My computer is 7 years old, time for an upgrade... (1 Viewer)

[Laiders]

Hey guys,

I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade my whole setup.

I’ve done a fair bit of searching and I’m thinking of upgrading in steps to:

Step 1 CPU/mobo/RAM combo:
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
Mobo: MSI Ryzen B450M MORTAR MAX AM4 mATX Motherboard
RAM: Corsair VENGEANCE LPX 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-29200C18 3600MHZ DUAL CHANNEL

Step 2 GPU:
Second hand 1070 or 1070 TI based on what I can find on eBay.

Step 3 VR:
Rift S when they come back in stock (currently selling at inflated prices on eBay).

Step 4 monitor:
Pointers appreciated, don’t really know where to start.


I’m going from:
CPU: i5-4570
GPU: GTX 970
RAM: 8GB 1600 DDR3
PSU: Corsair 600W CX Builder
VR: DK2
Monitor: old 22” Dell (E2210Hc)


Thoughts on that as an upgrade path appreciated:

1. The CPU combo (getting itchy fingers to order it, supposedly all in stock and next day delivery from Ebuyer!). I hope that would last a few years of VR and 1080 gaming.

2. The GPU I’ve overanalysed and reckon that a second hand 1070 or 1070 TI is the way to go on a budget with a bias towards VR.

3. The VR headset:
I think either the Rift S new or a second hand CV1 is the only way to go (the Index is too expensive for me). The question is how much better is a new Rift S over a CV1? I think it’s probably worth waiting until the S becomes available again, but a CV1 second hand is an option (for pretty much Rift S new money). Prices for the Rift S have gone insane, people profiteering out of COVID, someone is trying to flog a DK2 for £650!

I think either a Rift S or CV1 will offer a general improvement to comfort, ability to read text, can get prescription lenses (wearing glasses in the DK2 makes a small improvement to image clarity for me, but I don’t wear them due to comfort) and I’ll get the full VR gaming experience with the controllers/no nagging in the Oclulus app etc.

Has anyone had a DK2 and then upgraded to either of the consumer edition Oculus Rifts, does it make a worthwhile and noticeable difference to general usability in racing sims? There do seem to be some opinions on the net that the difference isn’t that big/worthwhile/was disappointing, but I think that is generally from the perspective of playing the big hitting first VR experience type games/tech demos (the DK2 certainly can deliver that well) rather than actual competitive and serious sim racing (where it’s a pain in the arse to not be able to read your laptime display) or be trying to make out whether your passing the 200 or 300 braking board (as kept happening to me in the 250F at Monza!).

4. Monitor wise:
I’d like something a bit bigger than the current 22”, more height adjustment in the stand and something that doesn’t have scratches on the display (this is an old monitor I got for free that has been abused!). Other than that I’m not sure where to start maybe a 27”, 1080 @ 75Hz would be fine for me?




That’s the key points out the way, waffle to follow, read if you’re bored!


So I’ve not been sim racing for a while with real life keeping me busy. One upshot of COVID is I got round to decorating my home office (painted and carpet fitted in one day and night due to the unexpected need become a home worker!). My gaming PC/sim setup is still cramped on a wobbly old corner desk for now but hopefully some day soon my CAD station can go back to work and the gaming PC will finally be housed on top of the proper office desk I have obtained for the home office.

I’d like to get a bit better and more consistent at my sim racing and I think a bit of a hardware upgrade would help. Going to a better headset (any consumer version over the DK2) will hopefully be a big jump.

I’ve found the DK2 a bit of a poisoned chalice, sim racing in VR is so immersive, but it comes with big compromises to comfort, visual clarity, not being able to run third party apps/overlays and system performance requirements (compared to a single 1080 monitor at least).

Another issue with VR is it turns a racing sim from being a gaming experience to something completely full on, it’s just not as fun or accessible anymore to hop in and do a few laps and things like managing Teamspeak and jumping out to check setups/forums etc. are a pain. However, I’ve had a think about going to triple screens, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it for me now I’ve got used to VR (and the upgrades required to get a better VR experience will probably be cheaper anyway).

I have been having some performance issues running the DK2 on my system it’s generally been manageable in PCars2 (on low settings) and AC. However in iRacing I really struggle, it regularly drops to 37.5 fps, which is bearable for the first lap of a race, but still really distracting. Worse at some of the newer tracks (like Nurburgring GP) it’s basically unplayable due to the performance hits. The Nordschleife has generally run OK, except for the section near the GP circuit where it takes a big performance hit, but I tried a Skip race there last week and it crashed on me (others reported this in the forum with high spec PCs, so not sure any upgrade is going to help in this case).


So going forward my objective would be to be able to run:
- All my main sims (iRacing, PC2, AC) smoothly and hassle free with the graphics cranked up a bit. I’ve been using the DK2/low settings since 2014, so I’m completely oblivious to what modern racing games look like!
- I haven’t tried rF2 yet, avoided it when it came out due to lack of VR support, but I think it now has it and I would like to be able to add it to the collection if possible.
- Be able to play AAA VR games (ie. Halflife Alyx) on low settings.
- Be able to play AAA non-racing games in 1080 with reasonably good graphics settings for the foreseeable future.
- At least be able to play less optimised games (ie. PUBG) on medium settings without them becoming an unplayable mess.
- I’ll forget about ACC, by the sounds of it no system can really run it in VR at the moment.

I’ve been doing a bit of digging on my system. Firstly I couldn’t believe that I’ve had the CPU/mobo/RAM since 2013 and DK2 since 2014. How time flies! I bought the GPU, a Nvidia 970 GTX second hand in 2016 when they were cheap on eBay due to a new release of some other card. I did put it all in a new case, fitted an SSD and went to Windows 10, 2 years ago when the hard drive packed up. That’s why I probably think of my system being a couple of years old, not 7 years!

In general I think the current system meets all my needs except for VR sim racing. It’s very fast for general use since I went to the SSD and I was pleasantly surprised at how it handled Farcry 5 on the ultra preset. It looks stunning compared to what I’m used to and ran at 53/59/67 (min/avg/max) on the game’s benchmark! So really my improvements mainly need to be biased towards VR sim racing, especially iRacing.


I did a couple of benchmarks that I think confirm that my system is working about how it should and that it is just majorly bottlenecked by the old CPU.

CPU-Z benchmark for iRacing:
(https://members.iracing.com/jforum/posts/list/2/3639651.page)

I got 366 for my i5-4570 @ 3.2 GHz. In the sheet that Clive Norton has put together on the iRacing forum it predicts that a 4th gen Intel @ 3.2 GHz should get a score of 352, so I’m getting roughly what I should out of my CPU.

However, it also says as a guide <400 will struggle to run iR in VR, think I’ve found the problem. A Ryzen 5 3600 gets around 500 on other users benchmarks, so should be in the clear to run iRacing according to that scale. Also I’ve checked in iR on the performance meters, in an open practice session my R (CPU rendering load) value is always higher than my G (GPU load), apparently that indicates a CPU bottleneck.

I have also run 3D mark (3461 total, 3585 graphics, 2894 CPU on Time Spy) and VR mark (6266 on the free Orange Room). My VR mark is 21st out of 47 results for i5-4570 / 970 GTX.

So I think I can be confident there’s nothing silly wrong with my system and it’s just time for an update. In terms of budget for the upgrade I can be pretty flexible, I could stretch further than what I’ve specced, but don’t want to waste money. I currently have my full wage coming in for the foreseeable future and all real life opportunities to burn disposable income have pretty much dried up for obvious reasons. That being said adding to the rainy day fund does seem wise in these uncertain times.


Having done some reading it looks like there’s no getting away from the Ryzen 5 3600 as the sweet spot for a mid-range gaming build. So I’ve taken that as a given for the CPU. The RAM similarly it seems that 16GB is now the sweet spot and speeds <3600 MHz have a noticeable drop in FPS when paired with a good graphics card and the Ryzen 5 3600 according to multiple Youtube videos. So that defines the RAM.

The motherboard I have much less of a clue about. I did watch one video that recommended that MSI Mortar Max B450 board as a good budget gaming build for the Ryzen 5 3600. It’s mATX (which I have no issue with, I have nothing plugged into my current ATX board except for the GPU), is meant to handle overclocking well (I’ve never overclocked and don’t plan to) and seems to have other better components (VRMs?) that will make full use of the CPU etc.

I’m not really sure if I need this type of board or could go lower in spec, but it seems the advice is that this is probably a false economy? One feature that does seem very useful is the ability to flash the BIOs from a USB without a CPU installed. Sods law would say if I order a B450 motherboard it won’t have the necessary BIOs update to run a third gen so this is appealing as I don’t have a second gen CPU available. I do just plan to stick the CPU (with stock fan) in a standard but hopefully relatively decent case (Corsair Carbide 200R) and forget about it until it either breaks or needs an upgrade (about 7 years based on the last time I did that!).


Now the GPU is the hard part to choose. I think that the 970 GTX I’ve got now is still quite reasonable for 1080 gaming and my bottleneck in VR is almost entirely CPU at the moment. I was shocked to see that for once I have a piece of hardware that still has a second hand value of about £100!

Over and above the CPU improvement I’d be wanting to upgrade the GPU to go further. So I’ve spent a bit of time making some plots (link to sheet with the data sources at the end). The most useful data source has been 3D/VR Mark where I’ve searched for results for each GPU with a the CPU I’m considering (Rzyen 5 3600). I took the typical results at the top end of the table (about #20 if there were a lot of samples) to try and rule out any effect of crazily overclocked outlying systems.

Having looked at benchmarks I should be able to get quite a jump in performance with the change in CPU and keeping the 970 GTX. In VRMark it would be 48% (current 6266 to around 9300) and 3D mark would be 27% (3461 to around 4400). The free VRMark demo is meant to be quite low intensity and mainly a CPU test, my system actually gets >> 90fps on it so is rated as fine for VR. I guess this is quite a relevant test for iRacing where the CPU is a significant factor.

A 1660 Super would be a good proposition for 2D gaming, it’s only £229 new and is a big step up from the GTX 970 for 2D (57% in 3D mark), that’s almost 1070 performance (which would be a 59% jump in 3D mark from the 970) and you get a new card for only £20 or so more than a used 1070. Watching some Youtube videos would suggest the same story, buy a 1660 Super unless you’re going to spend big money on a card. However, it’s not quite case closed when considering the VR performance. The GTX 970 actually gets the same VR mark scores as the 1660 Super! So it may not even be an upgrade for VR over my current card and definitely not worth spending money on.

The 1070 and 1070 TI seem like the next logical step then, in conventional 2D gaming they’re a big jump from the 970 (51 & 82% up from the 970 in 3D mark). But that is significantly reduced in VR mark (ie. graphically low intensity VR) where they get 12 & 15% over the 970.

Beyond that it’s diminishing returns a used 1080 would be the next step but the cost has quickly jumped to £300+ and I’m much more comfortable with the idea of buying a sub-£250 second hand card.

I made up an index value for £ spent per percentage gain in the 3D/VR mark and no matter which way you weight it the 1070 & 1070 TI seem to be the best proposition. The third best value (and £300+ option second hand) would be a 2060 for general use or 1080 for VR performance.

Google drive of the data:

Unfortunately the plots will have to stay as pictures as I did them in LibreOffice (which is slightly more infuriating than Google sheets to use, I might have to give in and buy an Excel license for personal doodling soon!).

 

[FuBii]

Why not consider the Ryzen 2600x cpu? amazing value currently, I'd use the savings to aim for a RTX 2070. An m2 ssd would be another massive improvement.
As for monitors, I like my philosophy of one monitor, less cables, less power, less setup hassle & no monitor bezels!
You can pick up a decent ultrawide monitor now for under £600... when I bought mine (specs are in my sig) the monitor set me back £970

I'd run every item through a price comparison site like pricespy.co.uk to ensure you're getting the best deal for yourself. Though some common sense is required if something appears to good to be true.

 

[Laiders]

I hadn't considered the 2600X, it seems to be slightly behind the 3600 in benchmarks and there doesn't seem to be any price saving at the moment. Actually from the sites I've heard of and have some faith in possibly delivering at the moment it's more expensive than the 3600 (which is discounted at the moment to £158-175 on Overclockers/Ebuyer/Amazon/Scan).

I guess the good deals were probably a few months ago when they were clearing 2600X out and 3600 still had its new tech premium tax.

I hadn't seen pricespy.co.uk, looks like a handy tool.


In terms of monitors I was thinking something much cheaper. It's only for fairly casual use.

I think having looked a bit more I think a reasonable brand 24" 1080, 144Hz would be the sort of thing I'd be considering going to. Something like an ASUS VG248QE that sells for about £150 on eBay second hand would be what I'm thinking.

Thoughts on 144Hz & 1440? I'm not sure I need either, but I can see no draw back to 144Hz (other than cost of the monitor), a 1440 wouldn't downscale well to 1080 so would be more taxing on the GPU and harder to hit the higher refresh rates.

 

[Laiders]

Right I think I've come to a decision on the monitor if I were to buy new. AOC 24G2, good value, 1080 with IPS & 144Hz and seems to be the current recommendation for a budget 1080.


I'll keep my eye out on eBay for a few days for anything second hand but it seems they're a bit niche and new for many good bargain 144Hz monitors with decent reviews.

 

[miagi]

Hey Laiders,
I have the MSI B450M Mortar (7B89-001R) mATX Motherboard. So the non "Max" version. Only difference is that my is only certifiged to DDR4-3466 ram speed. But I'm pretty sure it will run faster if I aske it nicely ;P. I set myself up for a µATX-Case to make it more compacted and have squeezed two 240mm radiators into it. I'm happy with µATX-Mainbaords, as if anything I just put a sound card into it and then the CPU-Lanes are already used up. So really no point in having more physical slots without lanes. I did not buy a new GPU-Waterblock for this build. My old GTX480 really needed the water block, still OC the 480 by ~10-15%

MSI B450M Mortar was a great board one year ago. With 2-ish M2 Slots, good performance, and nice features. However I would hint towards B550 mainbaords as they have PCIe 4.0. What I consider to be very interesting for fast M2 SSD. Although PCIe 3.0 x4 with ~4 GByte/s is not bad, there are already a class of M2 SSDs that are quicker than that. And the Playstation5 will feature an SSD with 5 GB/s. Those M2 SSDs are expensive now, it's 225€ for 1TB now, but prices will come down. And for OpenWorld games that were developed for the next console generation, such a SSD could become more important for FPS than CPU or GPU. And if not open world games, maybe a very detailed mod of the Nordschleife how knows.

Problem is, B550 is not out yet as it should. So X570 is the only PCIe 4.0 option right now. Might be worth a look on a X570 and see how the price difference is. Because one year ago the MSI B450M Mortar I bought for ~90€ now it's discontinued and the MAX sits at the same price. So not really a super bargain.

Your view on the RAM clocks might be a bit too extreme resp. to optimistic, but seeing that for 16 GB there is a price difference of ~20€ between DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600. I'd say go wild with it, but if you pick a RAM-Kit, check the timings too. They also have an slight impact on FPS on the same Clock. If prices are similar, you want the kit with the lower Timings. I bought DDR4-3000 and overclocked it to 3200 at 16-18-18-35 it's the Crucial Ballistix Sport LT grey DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3000, CL15-16-16 (BLS2C8G4D30AESBK/BLS2K8G4D30AESBK) and it costs now exactly the same as I bought it for one year ago :X

About CPU, I have the AMD 2600X running with my water cooling, because I had it from the last PC and only needed new brakes for the AM4 socket what I got for my pretty old Water-Block. It's his 2nd build now and the last build went for 9 years. So the CPU is running cold, always. But I still didn't overclock it manually, because it is suggested that Precision Boost does a good job. Or the other way around, with fixed clock l'd most likely need to go beyond 4.2 GHz to get an noticeable advantage over Precision Boost. Maybe I will try that at some point.

About GPU, I have a RTX2060 (PNY GeForce RTX 2060 XLR8 Gaming OC Twin Fan) there is the same one by Gainward.
I bought it before the 2060Super was announced. Anyway what I can tall you, it is a pretty cool card, so you don't need the expensive cooler version of it. That card is overclocked by PNY to Boost-Clock 1830MHz with increased TDP by default. I still added +80 MHz on MSI afterburner, so that my GPU reaches 2010 MHz in ACC I know that the maths doesn't work out. Maybe my Mainboard is overclocking the GPU, or someone else. In ACC at 120 FPS on Bathurst, with tuned graphics settings to 120 FPS , it sits at ~80-90% load and ~80-90% power limit, clocking 2010 MHz, while crawling towards 69°C at 73% fan speeds. I got a good GPU I guess. And seeing that now it's offered ~100€ below the 2060Super makes the 2060Super a joke, as some 2070s are cheaper, so 2070 is the obvoius choice at that price. If you can get a 1070 or 1070Ti used for a sensible price go for it, but I saw ppl throw creazy money at used CPUs and GPUs on ebay (like 80-96% new retail prices). The RTX2060 is not really powerful enough for substantial ray tracing so the R in RTX is not the big benefit, on the other hand RTX2060 is a neat alternative if you want to stay below 350€.

I made a check up and a benchmark on the weekend. You can have a look maybe you can compare something there. Result: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/27150861

About the Monitor, I would considers your approach smart. I have a 27" FullHD IPS 144Hz Monitor (Asus VG279Q) and I'm not super happy with it. First thing, view angle stability is great, but the colours, even at high saturation settings, my old Sony 49" LCD-TV can make it look pale if he wants to. Also ASUS "ELMB" only works at 120 Hz, so it is a 120 Hz Monitor not a 144 Hz because you want ELMB! The panel actually has quite some ghosting for a Gaming Focused Monitor even with ELMB and Trance Free. I have made some analysis pictures here <-link. If you go for 27" it needs to be 1440p. I have another 27" IPS Screen on my Office/Multimedia Laptop-Docking-Station, that I got refurnished/used and that one is 1440p@60Hz. Believe me you want 1440p on an 27" IPS screen. But if I would still do competitive gaming in CoD, I'd go for a 24" FullHD screen with 144Hz and probably TN panel. That is much cheaper and offers more performance for this particular use case. Maybe you're lucky and can get a refurnished 24" FullHD 144Hz Screen. That would save some money. Also the 27" 1440p 144Hz Monitor needs at least a RTX2060 but much rather a RTX2060Super resp. RTX2070 to make actual use of resolution and refresh rate.

If you reinstall Windows on the new PC, don't forget to set the motherboard to "UEFI-Mode" and make a gpt partition for the windows installation.

If you want to have a hardware talk on TeamSpeak, I'm always in for some PC-Hardware or Vehicle Dynamics Talk

 

[Laiders]

So I've been shopping.


AMD Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max (Mortar Max sold out)
Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RGB Memory DDR4 3600MHz 16GB (8GB x 2) - (The only 3600MHz in stock, had to set the speed in BIOs, seems to be running fine now at 3600).
GTX 1070 Ti (second hand off eBay)
Asus 24G2
Rift S

Card and the CPU combo arrived and fitted yesterday. Monitor came into stock at OCUK yesterday and the Rift S was on pre-order on Scan showing as due today. Hopefully I've hit the jackpot with stock availability and they'll be on there way soon! If not I'll wait, second hand bits are selling for more on eBay than new prices. If you've got a cupboard full of bits now is the time to cash in!

Cranked up the settings to pretty much full in iRacing and it felt smooth as butter, keeping at the 75fps required for the DK2 the whole time in an open practice, maybe will turn the detail down a touch to be safe in racing.

Benchmarks in the range I expected now, VR Mark 7710 and 3D Mark 6821.

I just dropped the parts in and turned it on, didn't have to set or do anything apart from the RAM defaulted to a slower speed. It's much easier on Windows 10, reactivated easily as well (tie your license to Microsoft account if not already done). I know it's better to do a clean install and will do it at some point, but just want to get going for now and with the internet as it is don't want to end up being unable to download things onto a fresh install!