Oculus Rift and FirePro w5100

[rzthrun]

Need to get a VR headset for development. Really like HTC's Vive, but given the cost probably going to go with the Oculus Rift. For $800 the Oculus will get me all the peripherals I need, whereas I'm looking at closer to $1200 on Vive for equivalent functionality.

I've been working on an Asus rampage IV Black edition, with 64GB G-Skill RAM and i7-4930K processor. SSDs all the way. When I built this rig, the one place I had to (could) squeeze was on the Graphics Card. Went with the FirePro w5100, which I've has suited my needs well enough. The previous rig I was working on had a FirePro v5900, which, frankly, I liked a little bit more then the w5100. I went with these cards because they were 'professional' cards.

Given that Oculus lists the NVIDIA GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 for graphics cards, and NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD Radeon R9 290 as 'alternative' graphics cards .... whatever 'alternative' means...

.... my question(s) is(are), "Is the w5100 up to the task? What can I expect from it? and am I also going to need to purchase a new GC ? What card is recommend for .... less than $400 ?"

Thanks, looking forward to hearing any response.

 

[Dicehunter]

The Fire Pro W5100 is about the same performance as the AMD 6850 so you are looking at pretty bad VR performance overall.




If you can stretch a little over $400 you can get a brand new Asus GTX 1070 for $404.

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-GeForce...efinements=p_n_condition-type:2224373011&th=1

 

[rzthrun]

Dicehunter - Thank you.
I think I'll take your recommendation.
For $20 more there is the Asus GTX 1070 8GB ROG STRIX - not sure what the difference is between it and the Dual - STRIX is for sound no ?
My friend is using 1080 - played with it, very impressed - but gotta put that $200 more elsewhere. The benchmarks I looked at make the 1070 seem like the best value over the 1060 and 1080.
The 1060 seems like the recommended card for the Vive as well.

Okay - another question - maybe a noob question - will the w5100 and GTX 1070 play nice on the same mobo board (Rampage IV Black) - or is w5100 going toward another (as of yet unspecified) rig ?

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-GeForce-STRIX-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1070-O8G-GAMING/dp/B01HEQYQHA/ref=sr_1_16?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1487565542&sr=1-16&keywords=980%2Bti&refinements=p_n_condition-type%3A2224373011&th=1

 

[Dicehunter]

Dicehunter - Thank you.
I think I'll take your recommendation.
For $20 more there is the Asus GTX 1070 8GB ROG STRIX - not sure what the difference is between it and the Dual - STRIX is for sound no ?
My friend is using 1080 - played with it, very impressed - but gotta put that $200 more elsewhere. The benchmarks I looked at make the 1070 seem like the best value over the 1060 and 1080.
The 1060 seems like the recommended card for the Vive as well.

Okay - another question - maybe a noob question - will the w5100 and GTX 1070 play nice on the same mobo board (Rampage IV Black) - or is w5100 going toward another (as of yet unspecified) rig ?

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-GeForce-STRIX-Graphic-STRIX-GTX1070-O8G-GAMING/dp/B01HEQYQHA/ref=sr_1_16?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1487565542&sr=1-16&keywords=980%2Bti&refinements=p_n_condition-type%3A2224373011&th=1

Honestly I'd pony up the extra £20 and get the Strix over the Dual, Better cooling which means it will be quieter under load, Plus it looks better IMO ^_^

Not too sure about both cards playing nice on the same board as you'd need 2 sets of drivers installed so it might mess with the cards.

 

[NeverBackDown]

I would not recommend using two different sets of drivers. Especially with an AMD and Nvidia one.

You'd be better of using the 1070 alone tbh.

 

[rzthrun]

yea - going with the STRIX - I was secretly hoping those two cards could go together - though I knew they couldn't. Thanks for the help !

 

[rzthrun]

Asus GTX 1070 STRIX Installed

Well, Asus GTX 1070 STRIX installed. (Cat for scale). Have one monitor (1920x1080) and a graphical pen tablet (1400X900) hooked up. About to put on another 1920x1080 monitor and then the HTC Vive - Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

So, I now have a spare Firepro w5100. My other rig is currently using the Firepro v5900, on the Rampage IV.

Question(s)
1) Any thoughts on running the w5100 and v5900 on the same rig ?
2) Or better to save one of those GCs for another build ?

Wasn't really happy with w5100 compared to v5900, not sure why tho. w5100 is a 4GB card, the v5900 a two GB.

3) if I was to favor one these cards for graphics authoring (Maya, Adobe PS mostly), which is preferable ?

I'd rather not rebuild the other rig, but if the preformance boost is worth it, well, of course all do it.

Thanks again - all these suggestions have been really helpful