Question What Hardware should i get for VAM without overspending? (1,5-3k budget)

[deni12]

Hi,
i just got 1,5-3k to spend and want to get the best out of VAM without overspending on minor performance increases.

I've researched that VAM mostly needs a very good CPU more than a GPU, still i would like to know what would be the best price/value hardware for running VAM very fluently (quest 2, virtual desktop) without overspending (as i dont really game otherwise). I still want to look it very realistic (physics, textures) though, because bad texture resolution, physics and lightning are killing the immersion for me.

AMD or Intel? (CPU)
AMD or Nvidia? (GPU)
RAM etc.

I dont care about 10% performance increases when it costs me 500-1000$ more, i just want the best value and it should be a bit "future proof" with upcoming VAM updates.

Thanks in advance!
Deni

 

[WolfmanVR]

Deni - AMD vs. Intel and AMD vs. Nvidia is almost like politics -- people are adamantly on both sides. Since you are on a budget, I'd suggest you focus more on bang for your buck. For VaM, single core performance on your CPU is very important, so keep that in mind when considering which CPU to buy. Not sure about VaM 2.x...

Buy as much RAM as you can afford. 24 / 32 GB is reasonable these days, 64 GB is probably overkill right now, but will future proof you even more.

Go with all NVMe SSD storage if you can. It's pricey, but it blows away regular SSDs by a long shot! As with everything, all NVMe SSDs perform differently, so it's yet another bang vs. buck thing to consider.

My suggestion is to compare price and performance of components with Userbenchmark. Read lots of articles on TomsHardware and Anandtech. Figure out the sweet spot of performance vs. price within your price range. When in doubt, spend a little more. Hopefully your new PC will last you a minimum of 6-8 years, possibly more. Don't regret that you only put in 12 GB of RAM a year from now.

And whatever you do, after you've bought your new PC, quit looking at prices! It will only depress you to see that you could have bought X more, for the same price or even less 6 months down the road....

Hope that helps.

 

[HolySchmidt]

My advice would be: Intel 12700K with 3080/3080ti, 32GB Ram, NVMe SSD (1-2GB, Samsung maybe).
That, in my opinion, is a good bang for buck system.
For CPUs you have to look for "single core performance", the more, the better. I think the AMD 5800X3D is a very good option as well, but AM4 mainboards are end of life.

Then you have to decide to go with DDR4 or DDR5, which in my opinion still is a no brainer for DDR4. Cheaper, nearly same performance (maybe 1-5% slower in average if at all, depending on what you gonna do). If you wanna be futureproof for years buy DDR5.

Nvidia 4000 series will be released "soon", new AMD and Intel CPUs too. And AMD will release their new GPUs "soon" as well. So if you can wait couple months, then wait.

VaM 2.0 will probably perform much better than 1.x because it's using all CPU cores. VaM 1.x only uses 4 cores so you need single core performance.
My advice in general: don't buy top tier hardware cause price/performance is always the worst. 3090ti or 12900K for example.
Intel 12700/K is a very good CPU, be it single- or multicore. AMD tend to have better multicore performance. But that's what you don't need. Nvidia is my advice for VR as AMD tend to have some problems with VR.

 

[WolfmanVR]

Good recommendations, HolySchmidt. Glad to hear VaM 2.x will use all your CPU cores. All things being equal, that should give a sizeable leap in performance to VaM! I didn't know about AMD having problems in VR. Good to know!

If you do go Nvidia for your GPU, Deni, I echo HolySchmidt's sentiment that waiting for the 4000x series cards is very advisable at this point. Word on the street is the 4000x series cards will be almost twice as fast as the 3000x series cards. One caveat - it the chip shortage continues, it might be extremely hard to get your hands on one anywhere near the launch date! However, with Crypto largely in the toilet right now, the scalpers and crypto miners might back off of hording the cards like they did with the 3000x series cards. Time will tell. (BTW, the 4000x series cards are going to be more power hungry, so you'll probably want to go with a 1000 watt PSU, minimum).

While I agree that top tier components have a bad price/performance ratio, I think you might still want to consider going all the way up to a 3090 or 4090 (if you go Nvidia), but pass on the "ti" model. Yes, the clock speed isn't that much better than the 3080/4080 cards and it's a lot more expensive, but the VRAM on the 3090 cards is double that of the 3080/3080ti cards (24 GB instead of 12 GB, presumably the same with the 4000 series), and lower model cards go down even further to 10 GB and 8 GB of VRAM. If you really want to future proof, 24 GB of VRAM will definitely help games with large texture sizes. But, seeing as you really don't game other than VaM, it might be a moot point. Perhaps you could shoot an email to one of the VaM DEVs and see if they have a VRAM recommendation. Other AAA games will undoubtedly use more than 8-12 GB of VRAM eventually. I'm just not sure about VaM...

I haven't read if the next gen CPUs are going to be that much more revolutionary or not. Has anyone read up on that subject yet?

 

[WolfmanVR]

One more thing, this might help you regarding NVMe drives: Best NVMe 2022

Deni - Are you planning on building your own PC, or having a company build/deliver one to you? If the latter, you might not get a choice of specific components...