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I am building a budget VR PC setup. I am aiming for $690-$760 price range that has graphics and CPU power to run VR with quick to launch OS and Games. This is my first PC build, so let me know how good or bad it is.
  https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx?load=d0c45a8d-96cd-4b8d-9b65-b6f0071f8f03

Comments

  • AlexS
    AlexS admin
    Fourth Anniversary 100 Comments 5 Answers 25 Likes
    edited October 2020
    Greetings @AugerFam!  While the 1650 Super will do the trick on most VR titles, be aware that if you start venturing into higher end VR titles such as Half-Life: Alyx, you may want to consider investing in a RTX 2000 series card like a 2060 instead.  But if HL: Alyx isn't the objective, you should be fine with most VR titles that are out.  I did do a build using most of your components and switched some items around.  They are marked in bold.

    Here's my rendition of your build maintaining the GTX 1650 Super
    CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
    MOBO: MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX mATX ( -$30 )
    RAM: G.Skill - Ripjaws V 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200
    Case: Cooler Master - Masterbox Q300L mATX
    PSU: Thermaltake: Smart Series 600W (I personally have used Thermaltake and never had any issues with their PSUs)
    GPU: ASUS - GeForce GTX 1650 Super Phoenix OC 
    SSD: M.2 Crucial P1 1TB SSD (Vast improvement over a SATA 2.5" SSD)

    Price: $707.92 +tax

    Shaves off about $20 and you get an M.2 1TB SSD 



  • Thanks @AlexS I appreciate you taking time to look at this for me. That PSU sounds good, I was having a difficult time verifying Thermaltake as a reliable brand so I will definitely switch that out. For the SSD, I knew I wanted it to be quicker in the PCi-e slot, but I didn't realize that the one I picked was SATA. As for the GPU, I think that I would rather start out with the 1650 SUPER and upgrade once the GPU debacle subsides a little bit. HalfLife: Alyx IS in the plans, but it's definitely not a need.
    I had a question on the Motherboard. For the MSI B450M PRO-M2 MAX it only has 1 PCi-e 3.0 x16 slot. How would both the GPU and SSD fit on that board? Also, I know there is only a ~3% difference in performance between the PCi-e 3.0x16 and 4.0x16, but what difference have you seen between 2.0 and 3.0? What I like that the 550 has 3600 RAM capability and a PCi-e 3.0 and a 4.0 for upgradability.
    This one is over budget after taxes, but not by much and it makes more sense.
  • The SSD would actually fit in the M.2 slot of the motherboard, which is separate from the graphics card PCIe slot on the motherboard. The 450 PRO-M2 also supports memory speeds up to 4133MHz. The 550 does support Gen 4 PCIe, however, unless you have a need for Gen 4 SSD speed, (i.g. production heavy workload with storage intensive requirements) I think it's a fairly negligible difference. 
    However, it's definitely something to consider, and you should choose what you want most. You know what you will be using this build for in the future. 
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