Upgrade Advice for VR (Virt-A-Mate, Valve Index) — Is It Worth Upgrading GPU/CPU?

[Mikye666]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently running the following setup primarily for VR with the Valve Index (mostly for Virt-A-Mate and mod-heavy scenes like ReelFeel, Prime Mocap, and Cuddle Mocap):

My current PC specs:

GPU: RTX 3090

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D

RAM: 64 GB DDR4 3600 MHz

Cooler: NZXT Kraken X52 (240mm AIO)

Motherboard: ASUS Prime X470

PSU: be quiet! Dark Power 1300W

I’m getting good performance in general, but I'm considering a GPU and/or CPU upgrade — especially for smoother experience in Virt-A-Mate and other heavy VR titles.

Would an upgrade to RTX 5090 or Ryzen 9800X3D bring significant performance improvement for VR?
Or is the 5800X3D still fast enough that upgrading GPU alone is more effective?

I’m mainly after better frametime consistency, higher refresh rate stability in Index (90Hz/120Hz), and better handling of complex mocap scenes in VaM.

Any feedback from users with similar upgrade paths would be really appreciated!

 

[atani]

Wouldn't you need to change the motherboard for the CPU too, AM4 to AM5?

That's a ton of money for what I suspect that won't be that substantial improvements. Will be better, but how much better that makes it worth it is debateable.
My advice would be to not go the hardware upgrade route and first try optimizing your VAM as much as possible. Any work there will benefit you with current and hardware upgrades, won't cost you money but will cost you time.

Also important to check on the scenes you play where the bottleneck is to have a good idea if for an upgrade you should focus on the CPU or GPU. Run the System monitor or what is called and investigate what's happening when playing those scenes.

 

[lolmao500]

Id wait for Zen 6X3D if I were you, 12 cores, more 3d cache, probably around 6.5-7ghz, its gonna be a beast. Save your money for now, its gonna come out around november-december 2026.

RDNA5 will also come out, and AMD will put out a +50% CUs gpu compared to the 9070XT (which is already on par with 5070Ti), its gonna be quite something.

 

[Luuube]

Id wait for Zen 6X3D if I were you, 12 cores, more 3d cache, probably around 6.5-7ghz, its gonna be a beast. Save your money for now, its gonna come out around november-december 2026.

RDNA5 will also come out, and AMD will put out a +50% CUs gpu compared to the 9070XT (which is already on par with 5070Ti), its gonna be quite something.

But will VAM be able to use all those cores?

 

[HolySchmidt]

VaM 1.X will use all cores you throw at it. More important is Singlecore speed with VaM 1 cause old engine. VaM 2 has real Multicore support, but we will see what that really means in the future.

My general advice:
Install HW Info + RTSS, activate ingame stats (mainly GPU & CPU usage).
Pick 3 scenes you like that are common, watch GPU & CPU Usage.
CPU usage will probably max out at 50% or less because no multicore support.
More important is your GPU usage: is it at 100%? If yes, new GPU makes sense. If no and it's around 70% or 80% or whatever, you would benefit of a new CPU.

It's that simple. Remember: you want Singlecore performance in VaM 1. And in general: if your GPU usage is not at around 98%, your CPU is the problem. These are the 2 main components bottlenecking your system, in games.

I think your system is balanced right now, so if you wanna upgrade, do both. A 5090 with a 5800X3D is unbalanced to me. A 3090 with a 9800X3D is unbalanced to me. VaM can make use of both, a 5090 for VR is nothing wrong. But VaM also needs every CPU performance you can afford. It's never enough with VaM 1.

I have a 13900K with a 4090. I had a 12700K with a 3080Ti. Both components boosted performance noticeable.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

As always, YMMV. I recently upgraded my CPU and MB for various reasons, not just Vam. The improvement was marginal in Vam, because my GPU was the bottleneck. A little while later, I got a good deal on a 5070 Ti, and the improvement was massive.