Suitable GPU for VR
-
So since 4.37 has been released, I’ve been trying to pick out the right parts to build a new gaming pc that will run BMS VR at proper frame rates. For the motherboard, CPU etc. it’s pretty clear what the options are, but the current GPU market is actually quite complicated.
- RTX 4090: Sure, if I could just go to my money tree and pick some fresh money, this would be the best card. But I’d prefer not to spend as much money on a videocard as I did on my first car.
- RTX 4080: Probably a fine card, but terrible value for money right now.
- RT 7900 XTX: Looked very promising when AMD announced the low MSRP in dollars, but the euro prices and availability have so far been disappointing. It seems to perform about the same as a 4080, for roughly the same price, but lacks ray tracing and has a higher power consumption. Also, it looks like there might be a problem with the vapor chamber, which AMD hasn’t addressed yet.
So all this has gotten me looking at cards a level under these. Such as:
- RT 7900 XT: Bit of a crippled XTX. Bigger price difference in Europe than between the dollar MSRPs though, and doesn’t seem to be affected by the vapor chamber problem. For now.
- RT 6950 XT: Supposedly performs slightly under the 7900 XT.
- RTX 3090: Hasn’t gone down in price very much, considering the introduction of the 40-series.
- RTX 4070: At this level, I’m not sure if this is enough power for VR.
- Etc.
If I would know for certain that one of the less powerful cards would still be enough for BMS VR, then I’d be inclined to go with one of those now and perhaps upgrade in a few years.
Does anybody have the previous gen or mid-range cards and be willing to share how they perform in BMS VR? Do they provide a steady 45 or 90 frames per second? It would really help to know. Thank you!
-
You’ll be fine with 3070 for BMS, but imho its best to aim for getting a GPU that will get you VR in other cases as well - like MSFS. There you’ll do fine with 3070 as well, but 3090 would be better. Other than that - 4080 looks ok.
I would avoid AMD cards in this case tbh. Personally I’m fed up with their drivers. Also, depending on a VR headset you may have issues with AMD.
Where AMD does shine though is their current CPU lineup, which is also very important for VR. 5600x or even 5800x3d offer a significant boost in performance over equal Intel CPU’s, at least going by the MSFS VR tests. -
Thanks so much for the information! Interesting about the AMD video drivers. I’ve read very mixed things about them.
I totally agree about their CPUs, by the way. The 5800x3d does look great, but I think I’ll wait to see if they announce the 7000 CPUs with 3d cache at the CES in a few days. AM4 motherboards and the 5800x3d aren’t that much cheaper than AM5 over here, so I’d rather go with a platform that might be supported for another couple of generations.
-
@Ricky Why isn’t a 3080 or 3080Ti in your options list? You were considering a 4080.
-
@Ricky oh yeah true, I forgot about CES announcements, you’re right.
The thing with drivers is that I’ve been waiting for years for them to fix stuff, but when they do fix things for Vulkan, they break it for other things and so on. Also most stuff in Adrenalin (AMD driver frontend) doesn’t work for non directx 10 applications and…everything under directx 11 has issues due to the drivers. So idk.
-
Avoid AMD 7900 series, apparently they have design flaw in their cooling system that causes them to run too hot and throttle.
-
@Vyper37
At least reference ones, custom designs should be ok, ‘tho’ there are reports those aren’t doing well in VR for some strange reason.
In general 7x00 are kinda disappointment, at least for now. Too bad, I was hoping it’d live up to AMD advertisements. GPU market really needs solid competition and 6xx0 series brought a hope AMD got their s**t together. -
@Atlas For the price of a 3080, I can get a 7900 XT, with double the VRAM and roughly the performance of a 3090 at 4K. The prices for a 3080 Ti are only about 100 euros less than a 4080, which I think would be worth the difference.
The GPU market is just so messed up right now…
@Vyper37 Have you seen any news on the XT? I thought only the XTX was having trouble with hot spots and the vapor chamber.
-
@Ricky Good point with the 7900s, and if you DCS at all, consider VRAM amount, especially with a high resolution headset. I’ve seen it use 21gb of VRAM on the deck of the Supercarrier before with the 3090 and Pimax 8K X.
-
@Ricky said in Suitable GPU for VR:
The GPU market is just so messed up right now…
So true and it’s been a while since I’ve looked at prices so you may have a fair point there.
-
@Ricky said in Suitable GPU for VR:
…The GPU market is just so messed up right now…
The absolute worst time in memory to buy a GPU. Seems no real competition. Lot of the stuff is still new and some issues still arising, and demand is out stripping supply. Mid tier entrants, e.g. the 370ti, will ease the pressure, because it provides an option for those who don’t need a very high end card.
Wait as long as you can before jumping in., maybe until 4.37.1 Much too much flux in the market, unless you can afford the 4090, for which there’s no competition on the horizon from team red. my 0.02$
-
Well tbf nvidia gpu’s aren’t selling so well right now apparently. Nor are they willing to drop the prices.
Nevertheless its worth noting that all the custom fiddling with settings is currently not possible with AMD gpus. The drivers are really limited and love to crash.
-
Great advice, all, thank you.
I read something else important today, that I just wanted to share, in case anyone is following this thread. VR performance of both the 7900 XT and XTX are supposedly garbage. So there goes my hope of buying an “affordable” GPU with high performance in VR. It’s probably a driver problem, so might get fixed in the next few months, but I’m not going to buy such an expensive product with the hope it will improve.
-
Seems like RX7900XTX kills 3090TI in every parameter in cheaper price (just made an order on 1100$ equal to buying 3080TI), also cheaper from RTX4080 and having same performance in 4K.
VR seems like an issue, im hoping that one day they would fix it with better drivers and would have a proper support in the future (Well they want to eat nvidia costumers right ?)
I’ll update when i’ll have some results -
I have installed a 7900 XT in my machine. Compared to my 3060ti the experience is worse. The raw performance seems to be higher, I can use higher resolutions but I get some flickering on the icp if I move the head. I also have to use antialiasing in the game to improve flickering in general.
From my point of view their is an additional eye strain using this setup. I cannot tell if this is because of reprojection or other issues.