Building a custom PC for DCS VR gaming, for my 65y/o father. Need advice...

I'll start by saying I'm no novice to custom PC building. I've got a full custom watercooled system with a 2080ti, Ryzen 3900x, 32GB RAM yadda yadda yadda...

Anyway, after my Wife and I hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house this year, my Dad fell in love with my DCS VR setup. He could not get enough and has been dead-set on getting a setup of his own, so he can play online with me.

He finally got the green light from my Mom to make it happen. As a result, I've started getting the parts list put together to build a system that will give him a solid DCS VR gaming experience, without going overkill. I'm going to get him an Oculus Rift S. I love mine and figure he can't go wrong there. I'm also sticking with the Thrustmaster t.16000m HOTAS, since that's what I have and it's been excellent.

With that aid, there are two areas I'm struggling with...

GPU: A 2080ti is obviously overkill but I don't want to hinder his DCS VR performance. My inclination is to go with a 2080 Super. But if a 2070 Super will give him the same performance, I am not opposed to saving a little money and going that route. I'm hesitant to go any lower than that as I do want to ensure he is at least slightly future-proofed, as well.

CPU: I'm partial to AMD, so I'm definitely going that route. I initially decided to go with a 3700x. But now I wonder if a 3600x would be perfectly adequate, in this case?

Anyway, I'm open to your thoughts and recommendations to get this project completed!

My 2 cents on this:

GPU: If money isn't an issue, 2080 Ti is hardly overkill for VR in DCS and getting a good experience. 2080S will be faster than 2070S and will get better performance. Now is that better performance worth the price difference to you? If he played on your setup and loved it, you running a 2080ti, I would say go with the 2080ti. Otherwise, go with the 2070/2080S but don't expect the same performance as the 2080ti.

CPU: As it stands now, you want the fastest chip (most Mghz per core) you can get rather than chips with more cores but at a lower speed as that is what DCS engine thrives on. Whether that is AMD or Intel...typically Intel pulls ahead in single core/gaming focused applications, but I've been out of the CPU game for over a year and not sure where the line is drawn now.

I use a Rift - S with my 2080 super and its performance is great. I use pretty high settings and my experience is pretty smooth across the board. Its pretty late in the cycle so if I were you I'd wait to see benchmarks on the 4000 series silicon and maybe wait till nvidia drops their next generation card before taking the plunge, just for comparison sake.

How does your father feel about going overkill? Maybe he wants the best parts available. :D

With DCS a 2080TI is far from overkill and in 2 years spec-wise will be outdated. And since ED has yet to do anything about multi-core support you want a CPU with the highest single-core performance and highest core Ghz, so Intel. But AMD's latest are great too (and cheaper) so probably wouldn't see much difference anyways.