DCS in VR best GFX for sub 1k

[Buzzer1977]

I'm looking for a graphics card for my sons rig.

He has a 5800X3D with 126GB RAM and a old GTX960.
He'll get a Q3 for VR, but I'm still in doubt which graphics card to buy.
RX 7900XTX ->24GB VRAM which is great for DCS, but the 7000 series had(still has?) serious issues in VR in the past.
RX 9070XT -> Only recently announced, only 16GB VRAM, price tag yet unknown
RTX40xx -> Unavailable and/or ridculous overpriced
RTX5070 -> Rumored to require PCIe 5.0, we only have PCIe 4.0 on AM4 ...

So to me it looks like 9070 if the price is right. 
Any suggestions?!?

[unlikely_spider]

27 minutes ago, Buzzer1977 said:

RTX5070 -> Rumored to require PCIe 5.0

Really? I strongly doubt that. Why would they kneecap their sales by doing that?

[Gun Jam]

used 4090s cheep right now as sellers think the 5070 is equivalent. I saw an asus tricked out model listed for 650

[LucShep]

4 hours ago, Buzzer1977 said:

I'm looking for a graphics card for my sons rig.

He has a 5800X3D with 126GB RAM and a old GTX960.
He'll get a Q3 for VR, but I'm still in doubt which graphics card to buy.
RX 7900XTX ->24GB VRAM which is great for DCS, but the 7000 series had(still has?) serious issues in VR in the past.
RX 9070XT -> Only recently announced, only 16GB VRAM, price tag yet unknown
RTX40xx -> Unavailable and/or ridculous overpriced
RTX5070 -> Rumored to require PCIe 5.0, we only have PCIe 4.0 on AM4 ...

So to me it looks like 9070 if the price is right. 
Any suggestions?!?

PCIe 5.0 devices are back compatible with older PCIe slots (4.0 and 3.0) in motherboards.

You're actually not losing much (if anything at all, my guess is nothing at all) by running any of those PCIe 5.0 GPUs on the motherboard for that 5800X3D (which is PCIe 4.0), so long as the PCIe in the motherboard is set at x16 in the BIOS, to get the full speed/bandwidth that the PCIe slot can give (I hope it makes sense?).

If unsure that the PCIe slot for the graphics is at x16, then run GPU-Z and click the "?" symbol, and run the small test for a few seconds (you can stop it after a small while).
It'll then show if it's @ x16, x8 or x4 (see image right below).

As for recommendation, and based on personal experience, for VR I'd suggest Nvidia.... "it just works".  LOL

IMO, getting a used or refurbished RTX4070Ti Super 16GB (check Amazon and Newegg, usually there's a few at discount) would be a good purchase for that system.
Those should have prices lowered right when the new 5070/5070Ti come out, and I suspect these won't be much faster (10% or 15% difference?) than 4070/4070Ti Super. 

 

Edited January 8 by LucShep

[unlikely_spider]

9 minutes ago, Gun Jam said:

used 4090s cheep right now as sellers think the 5070 is equivalent. I saw an asus tricked out model listed for 650

"Gently used" as well, I'm sure

[Gun Jam]

perhaps... Im sure asus strix 4090s are going to be easy to get for sub 1k pretty darn soon. Keep an eye out for them

[LucShep]

40 minutes ago, unlikely_spider said:

"Gently used" as well, I'm sure

LOL  
Yes, be carefull with tricksters selling 2nd hand high-end GPUs at unreal tempting prices, lots of damaged and even apparently mint cards which have no core and memory in the PCB of the GPU, for which you can only know after dismounting the whole thing (so, a major scam). 

Some even go further in the scam....

 

Edited January 8 by LucShep

[DD_Crash]

In the UK CEX sell "pre loved" graphics cards with 2 year warranty worth a look https://uk.webuy.com/

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, Buzzer1977 said:

RTX5070 -> Rumored to require PCIe 5.0, we only have PCIe 4.0 on AM4 ...

That the card has PCIe 5 doesn't mean that it requires it. In the past we saw about 1% loss of performance for using a PCIe 4 card in a PCIe 3 slot, so it will probably be the same when using a PCIe 5 card in a PCIe 4 slot. Not worth worrying about.

Quote

RX 7900XTX ->24GB VRAM which is great for DCS, but the 7000 series had(still has?) serious issues in VR in the past.

That's solved by now. AMD has too little capacity in their driver team to fix VR before launch or in the period after, but eventually they get to it. However, this can easily take 6 months or even longer. So this means that getting a RX 9070 XT shortly after launch is probably a bad idea.

So valid choices are IMO:

• 2nd hand 4080 or 4070 Ti
• 2nd hand or new 7900 XTX or XT
• new 5070 Ti or 5080

But we don't have proper benchmarks for the new cards yet, so I would just wait out the month to see the reviews for the new cards. And then the cards should also start flooding onto the 2nd hand market, so you can look at what is on offer there as well.

[Buzzer1977]

Now that the NVidia 5000 series and AMD 9000 series are out,

does anybody have performance data for DCS in VR to compare?
9070XT
7900XTX
5070

[diego999]

How about a 4070ti Super? 16GB of VRAM at a reasonable price (if you can get one). And from the benchmarks I've seen, it performs better than a 5070.

Edited March 8 by diego999

[Buzzer1977]

On 3/8/2025 at 3:21 AM, diego999 said:

How about a 4070ti Super? 16GB of VRAM at a reasonable price (if you can get one). And from the benchmarks I've seen, it performs better than a 5070.

The 5070 is way cheaper (€800). A 4070TI Super is currently on par with a 5070TI (1200€) and about ~300€ more then a 9070XT or a 7900XTX (900€).
So sub 1k€ it's only 9070XT, 7900XTX, 5070

[Qcumber]

1 hour ago, Buzzer1977 said:

A 4070TI Super is currently on par with a 5070TI (1200€)

Most reviews I have seen show that the 5070ti is about 15% faster than a 4070ti super. In the UK they are both about the same price and availability of the 4070ti super is worse than the 5070ti. Used on eBay are selling for the same price as new. About £800.

[Buzzer1977]

ALEA IACTA EST
Just ordered a RX9070XT OC 
https://www.xfxforce.com/shop/xfx-mercury-amd-radeon-rx-9070xt-oc-gaming-edition-with-rgb

[Miura27]

On 3/9/2025 at 4:18 PM, Buzzer1977 said:

The 5070 is way cheaper (€800). A 4070TI Super is currently on par with a 5070TI (1200€) and about ~300€ more then a 9070XT or a 7900XTX (900€).
So sub 1k€ it's only 9070XT, 7900XTX, 5070

Thats where i am at the moment, sitting on a GTX 1080 + CV1 and waiting to jump on a new GPU+Headset. For a while now, as you might see, thanks to a very below average market for years now.

I'm probably going to jump on a RTX 5070 (650€) + Quest 3 (550€) + new PSU (160€) thats more than enough, especially if i want a Winwing next Fall. Anyone got experience with the current (underwhelming) 5070 with a Quest 3? CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X with 32gb RAM

[TonyG]

The 5070Ti is great value with the Q3.  Been super impressed with it. 
I would recommend spending the money for the Ti and the extra vram. 

[Miura27]

5070: 650€

5070Ti: 950€

Don't do that to me. That's +300€ or +46% which is quit a lot. 

[Qcumber]

I wonder what the 5060ti 16Gb will look like in DCS. Might be a consideration instead of the 5070. 

[Miura27]

On 3/29/2025 at 9:16 PM, Buzzer1977 said:

ALEA IACTA EST
Just ordered a RX9070XT OC 
https://www.xfxforce.com/shop/xfx-mercury-amd-radeon-rx-9070xt-oc-gaming-edition-with-rgb

Sooo, how is it going with your new GPU?

[Buzzer1977]

On 4/17/2025 at 2:51 PM, Miura27 said:

Sooo, how is it going with your new GPU?

It was a sobering experience. 2D Performance is great, but it sucks in VR.
Already opened a support ticket with AMD over the devastating performance, 
the horrible quality of the codec and opened a ticket with ED over graphics
failures in VR with the AMD card.
 

 

[Qcumber]

22 minutes ago, Buzzer1977 said:

It was a sobering experience. 2D Performance is great, but it sucks in VR.
Already opened a support ticket with AMD over the devastating performance, 
the horrible quality of the codec and opened a ticket with ED over graphics
failures in VR with the AMD card.
 

 

Sorry to hear that. The 9070xt looks like a good GPU. Maybe it just needs a slightly different approach to settings compared to Nvidia!? I'm happy to help problem solved if I can. 

[Aapje]

16 hours ago, Buzzer1977 said:

It was a sobering experience. 2D Performance is great, but it sucks in VR.
Already opened a support ticket with AMD over the devastating performance, 
the horrible quality of the codec and opened a ticket with ED over graphics
failures in VR with the AMD card.

It seems to work for others:

 

 

[Miura27]

17 hours ago, Buzzer1977 said:

It was a sobering experience. 2D Performance is great, but it sucks in VR.
Already opened a support ticket with AMD over the devastating performance, 
the horrible quality of the codec and opened a ticket with ED over graphics
failures in VR with the AMD card.
 

 

Thank you for your service, Soldier. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten 

I ordered a 5070ti. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:00 PM by Miura27

[Buzzer1977]

8 hours ago, Aapje said:

It seems to work for others:

They're using VirtualDesktop and not the usual out of the box VR link systems like QuestLink or SteamLink. 
With todays new Adrenalin 24.4.1 drivers things got way better, but the RX9070xt is still miles away from my half decade old RTX3090.
What's most surprising is that QuestLink really sucks in performance and picture quality of the codec compared to SteamLink.
Maybe i should invest 30 bucks for VirtualDeskop ...

Edited Tuesday at 10:02 PM by Buzzer1977

[Buzzer1977]

Just invested the 30 bucks in VirtualDesktop ... Let's see tomorrow how it'll perform ...