Time for that VR upgrade?! [need PC advice]

After watching those streams, I've fallen into the hole of wanting to go into VR.

I think? I have a pretty good PC, but having recently (finally) obtained a stable job, I'm looking to upgrade. I have had issues running several modern games (Dragon Age Inquisition, Fallout 4...) on max settings, though I've obviously still enjoyed them without. Anyway, here's what I have so far, to the best of my knowledge:

Windows 10

i7-3930K 3.20Ghz

32GB RAM

ASUS GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5

Samsung 840 Series SSD

Should I up the graphics card, or processor? Or am I good? I have no idea how to understand the processor numbers, but from my attempts to research I'm eyeing the GTX970...?

Thanks duders!

Your CPU is fine. If you think you need more power out of it, you can buy an aftermarket CPU cooler and get into overclocking. You GPU is a little under-speced for VR, though. A 970 will get you in the door and stronger cards should keep the frame rate up.

Just keep in mind that the GPU Technology Conference is going on right now. Info is currently coming about about Nvida's Pascal GPS. So if you want to get into VR later rather than sooner, I'd keep an eye out for details on the 'GTX 1080' and '1070'. Solid info for those cards should come out relatively soon.

@minorinya: Your CPU is what is known as "hot shit" in the trade. A server-grade piece of silicon that not only enables hyper-threading to schedule two tasks on each core (making use of slack in the schedule to do this faster than just doing so one after the other) but, unlike mainstream/consumer CPUs that have four core, you have six cores and so 12 "hardware" threads. Not only that but it also has 4 memory controllers (mainstream i5/i7 users get two of those) so assuming that 32GB of RAM is made up of four 8GB sticks, you'll also be feeding that CPU with a lot more memory bandwidth than anyone with the latest mainstream part (the i7-6700K). Basically you're goig to be set for quite a while as everyone else catches up to the core system you're running with. Right now we're not even seriously expecting the next generation or two of Intel mainstream chips to have more than 4 cores and newer game engines (built for the consoles, which have 8 tiny tablet-grade cores from AMD's low power designs) are being built to take advantage of multiple cores so you should be fine (even if older engines were not so hot on using every core you've got - we're finally getting quite good at scheduling the work for each frame on every core on a system).

However the GTX 760 GPU you've got: that's currently about equivalent to budget-tier mainstream gaming 2015 stuff (no, definitely not the card to just set everything to max in 2016). That's not "server grade" or even enthusiast grade. Trust me, I'm also rocking one (I needed to save a few pennies at the time, when it was new almost 3 years ago then it was an ok, if unremarkable, option for a mainstream GPU) and I'm now feeling the age of the card. Things have moved forward and are about to move forward even more if you wait a couple of months for the next generation of cards to release (nVidia Pascal, AMD Polaris designs - they should be pretty fancy and well beyond what you need to make VR something where you can crank the setting up beyond the GTX970 minimum they're currently targeting).

GTX 760: 192 GB/s VRAM bandwidth; 2,260 GFLOPS (shader) processing power.

GTX 970: 196-224 GB/s; 3,494 GLOPS.

New Polaris "server grade" card: 720 GB/s; 10,600 GFLOPS (and that can go even higher due to new efficiencies in doing lower precision maths faster that the 760 or 970 can do it).

A new card is going to be impressive. No, they're not equivalent as that Polaris GPU listed above is likely only going to be in $1000 consumer models (and later a $600 model?), not the ~$400 models. But something new is coming at that price range the GTX970/980 are currently filling and it looks like it could be pretty interesting. If you're not desperate for VR now; give the GTX 970 a miss (great card, great value; I was almost tempted myself if I hadn't been trying to wait out the die shrink to 16nm). See what you can buy for similar money (or maybe spend an extra $100 if work is good and cash is easy) in a few months when the next generation of cards come out.

@shivoa: @facelessvixen:

It takes me to respond, but thank you both so much for all that information! It was a learning experience.

I've ended up taking your advice and now I have a MSI GTX1070 Gaming X on its way (considering a 1440p down the road). In preparation though, I've read that the specs require one 8-pin and one 6-pin connector. My 650W power supply has two 6-pin connectors. Anything I can do with adapters to expand to an 8-pin, or use a Molex 4-pin to 2-pin, if that exists?

Thanks so much duders! PCs are confusing.

there will be adapter cable(s) in the box with your new card u should be fine.

@minorinya: I think 650W should be fine for what you're running (ideally a system should use about half the total power of the PSU because peak efficiency for a PSU is at about 50% load - most input power goes to drive the system, least percentage turns into wasted heat in the PSU that forces the fan to spin to get rid of it) as these new high-end cards are actually only 150 Watt cards. Even with the small overclock from MSI, you're not looking at something likely to draw more than 180 Watts at the worst of times. We're talking about the entire computer (unless you have two dozen platter HDDs in there or something unusual) that will only need about 300 Watts at the wall to play games. So 650W is actually in that ideal spot, assuming it's a good branded PSU that meets the specs printed on it. I wouldn't say a 750W PSU was the wrong choice but 650W is definitely no problem. So you've got enough total power and it should be fine in the right rails (the total power is divided over several rails and the different voltages output - 3.3V, 5V & 12V being the major ones).

So you're going to hopefully find a good adaptor in the GPU's box to help you out. Possibly some molex but at the least there will be a 6 to 8 pin adaptor. That's because the 6-pin PCI-E cable is specified to provide up to 75W and the 8-pin caps out at 150W - so you need two 6-pin to be the same total power potential guaranteed as a single 8-pin. If you don't get enough adaptors with the GPU then anything like a molex to 6-pin adaptor you need to complete the set should be fine. This is another case of severe over-engineering as your GPU actually only need the 8-pin but may have been designed to not switch on unless you hook everything up. So you have to adaptor it to be happy, even if they don't really need to be great quality adaptors.

The GPU want 150 Watts, plus headroom for some overclocking. The PCI-E 16x slot you plug it into already gives the GPU 75W so half of that is already provided for. A single 6-pin connector gives you the other 75W so at that point you've just about met the minimum power required. A second 6-pin pushes the total power delivery to 225 Watts - so you definitely have more power than the GPU will ever need. But this GPU wants enough cables to make it pretend it could be a 300 Watt card (it can't, things would melt and the power delivery capacitors would pop if it ever actually took in all 300W the cables could provide - a PR guy thought up the number of cables this GPU needs, not an engineer).

Basically do what you need to spend the least possible to adapt what cables you have spare to what the card asks for. My guess is that'll be using a two 6-pin to 8-pin adaptor in the box with your existing PSU cables and then find a local store with a $1 or less adaptor (like this - they could be as cheap as 10 cents) which should be two molex on one side and a 6-pin PCI-E on the other do plug into that extra port the card wants.

@shivoa: Thanks yet again, shivoa!

I'm actually now a little confused where I am in my PC upgrade process, so please bear with me.

I looked up my motherboard, which turned out to be the Asus Rampage IV Extreme. Looking at the power ATX requirements...

I never knew that there were different cables for ATX vs. PCIE. I hope I didn't do anything wrong - I've been using this PC for the last three years with no issue. However, if what I've been doing is fine - that is, taking whatever fits and plugging it in - then I had used up a 8-pin connector on the motherboard. I have two 6-pin connectors left, which I combined into one 8-pin for the GTX 760 I currently run.

Is there a possible solution to this when my GTX 1070 arrives? Or should I stick with the double Molex to 6-pin as you suggested?

Thanks!

@minorinya: So this looks to be a decent article about the details of the differences. (there is probably more details than you really need in here but if you're curious then this looks like a decent outline that goes into all these additional connectors)

But the key point is that almost everything in PCs is poka-yoke (have also heard it called ok-pokey) so things that aren't meant to fit together don't. Everything is shaped with notches and different shapes so that you can't (without really forcing it) put things in the wrong way up or into the wrong port. The motherboard's 12V 8-pin connector (often simply called the EPS connector) is not the same as the PCI-E 12V 8-pin connector. It's perfectly normal for your PSU to have two 6-pin PCI-E cables and one EPS 8-pin that's meant for the motherboard. Not having an 8-pin PCI-E connector isn't unexpected.

So the EPS-12V you've been using (with the motherboard, as it should be) has completely different notches on the individual pins than the PCI-E connector you'll be short of (and so making by combining both 6-pin cables with an adaptor). This is very good as, looking at the pin-out above, you can see that the ground and 12V lines are different so it's good they don't fit so prevent you plugging them into the wrong thing.

It sounds like you'll be sorted but, unless the card comes with a Y-adaptor (which it does not appear to have in the press samples sent out), you do need to get one of those dual molex to 6-pin adaptor to hook it up correctly. Reuse the current dual 6-pin to 8-pin adaptor you're using with your current GPU and then use a couple of spare molex connectors to make up the extra 6-pin you're short.

@shivoa: shivoa, thanks so much for all your help - learned so much! Graphics card's all connected, and wow quite the difference from the GTX 760. Cheers!