Ryzen 1600X + 1080Ti + Oculus

Ladies and Gents,

I've seen a fair bit of back and forth over Ryzen/Intel on the forums of late, but I haven't been able to find anything talking specifically to VR.

I am returning home from some time away in a few weeks, and will have some money in my pocket. It's time for a new system, and I want to go all out. My specs will be as follows:

EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 Gaming

32Gb DDR4 3200

Samsung 960 Evo NVMe (500Gb)

For processor, I am really torn between the following:

R5 1600X / Asus ROG Crosshair VI Hero; or

i7 7700K / Asus ROG Maximus IX Hero.

I know that the 7700K will be faster out of the gate, and after overclocking. I am taking a bit of a longer view, expecting that the AM4 socket will support 2 or 3 more "optimizations" of Ryzen, which I believe may close the single thread IPC gap. However, LGA1155 is dead, and there will be no upgrade path for the 7700K. So, ultimately, it's a balance between the best performance NOW, and the potential for better performance later. Also, the AM4 motherboard has more features than the comparably priced LGA1155 board (specifically much more connectivity for all those USB slots I need for HOTAS, Oculus, etc.)

So, my question: Has anyone run a Ryzen system with a 1080 or 1080Ti, In VR? Will the reduced performance of Ryzen be significant enough to bring my frames down below the magical 90/45? I'm willing to take a small performance hit initially for the later upgrade options, but I don't want to buy a system for potential future performance that can't do the job right now. Experience on both 1.5 and 2.1 would be nice to hear, but I'm building primarily for 2.1.

I'm aware of the strengths/weaknesses of each platform in terms of single/multi threaded, and DCS' heavy use of single threaded workloads. If anyone with actual experience running a similar setup in DCS could weigh in, it may help my decision making significantly.

Thanks!

For me new hardware isn't the answer just yet, sure it might help with extra frames per second and n-th improvement in res, etc, but DCS should improve with optimisations in code base especially for rift etc.

Still Normandy is fun to fly.

To me MSAA and deferred shading and AA need to be off until sorted.

For me new hardware isn't the answer just yet, sure it might help with extra frames per second and n-th improvement in res, etc, but DCS should improve with optimisations in code base especially for rift etc.

 

 

Still Normandy is fun to fly.

 

 

To me MSAA and deferred shading and AA need to be off until sorted.

True, but I've been needing a new system for awhile. The FX-6300 just doesn't cut it, even in 1.5. I haven't tried 2.1 and Normandy yet (been away since before they launched), but I suspect they will be unplayable on my current system.

True, but I've been needing a new system for awhile. The FX-6300 just doesn't cut it, even in 1.5. I haven't tried 2.1 and Normandy yet (been away since before they launched), but I suspect they will be unplayable on my current system.

Sure I feel that in 2.1.1.x

i7 5930 6/12core @ 4.2Ghz

2.4Ghz 32GB DDR4

980Ti slightly clocked

Intel 750 400GB SSD

Current thinking

7700K clocks well

32GB DDR4 @3.xGhz

1080Ti

SSD of course

YMMV

So, my question: Has anyone run a Ryzen system with a 1080 or 1080Ti, In VR? Will the reduced performance of Ryzen be significant enough to bring my frames down below the magical 90/45? I'm willing to take a small performance hit initially for the later upgrade options, but I don't want to buy a system for potential future performance that can't do the job right now. Experience on both 1.5 and 2.1 would be nice to hear, but I'm building primarily for 2.1.

I recently got a 1080Ti, and have run a little in VR.

I have an i7 2600k running at 4.5GHz, and man, getting FPS is... rough. It seems like most graphics settings do close to nothing to improve fps; screams CPU bottleneck.

What I have found is that, generally, close to the ground is a headache-inducing slide-show (30-45fps), and up in the air, is a little better in fps (can reach 90fps).

(if anyone has a definitive guide to max fps in 1.5/2.0 for VR, please help me out)

Sorry I don't have great fps stats to share, but I can comment on the value of an upgrade, and my opinion on it.

I think that if your main focus is simulation, you should go for raw clock and IPC (7700k).

Having said that, I think many games are moving to multi-threading, and more cores are safer (6-core+?) and there the R1600/R1700 begin to look like better bang-for-buck.

The real comparison I'd like to see is R1600/R1700/i7-7700 specifically in DCS.

I have a feeling my 2600k@4.5GHz would likely be close to R1600/R1700@4GHz in raw single-threaded performance (pure gut-feeling, R-series may have a slight edge?), but the real point is simulation needs the single-threaded performance, so, even though 7700k is a dead-end in terms of motherboard, it's probably still the best option for DCS.

Things get real muddy with Intel's latest X299-based stuff. If the chipset is going to last as long as AMD's AM4, it would likely be the way to go, but is it going to stick around that long? Intel change their sockets more than their corporate underwear.

Just my .02c, but check my system specs in signature, and nothing is maxed out while playing DCS in VR. Still don't get a smooth 90fps though.

DCS just can't fully utilise system resources at the moment unfortunately.

Just my .02c, but check my system specs in signature, and nothing is maxed out while playing DCS in VR. Still don't get a smooth 90fps though.

DCS just can't fully utilise system resources at the moment unfortunately.

I would concur with that observation, I have been running MSI afterburner and flying Gazelle in Normandy in a basic "free flight" mission trying to identify whats going on, seemingly nothing in my PC is pushed to the max although GPU is working fairly hard but not brick walled, and still get 30 plus frames/sec most times with attendant macro freezing using Rift.

Interestingly Afterburner reports more cores used and somewhat overall higher CPU usage than taskmanger does under similar conditions, could just be Afterburner. 16 to 20% verses upto 70+%

System specs

Asus X99 Pro

i7 5930K @ 4.2GHz

32GB DDR4 @2.4GB

Nvidia 980Ti slightly clocked

Intel 750 Series 400GB SSD

WD 2TB spinning HDD

EVGA 850W

Dell 30" monitor

Oculus Rift

Hmmm... Interesting. So, if a highly clocked 6700K isn't being fully utilized, I wonder how the 1600X would fare. I will primarily be using the rig for DCS, but will also dabble into Prepar3d V4 and Elite: Dangerous.

Thanks for the input all! I'm still no further along in my decision, however I am still leaning towards the 1600X... I really do not want to have to buy a new processor and mobo in a couple of years, I have high hopes for the later optimizations of Ryzen. Intel's base architecture is several years old, having not been completely redesigned since Sandy Bridge, so I kinda feel like Ryzen has a lot of potential for optimization.

Also, I'm hoping that the inclusion of a fast SSD and 32GB of fast RAM will help feed the GPU and CPU, increasing utilization...

I'd go with the Ryzen / AM4 Platform.

Get Specific Brand Memory (Google the list), over clock the Chip and Memory some.

as mentioned 1155 is a dead platform, AM4 is still maturing and more performance will be gaining w/ BIOS Updates etc.

Not to mention Money saved on CPU can be put towards GPU or bigger SSD.

1600x vs 7700K

1600x has +2 Cores, (+4 Threads)

7700k has marginal 10-15% IPC advantage. (it's also closed 600+ Mhz Higher).

7700K is +$100

I'd go with the Ryzen / AM4 Platform.

 

Get Specific Brand Memory (Google the list), over clock the Chip and Memory some.

 

as mentioned 1155 is a dead platform, AM4 is still maturing and more performance will be gaining w/ BIOS Updates etc.

 

Not to mention Money saved on CPU can be put towards GPU or bigger SSD.

 

 

1600x vs 7700K

 

1600x has +2 Cores, (+4 Threads)

7700k has marginal 10-15% IPC advantage. (it's also closed 600+ Mhz Higher).

 

7700K is +$100

+1 despite I got that 7700k...I'd not buy it again but AMD instead, maybe a 1700 or 1700x

edit...my office 1600x goes 4GHz without heating my room which this 7700k at 5G does !

Seems the 1600x is the best buy for gaming/light use.

How the 1600x overclocks?if you disable the cores there is more room for overclock?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

How the 1600x overclocks?if you disable the cores there is more room for overclock?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It seems all Ryzen chips, regardless of their SKU or core count, all top out at 4.0-4.1. They seem to very consistently hit a wall around that 4ghz mark.

One can hope that one day a bios or firmware update will appear that suddenly addresses whatever creates this wall, as it is so consistent to almost seem artificial...

7700K also contains the SMT Bug.

7700K also contains the SMT Bug.

They both seem to have at least 1 bug that needs addressing, tho the Ryzen bug only seems to affect compiling under Linux from what I remember.

Tbh, both are not that dramatic but none the less, a bug is a bug :mad:

Might even be that AMD addressed theirs already, I honestly do not know if yes or no.

AMD's issue is memory profiles and a few other things that need to have safe guard settings removed to allow for better overclocking.

Despite having extra cores i wonder if threadripper will be optimised to overclock better or take better advantage of quad channel ram?

I will look into an Epyc Server once Dell has those listed.

The base lic for SRV2016 is 16 cores and 2 Hyper-V's, since I need 4 Hyper-V's and thus 2 SRV2016-16-core licenses I can actually grab the 32-core model, add 128GB RAM, a bunch of those SAS-SSD's and save tons of money compared to the Xeon-Sandy it replaces ( 2 x X5650 6-cores with 32GB ).

What I dunno is the NUMA questions, would it be better to get 2 x 16core Epyc with 8 mem slots each or not...

Intel's day of ruling the empire are actually gone, that is what I wanted to say actually.

They screwed big time with anything after KabyLake imho.

Despite having extra cores i wonder if threadripper will be optimised to overclock better or take better advantage of quad channel ram?

Threadripper will be TDP Limited for sure.

I was intrigued by Alienware stating their TR systems will be pre-overclocked.

Most Ryzen chips seem to be trivial to overclock to 4.0GHz, but they don't really go beyond that. I expect thread ripper and epyc to be similar as they are basically 2+ 1800's stuck together. In regards to smt/ht, Ryzen has that solved I think. I tested with it both on and off on my 1600x and only ever lost performance with it off across a dozen or so games.

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