Upgrade Path from GTX 1080 on Z170A ?

[Dr. Zaus]

Hi,

Sorry, this is sort of a hybrid video-card/motherboard question

I built a system for VR around a GTX 1080 back in 2016; I have a i7 6th gen at 4ghz. I used this mother board: https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/Z170A-SLI-PLUS/Specification

I just pre-ordered a new VR head set that has double the resolution of my old vive: the HP Reverb G2

The 1080 meets minimum requirements but I'm considering the nVidia card that's about to come out.

My question is, what's my optimal upgrade path on this motherboard?

Is there already a bottle neck with that motherboard for the 2080ti; what should I look for to make sure the 3080 is compatible?

Thanks

 

[renz20003]

I’m in the same boat with being stuck on the z170 platform. Unfortunately the best chip you can toss in it is 7700k and not all z170 makers provideded bios updates to support it.

Will bottleneck a 2080ti

 

[Shmee]

Unfortuantely, you are stuck on a 4c8t, but, if you can OC to 4.5GHz or higher, that could help, then get a 3060 or 3070. You may want to invest in a really good CPU cooler to help the OC.

 

[JTsyo]

I got a 6600K on a Asus Z170A with a 550W PSU so 3060 is where I'm looking. My display is 1080 so the 3060 should be plenty.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Thanks for the OC advice. I got an all core to 4.6 using a nice air cooler on my i7 6600k. I also got my 1080 to 2ghz w/ equivalent ratio overclock on the ram.

I also moved to an HP m.2 but that's being badly bottle-necked even by the OCed CPU pulling up MS Flight Sim, then it gets bottle necked by the 1080 when I look around, then it's flies without maxing either.

I'm hopeful that the 30xx's ability to help the 3rd gen m.2's bypass the CPU will help. If not, I'll wait for the Zen 2+ / Zen 3 architecture and build a new system from the ground up (probably giving my brother this system but on the fence about keeping the m.2; i have an old 480gb SATA and 1tb spinning disk.)

I'm getting the HP Reverb G2 VR head set because it's double the resolution of my Vive; the 1080 is minimum for it, but my experience with VR is you wan to push past minimum by about 2x so you can run high quality anti-aliasing.