr games i see on steam are just arcade rail shooters and some puzzle games.

 

[Henstergamer523]

What I5 should I get? Best bang for Buck. I5 5500? Should I get the K version? I have never overclocked before. Is buying PC parts if eBay a bad idea?

 

[lifespill]

You should get a i5 6500 with a cheap mobo,its more than enough.No need for a k cpu,the cost will rise cause you will need a good mobo also good cooling.

 

[Henstergamer523]

I have a hyper 212 evo with some good quality Corsair fans. What motherboard do you recommend? Is buying stuff of eBay a bad thing?

 

[helpstar]

Buying new parts on ebay most of the time is more expensive than from other shops. Used items could be defective but you could get lucky.
B150m motherboard from asus, msi, gigabyte with ddr4 support
you´ll have to buy ddr4 ram too

 

[Henstergamer523]

Is DDR4 Ram worth it? Should I wait till the price goes down?

 

[helpstar]

the price is down at the moment.
I5 6500 CPU will want DDR4. DDR3 would work with special motherboards, but they would bottleneck the skylake CPU. Better getting DDR4 now than later. If you wanna replace ddr3 in the future, you would have to buy a complete new motherboard with it.

 

[Henstergamer523]

Ok thanks.
Do you think I would benefit from 16gb vs 8gb?
Is the i5 6500 going to perform well in Adobe after effects, blender cycles and Unity Game Engine?

 

[helpstar]

definitely 16GB

if you work with these tools, you should consider an i7 CPU

 

[Henstergamer523]

Ok,
I was thinking of getting an Gtx 980ti or 1070.
Do you think crossfiring another r9 285 would be a smart move?

 

[helpstar]

I´m not a big fan of crossfire/SLI. If you could get a cheap card under 120$, it would be ok.
But you would still be bottlenecked by 2GB VRAM, because the VRAM will not be doubled. And more and more games are demanding over 4GB, even over 6GB of VRAM.
Think about AMD RX4 series and nvidia 1000 series.