- Oct 11, 2016
- 4
- 0
- 1,510
Hi Folks.
First post at Toms, I hope I am in the right area. I have spent several hours searching the forums and many more further afield, and while there are similar posts I can't find any which answer my questions adequately so please excuse me if there are.
I have a Dell Inspiron 620s (ie: Slim) with W7 Home Premium and the stock i5-2310 Quad @2.90 GHz which I have previously upgraded to 8GB Ram, a 2GB GTX750ti (Low profile) and a Seasonic 350W Gold 80+ PSU. This setup works great on my preferred genre of flight sims being either Aces High and more recently DCS, and I'm usually pulling somewhere between 50 - 70 FPS at max settings on these.
I now want to go VR with Oculus and although I was fairly certain the current setup wouldn't cut the mustard I ran the Steam VR test anyway just to be sure, and sure enough it failed. Interestingly the results indicated that only the GPU was a problem, the CPU apparently passed as it was marked green, or VR Ready, along with the OS. (Presumably the Steam VR Ready translates to Oculus Ready?)
With regards to upgrading the GPU, Oculus specs state a minimum GeForce 970GTX. Apart from being slim the 620S also won't fit full length cards due to the drive bays location behind the slots so without getting medieval on my case I'm limited to both low profile and short cards. My research indicates there are no 970+ low profile GPU's on the market so I am now indeed entertaining getting medieval and cutting a slot in the top of the case to accommodate a full height but short 970 to 1070. I would then fashion a convex shroud from medium gauge metal mesh to fix over the slot/GPU to protect the top of the card while providing additional ventilation, and also provide a fixing point for the projecting face plate. I am only really looking at GeForce cards as I believe they do not use as much power and run cooler than AMD's which is important given the smaller case and PSU.
I also previously looked at upgrading the CPU to an I7-2600S @ 2.8GHz which is the max the 620S mobo will take but these aren't cheap for an older 2nd gen discontinued CPU, even second hand ones start at $200+ AUD on Ebay and the few new one's still available are 4 or 500 AUD. After doing some more research I figured it would be pointless upgrading the CPU without upgrading the card given the primary use of the unit is for games.
So I have a couple of questions for those of you in the know and kind enough to answer.
1: Are there any short length 4 - 6gb 970 to 1070 GeForce units available with lower power requirements which will run on my system? I realise the PSU is a limiting factor however it is a good quality 350W Gold 80+ so I figure this should be worth some extra points;
2: Assuming I can upgrade the GPU, would also upgrading the CPU to the I7-2600S see any measurable performance benefits on screen and/or Oculus? I would only consider this if I can upgrade the GPU to a 970+.
On a final note, I have looked at buying a new system for Oculus but apart from the cost most gaming rigs are towers which won't fit in my lounge room tv/entertainment unit, whereas the 620S looks pretty good in my setup and is also a perfect fit to close the unit door so I am really keen on keeping it if at all possible. I have also investigated building a system using a Fractal Node 605 or Silverstone horizontal case but these are also fairly limited space wise, the cost for something fairly decent starts getting up to a couple of k pretty quickly, and ultimately I would prefer to keep my Dell if I can upgrade it sufficiently.
Sorry for the lengthy post just trying to get all the info in reasonably succinctly.
Any advice and/or suggestions will be very much appreciated thanks.
First post at Toms, I hope I am in the right area. I have spent several hours searching the forums and many more further afield, and while there are similar posts I can't find any which answer my questions adequately so please excuse me if there are.
I have a Dell Inspiron 620s (ie: Slim) with W7 Home Premium and the stock i5-2310 Quad @2.90 GHz which I have previously upgraded to 8GB Ram, a 2GB GTX750ti (Low profile) and a Seasonic 350W Gold 80+ PSU. This setup works great on my preferred genre of flight sims being either Aces High and more recently DCS, and I'm usually pulling somewhere between 50 - 70 FPS at max settings on these.
I now want to go VR with Oculus and although I was fairly certain the current setup wouldn't cut the mustard I ran the Steam VR test anyway just to be sure, and sure enough it failed. Interestingly the results indicated that only the GPU was a problem, the CPU apparently passed as it was marked green, or VR Ready, along with the OS. (Presumably the Steam VR Ready translates to Oculus Ready?)
With regards to upgrading the GPU, Oculus specs state a minimum GeForce 970GTX. Apart from being slim the 620S also won't fit full length cards due to the drive bays location behind the slots so without getting medieval on my case I'm limited to both low profile and short cards. My research indicates there are no 970+ low profile GPU's on the market so I am now indeed entertaining getting medieval and cutting a slot in the top of the case to accommodate a full height but short 970 to 1070. I would then fashion a convex shroud from medium gauge metal mesh to fix over the slot/GPU to protect the top of the card while providing additional ventilation, and also provide a fixing point for the projecting face plate. I am only really looking at GeForce cards as I believe they do not use as much power and run cooler than AMD's which is important given the smaller case and PSU.
I also previously looked at upgrading the CPU to an I7-2600S @ 2.8GHz which is the max the 620S mobo will take but these aren't cheap for an older 2nd gen discontinued CPU, even second hand ones start at $200+ AUD on Ebay and the few new one's still available are 4 or 500 AUD. After doing some more research I figured it would be pointless upgrading the CPU without upgrading the card given the primary use of the unit is for games.
So I have a couple of questions for those of you in the know and kind enough to answer.
1: Are there any short length 4 - 6gb 970 to 1070 GeForce units available with lower power requirements which will run on my system? I realise the PSU is a limiting factor however it is a good quality 350W Gold 80+ so I figure this should be worth some extra points;
2: Assuming I can upgrade the GPU, would also upgrading the CPU to the I7-2600S see any measurable performance benefits on screen and/or Oculus? I would only consider this if I can upgrade the GPU to a 970+.
On a final note, I have looked at buying a new system for Oculus but apart from the cost most gaming rigs are towers which won't fit in my lounge room tv/entertainment unit, whereas the 620S looks pretty good in my setup and is also a perfect fit to close the unit door so I am really keen on keeping it if at all possible. I have also investigated building a system using a Fractal Node 605 or Silverstone horizontal case but these are also fairly limited space wise, the cost for something fairly decent starts getting up to a couple of k pretty quickly, and ultimately I would prefer to keep my Dell if I can upgrade it sufficiently.
Sorry for the lengthy post just trying to get all the info in reasonably succinctly.
Any advice and/or suggestions will be very much appreciated thanks.
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