Advice on specs for high end VR gaming PC

[RedTraveller]

Dear PSCpecialist and forum,

Here below the specs I have tentatively selected for a PC that I intend to use primarily for:

- high end gaming including latest gen Virtual Reality games.
- I would like my PC to last as long as possible and easy to upgrade grpahics card, RAM etc as possible to keep up with new gaming requirements in the years to come.

I do not plan to stream or anything similar video processing.

Any advice or suggestions for this build? Do you think a second GPU and SLI is really necessary? Thanks in advance for any comments.

Enclosure
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES ™ 500D SE CABINET
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core ™ i9 Eight Core Processor i9-9900K (3.6GHz) 16MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Master: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs WIFI - RGB Clear
Memory ( RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - RTX VR Ready!
1 . storage drive
2TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5 "SSD, SATA 6Gb / s (up to 550MB / s R | 520MB / s W)
1 . M.2 SSD
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS Pattern 2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB / R, 3300MB / W)
DVD / BLU-RAY drives
NOT REQUIRED
Power supply
CORSAIR 1000W RMX SERIES ™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD ULTRA-QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 meter European Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i PRO Hydro Series high Performance CPU cooler
Thermal paste
STANDARD REFRIGERATOR FOR AFFECTIVE COOLING
Sound card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless / Cable network
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB / Thunderbolt options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ REAR PANEL + MIN 2 FRONT PORTS

 

[Oussebon]

Stick to 16gb RAM. There's just no advantage to gaming for more than this. And it's not 'futureproof' as by the time games could, potentially, benefit from more than 16gb RAM, they won't in your system because everything else will be obsolete. And we'll be on DDR5 with generations of new CPUs anyway.

SLI isn't worth it. Many games offer no performance increase with it, some see performance loss, or things like microstutter even when there is a framerate gain, which is not what you want in VR...

SLI is not supported like it used to be, and newer APIs (DX12, Vulkan) don't support SLI. They can support multi GPUs in other ways, but it needs to be implemented by developers, and developers often don't bother. e.g. No Man's Sky (including VR) on Vulkan. The Division 2 on DX12.

Just stick to a single 2TB SSD, which is already generously more than enough for games.

For mass storage, get a very large HDD. Or some network storage.

For the cooler, look at the H115 Platinum. Excellent cooler, and also sports RGB to go with the case.

Otherwise, seems fine to me

 

[Fellowplayer]

I would say you have a generous spec there the CPU and GPU are certainly more than enough, the ram I would actually advise minimum 32gb RAM because some games like Mankind Divided recommend 16gb RAM add to that if you run a game that needs 16gb RAM you should have extra RAM for the VR headset especially if you are a YouTuber recording . I would advise focus on the cooling, if you can get better thermal paste or more silent running fans you got to keep your new friend cool.

If you want to downgrade a little to reduce costs I would say you can afford to lose a little CPU and GPU performance to something like a i9-9700k and an 8GB Geforce RTX 2070 and lose one Hard Drive. outside of that your good.

 

[Oussebon]

advise minimum 32gb RAM because some games like Mankind Divided recommend 16gb RAM add to that if you run a game that needs 16gb RAM you should have extra RAM for the VR headset especially if you are a YouTuber recording

This is not the case. On 32gb RAM being a "minimum" (?!?!?), on needing loads of RAM for recording (or streaming) gameplay, and needing loads of RAM for the VR headset...

Game recommended specs 1) should be taken with a large dose of salt - you don't need a 6600k minimum to play BF1 - 2) don't refer to just the game. It's not saying DE:MD needs 16gb RAM all to itself. It's saying the system should have more than 8gb RAM for the ideal experience (since gaming systems with RAM quantities other than 8gb or 16gb are very uncommon.. for good reason).

Plus recording gameplay has a minimal effect on RAM usage. It certainly has when I do it. And streaming is known to not be demanding on RAM. 16gb is fine for the game and the extra apps you have open. But that's all rather irrelevant here and a bad recommendation for the OP because:

I do not plan to stream or anything similar video processing.

The gaming community needs to get past this whole DOWNLOAD MOAR RAM thing.

All while recommending to drop the GPU, where high and stable framerates are essential in VR.

Not really sure I buy into any of that!

Also the Corsair AIOs come with very decent thermal paste of their own.

I do agree on the SSD point though.

 

[Scott]

Can only agree with Oussebon, absolutely no point in anything more than 16GB of RAM. I love my VR, I've streamed and recorded from 3 different sources on a laptop with 16GB of RAM while playing Project Cars 2 (Extremely intensive game for any system) and it was absolutely fine. 32GB sounds like misguided advice to me, rather than first hand experience.

With regards to the AIO, the RGB Platinum would be my suggestion of an upgrade also. It already has the ML fans so runs nearly silent other than airflow noise. As above, it comes with premium paste already pre-applied so no need for any optional upgrades.

The CPU is as good as it gets for all gaming, there's nothing better. High frequency will be handy for certain simulators. Not convinced on the hyperthreading front, I've never noticed it being put to good use, but it won't hurt to have it if your budget allows. It certainly won't be a shortcoming.

With the GPU it's the best single card choice bar none. I would have one if I could justify the cost. VR allows you to do what you like scaling wise. I push my card as hard as I can for the fidelity. You don't NEED a 2080Ti to do what you want but it's a great bit of kit to have to be at the absolute edge of what is possible. A 9900k with a 2080Ti is as good as it gets.