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GoesTo11
Up and Coming
March 20, 2016
Question

Best entry level VR video card?

I need to upgrade my video card but after spending thousands of dollars on VR equipment, I don't have much left to spend on a video card, especially if my CPU isn't good enough. I was going to go with a GTX 970 but the R9 390 is the same price up here and comes with 8GB and I've heard rumours that AMD cards may work better with DX12.

I'm mostly going to be doing dev work with Unity and if I can get some time play racing sims such as iRacing or Assetto Corsa (and maybe some Elite Dangerous). Does anyone have any recommendations?

    6 replies

    Percy1983
    Inspiring
    March 20, 2016
    I would go with the 390 overall but there isn't a huge amount in it.

    Is there any 390x cheap or even a cheap 290x used.
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    obzen
    Up and Coming
    March 20, 2016
    Nope. GTX970 or R9390, kind of a crapshoot at the moment, without concrete evidence (i.e. VR game benchmarks, DX11, DX12). Even then, driver maturity will have a large impact on performance.

    I'd be as much undecided as you TBH, with a preference towards AMD at that budget.

    I go from NVIDIA to AMD, almost on a rotation (560ti, HD6950CF, HD7970GHZ, and now a 980ti), so not really biased, and no bones to pick with either, although I would acknowledge that games are often biased towards NVIDIA in general, and NVIDIA has a more energy efficient design (cooler, quieter).

    But for VR, it's gonna be a different ball game.
    DK1 FREAK ...
    Percy1983
    Inspiring
    March 21, 2016
    Depending when your VR headset is due it may be worth waiting for Polaris/Pascal, either get one of them or pick up a cheap previous gen card when they drop the prices to shift remaining stock (I got my 290x's as the 390x came out, I can sell them for more on ebay now than I paid for them as I bought at the right time).
    Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 + 16GB RAM 1866mhz + i5-3570K at 4.5Ghz + Coolermaster Nepton 140XL cooler Sapphire 8GB RX 580 Nitro+ 256Gb SDD Samsung Evo 850 +3x2TB in raid 0 with 64GB SSD cache Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition + Toughpower 875w
    cybereality
    Inspiring
    March 21, 2016
    You can try to find an AMD R9 290 used. I see ebay auctions going for around $200-250.
    AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
    GoesTo11Author
    Up and Coming
    March 22, 2016
    Thanks guys. I'll take a look at the 290 but I've never bought anything off of ebay.

    edit: and I'm likely getting one of the earlier shipments of both the Rift and Vive so I won't be able to wait long.
    Percy1983
    Inspiring
    March 22, 2016
    As above a cheap used 290 makes sense, to buy a new top end card right now with the next gen cards so close would seem a bit of a waste.
    Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 + 16GB RAM 1866mhz + i5-3570K at 4.5Ghz + Coolermaster Nepton 140XL cooler Sapphire 8GB RX 580 Nitro+ 256Gb SDD Samsung Evo 850 +3x2TB in raid 0 with 64GB SSD cache Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition + Toughpower 875w
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