Vive Build - couple of questions.

[Switch3000]

Hi,

I'm about to buy all the bits for a new build for a Vive.

My current machine was just in spec and while it does still work, it struggles quite alot.

I'm going the AMD route as I like the underdog, most likely a 1800X or 1700X on an ASUS Prime x370. I was looking at the g-skill flare x 3200 2x8, but wondering if it's worth trying anything else.

Also, this will be my first foray into PCIE ssd, I'm looking at the Samsung pro 960 512GB. Any other recommendations, to keep costs lower and/or better performance?

I'll be going for a Vega too on release and limping along with a 970 till then. I realistically would like to run Elite Dangerous in VR with as few glitches as possible, and the highest SS I can get; I'm due an upgrade anyway so it's not the be all and end all of it, as I fully expect issues with regards that. I've tested my vive on a 6700k with a 1080 in Elite and while it was close, it wasn't quite good enough.

I theoretically could go higher on the MB and have that spare slot of SLI/Crossfire, but I was under the impression that it's not much use in VR anyway, is that still the case (this was my findings 6+months ago).

Cheers! :-D

 

[Sakkura]

The PCIe SSD won't do much for you in VR... well, I guess anything you can do to cut down loading times is nice, but it's only going to be a very small difference. The 960 Pro is really expensive, I would at least consider the cheaper but still very fast 960 Evo. There are a variety of other options, but Samsung holds the top few spots in terms of performance.

SLI/Crossfire, in their normal form, don't work at all in VR. And while there are VR-specific version of both SLI and Crossfire, practically no games support them at the moment. So yeah, multiple GPUs are currently useless for VR.

The rest seems reasonable. You don't really NEED a high-end 8-core CPU for VR, but it's not like it hurts anything. And can be useful for other workloads.

 

[Switch3000]

Indeed, I was just kind of looking to see if I'd missed something quicker in the SSD line.

As for the high end 8 core, I'm more likely to be playing Elite Dangerous in VR, and that in testing on my Vive I've found across multiple machines that the CPU processing time reduced the amount of time that the GPU got to render the frame; realistically what's required is a lower thread count but higher clock speed, but the reasons behind getting the 8 core was to give it a bit more future proofing, and I run VM's now and then. It'll also mean I get another year out of the system before upgrading again Looking at that Evo, I think you've just saved me 50 quid! :-D