VR Gaming and music recording build

Doge

If anyone wants to help out I'd really appreciate it, right now I'm just writing down my thoughts on the build.

So as per my previous thread I'll need a motherboard with a legacy PCI slot.

Right now I need to decide between an Intel and AMD based build,
the Ryzen 1600 is really tempting me at the moment based on benchmarks and price. Can always upgrade to a more powerul Ryzen CPU down the line.

Have:
PSU: OCZ stealthxstream 600w (not sure if it will be powerful enough)
SSD: Crucial MX300 750 GB
HDD: Seagate BarraCuda Green ST1000DL002 1TB 5900 RPM 32MB (mostly used for backups)
LG DVD writer
Mechanical Keyboard and Gaming Mouse (Red & Black)
Viewsonic 1080p IPS monitor

Will have:
Oculus Rift CV1

Want:
Nvidia Gforce 1070
16GB DDR4 RAM 2400mhz+ (Both AMD and Intel boards I looked need to overclock for RAM faster than 2400mhz)
Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (Need to check if the gpu will fit in it first
Full ATX case is considered also)

AMD compatible boards considered:
MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK
MSI - B350 GAMING PLUS (pros- cheaper, has no red leds on the board, the left hand side of the PC will be one foot away from the wall and won't be seen)

Inviere

I'd say go Ryzen all day long, the upgrade path over the next few years is wide open. Intels is relatively closed/dead, and will cost more down the line to upgrade.

Doge

Inviere wrote: »

I'd say go Ryzen all day long, the upgrade path over the next few years is wide open. Intels is relatively closed/dead, and will cost more down the line to upgrade.

Time to turn over the darkside then!

My impatience for the availability for the GTX 1070 is making me consider increasing my budget for a GTX 1080.

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC GAMING is £549.99

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-GeForce-Support-Graphics-08G-P4-6183-KR/dp/B01GBX8X5S/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

And the EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FOUNDERS EDITION GAMING is tempting for about £33 more:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EVGA-GeForce-FOUNDERS-Support-11G-P4-6390-KR-x/dp/B06XDQBY2W/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1499600735&sr=1-4&keywords=gtx1080ti&th=1

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£191.47 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£119.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 750GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For €0.00)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda Green 1TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For €0.00)
Video Card: Palit - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB JetStream Video Card (£355.77 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair - 100R Silent ATX Mid Tower Case (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £720.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-07-09 14:27 BST+0100

*edit*
Didn't realise the GPU is out-of-stock.

You can also get GPUs from EVGA direct - http://eu.evga.com - No need to overpay for a Superclocked when you can get the same results from manual overclocking / GPU Boost 3.0
1080 Ti would blow it out the water of course.

Doge

Just noticed a problem with the case, my PSU has rounded cables so they either wont fit or will be squashed at the side of the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Rk3EMi6r4

The Corsair CC-9011052-WW has a nice bulge at the side to allow more room for rounded cables:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6lzarZ7quI

BloodBath

Vega is just around the corner. Worth checking out imo although the cheaper 1070 equivalent ain't out until December but their 1080 rival might be priced around 1070 levels. I wouldn't touch those founder edition cards.

Ryzen 1600 is a better choice imo unless trying to push 144fps.

Doge

BloodBath wrote: »

Vega is just around the corner. Worth checking out imo although the cheaper 1070 equivalent ain't out until December but their 1080 rival might be priced around 1070 levels. I wouldn't touch those founder edition cards.

Ryzen 1600 is a better choice imo unless trying to push 144fps.

Is it the blower design that would worry you about the Founder cards?

I think I might just order the other bits first and order a graphics card in the coming weeks.

K.O.Kiki

Doge wrote: »

Is it the blower design that would worry you about the Founder cards?

I think I might just order the other bits first and order a graphics card in the coming weeks.

Ryzen 5 doesn't have an integrated GPU though, it needs a discrete GPU to display any image.

1080 Ti FE is fine (especially at €660!), if the noise bothers you there's always the option of an aftermarket cooler.

Doge

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Ryzen 5 doesn't have an integrated GPU though, it needs a discrete GPU to display any image.

1080 Ti FE is fine (especially at €660!), if the noise bothers you there's always the option of an aftermarket cooler.

I have an old HD5770 that can tie me over til then. Cheers!

BloodBath

€660 is a fantastic price but those cards are hot. I guess you could always downclock it a little and lower voltage or get a cooler like you said. The thing will still be a beast of card.

The op is 1080p though with an CV1 rift. I don't think he needs anything that powerful. A second hand 980ti or a 1070 would probably be more than enough.

What's the refresh rate on that rift? 90 is it?

Doge

BloodBath wrote: »

€660 is a fantastic price but those cards are hot. I guess you could always downclock it a little and lower voltage or get a cooler like you said. The thing will still be a beast of card.

The op is 1080p though with an CV1 rift. I don't think he needs anything that powerful. A second hand 980ti or a 1070 would probably be more than enough.

What's the refresh rate on that rift? 90 is it?

90hz or 45hz with Asynchrnonous Time Warp Enabled.

K.O.Kiki

BloodBath wrote: »

€660 is a fantastic price but those cards are hot. I guess you could always downclock it a little and lower voltage or get a cooler like you said. The thing will still be a beast of card.

The op is 1080p though with an CV1 rift. I don't think he needs anything that powerful. A second hand 980ti or a 1070 would probably be more than enough.

What's the refresh rate on that rift? 90 is it?

1080 Ti is just about enough for 1080p @ 144Hz High/Ultra settings.

Doge

Thought I had an issue there with the CPU connectors on my PSU, they look like this:





Notice that the connector on the right hand side has 4 rounded corrners where as the MSI - B350 GAMING PLUS has an 8-pin cpu power socket with 2 square corners and 2 rounded corners on the right hand side.





Thankfully I found this page which explains that the rounded corners will fit into the square corners on the motherboard:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#eps4plus4

Also my PSU only has an 8pin + 6 pin PCI-E connector for the graphics card, so looks like it will only be able to run a GTX1070.

The 8 pin is just a 6 pin with 2 pins detached.

The second hand GTX1070 prices on ebay are about the same as buying new at the moment, and theres only 2 cards available on adverts.ie,
one is a mini sized one that i have no interest in and the other from a seller with negative feedback.

I think I'll just save myself the hassle and buy one new.

K.O.Kiki

1080 Ti requiring 8+6: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=5585_1x+8-Pin+%2B+1x+6-Pin%7E9810_7+10609+-+GTX+1080+Ti
1080 requiring 8 or 8+6: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=5585_1x+8-Pin%7E5585_1x+8-Pin+%2B+1x+6-Pin%7E9810_7+8228+-+GTX+1080

Doge

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

1080 Ti requiring 8+6: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=5585_1x+8-Pin+%2B+1x+6-Pin%7E9810_7+10609+-+GTX+1080+Ti
1080 requiring 8 or 8+6: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=5585_1x+8-Pin%7E5585_1x+8-Pin+%2B+1x+6-Pin%7E9810_7+8228+-+GTX+1080

Jeez! Is there anyhting you can't search in geizhals? :pac:

Thanks a million for the help.


Also found a solution for connecting the Oculus rift to the front of the pc with some handy extra bits:




Just need a floppy to 5.25 inch bracket for the case.

TerrorFirmer

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

1080 Ti is just about enough for 1080p @ 144Hz High/Ultra settings.

It is technically but in most games you'll be CPU capped long before that, which is why it's really an ideal 1440p/144hz or 4k card where CPU bottleneck isn't an issue.

GTX1070 or 1080 are much better for 1080p 144hz though the 1080Ti adds serious grunt for flawless VR.

Doge

Done some research on RAM compatibility for Ryzen, 3000mhz OC won't work with the motherboard, 3200mhz OC will work provided the RAM chips are Samsung and not Hynix.

So there's a bit of risk in that its a 50/50 chance of getting RAM chips from either manufacturer.

The good news is that Ryzen benefits a lot from the increased RAM speed.

Calibos

Doge wrote: »

Jeez! Is there anyhting you can't search in geizhals? :pac:

Thanks a million for the help.


Also found a solution for connecting the Oculus rift to the front of the pc with some handy extra bits:




Just need a floppy to 5.25 inch bracket for the case.

Bought that for my PC and Rift. Works a treat.



Bought THIS 5.25" bay adapter. Its plastic.

Hope you didn't get your Rift yet?

Rift+Touch just went on sale for the next 6 weeks for €449 !!!! Thats half the price of the Vive now. Anyone buying a Vive now with that kind of price differential is a Facebook hating madman!

https://www.oculus.com/rift/

Doge

Calibos wrote: »

Bought that for my PC and Rift. Works a treat.



Bought THIS 5.25" bay adapter. Its plastic.

Hope you didn't get your Rift yet?

Rift+Touch just went on sale for the next 6 weeks for €449 !!!! Thats half the price of the Vive now. Anyone buying a Vive now with that kind of price differential is a Facebook hating madman!

https://www.oculus.com/rift/

Still waiting on it to be shipped, ordered it from caseking.de for a similar price.

Doge

Decided to change the motherboard as I've been reading bad things about this MSI boards and their board in general, so replaced it with the ASUS Prime X-370A.

No point in cheaping out on a board at this cost.
Also going to get 3000mhz RAM instead of 3200mhz, as its just easier to run it.
Graphics card still to be determined...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£189.98 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME X370-A ATX AM4 Motherboard (£126.46 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£119.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 750GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For £0.00)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda Green 1TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For £0.00)
Case: Corsair - SPEC-02 ATX Mid Tower Case (£60.40 @ Alza)
Other: InLine 33394V Frontpanel für Floppy Schacht/Kartenleser (HDMI, USB 3.0)
Total: £496.52

Calibos

Doge wrote: »

Still waiting on it to be shipped, ordered it from caseking.de for a similar price.

Ah Cool! Those german retailers like Caseking and Saturn have been intermittently doing some great short term deals on Rift+Touch over the last few months. I'd say Oculus have been paying close attention to the upsurge in sales by those retailers everytime they had those sales and came to the conclusion that that must be close to a trigger pulling price for a lot of prospective VR buyers and have decided to test the water themselves with this 6 week Sale. I'd be very surprised if there isn't an announcement from them near the end of the 6 weeks that they've decided to extend the 'sale' indefinitely.

Doge

So all parts are officially ordered! Opted for the EVGA GTX 1080 in the end.

Thanks to everyone who helped out in the thread!

Doge

Calibos wrote: »

Bought that for my PC and Rift. Works a treat.

Hi Calibos, just wondering if you have one of those VR Graphics cards that have HDMI ports on the back of it for connecting to your front panel?


Sadly I don't but I'm thinking of routing the HDMI cable through one of the Watercooling Hose holes on the back of my case, which will not be used:

Calibos

Nope. Mine doesn't have an internal HDMI port. Its a regular Palit Super Jetstream GTX1080 (That I plastidipped white a few weeks ago)



The Inline Front Panel thing we both bought comes with a PCI blanking plate with a hole in it to run the HDMI cable through from inside the case out to the regular HDMI port on the back of the GPU. You can see it back left of the case in this photo in the last PCI slot.



You could also route it out the back through the water cooling hole as you said. Which you end up doing depends on your cases size, the length of the cable and aesthetics I suppose.

Doge

Calibos wrote: »

Nope. Mine doesn't have an internal HDMI port. Its a regular Palit Super Jetstream GTX1080 (That I plastidipped white a few weeks ago)



The Inline Front Panel thing we both bought comes with a PCI blanking plate with a hole in it to run the HDMI cable through from inside the case out to the regular HDMI port on the back of the GPU. You can see it back left of the case in this photo in the last PCI slot.



You could also route it out the back through the water cooling hole as you said. Which you end up doing depends on your cases size, the length of the cable and aesthetics I suppose.

Thanks for the reply!

Inline haven't done a good job of what exactly comes with their product! :pac:

If the cable reaches I might skip the PCI backplate just to keep a port free.

Doge

So today was the day all my components came bar the EVGA GTX 1080, which still hasn't shipped sadly.


Components:




Motherboard Fitted:




Everything in:




Cable Management: I know its messy af but thats what happens when you have a non modular PSU with excess Molex cables and other addons. I'm happy to leave it like this as it cannot be seen.





Acrylic Window:





Front Side: Okay, I installed a dvd drive after this and forgot to take another pic!

Inviere

Noice :cool:

Doge

Inviere wrote: »

Noice :cool:

Cheers!

Now for the little niggles:

The motherboard doesn't use the 3 standoffs to the right hand side of the case,
it falls short of them and has no mounting holes. This means the board bends when you try and pull out the rather tricky 20-pin Power connector (I have a 20+4 pin). A bit of uneccessary cost cutting on ASUS side!

Because the Inline front panel is using the USB 3.0 header on the motherboard, I cannot connect the 2 built in USB 3.0 ports on the top / front of the case so the cable is just floating at the side of the case.

If i find a splitter cable I might use these as USB 2.0 ports, but id say its hard to find.

Inviere

Doge wrote: »

Because the Inline front panel is using the USB 3.0 header on the motherboard, I cannot connect the 2 built in USB 3.0 ports on the top / front of the case so the cable is just floating at the side of the case.

Could you use a male header to male usb connector, which would allow you to extend the cabling for the ports on the top of your case, & route them into the rear ports on your mobo? (essentially turning them into extensions of the rear ports)

Inviere

Doge wrote: »

The motherboard doesn't use the 3 standoffs to the right hand side of the case, it falls short of them and has no mounting holes. This means the board bends when you try and pull out the rather tricky 20-pin Power connector (I have a 20+4 pin). A bit of uneccessary cost cutting on ASUS side!

About this, if I were you I'd put a small piece of electrical tape over any of the unused standoffs...it's possible, depending on the board, that it could cause a short...better safe than sorry.

Doge

Inviere wrote: »

Could you use a male header to male usb connector, which would allow you to extend the cabling for the ports on the top of your case, & route them into the rear ports on your mobo? (essentially turning them into extensions of the rear ports)

I like your idea, this is the connector for the USB 3.0 header:



The pitch of the header is smaller than standard headers though like USB 2.0 headers etc..., but just found this on overclockers UK:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/bitfenix-external-usb-3.0-to-internal-usb-3.0-header-cable-ca-049-bx.html




That could do the job alright, not sure if I'd use the front ports more than the rear ones, or if I'd put up with the longer cables.

Food for thought!