8kx i love it, image quality is like looking on a monitor in VR

Dear Reader.

I ordered the Pimax 8kx in end of October 2019, and today 10 september 2020 it arrived to my big surprise since I never recieved any track and trace information but only some letters about they where getting ready to ship my 8kx vr headsetā€¦ It was actual a nice surprise to wake up and see there was package and it said pimax on the side :wink:

The packing of the product was good and it have nice black protective foam in the box that kept the vr headset in place and the cables where rolled arround a circular device.
There was plastic arround the box so water/rain could not damage the product during transport.
I instant notised that compared to pimax 5k+ i no longer needed a power adapter and only had to pluging the Hdmi, usb 3.0 ( blue usb connector ) and usb 2.0 cable. ( black )

Actual pimax vr headsets are not new to me, i had pimax 4k and pimax 5k+ and now pimax 8kx and to let you know the pimax 8kx is really the best in the series since it feel better, the tracking is a bit better and ofcourse it have a much better picture, and its actual like looking at a monitor but in VR. I have personaly had vr equipment for many years and im so happy that FINALY the image is like looking on a monitor with no pixels visible and that i now ingame actual can read even the smallest text.

Dont get me wrong the pimax 5k+ i thought was really great, but i could not in dcs world read the small white text in the main menu about dislaimersā€¦ But the when i tried the 8kx i could read it clearly.
My render quality is set to 1,5 and i used normal field of view and dident turn on forward rendering or smart smoothing, like i sait i just got the headset today and dident tweak it yet ).
In the cockpit of the F16 ( that is a bit small cockpit compared to other planes/heli ) then i could read 99% of all the text without leaning forward or anythingā€¦ The only text i find difficult to read are on the navigation screen inbetween my legs where you tune heading and can read distanceā€¦ these tiny numbers i have to lean forward 20cm to read the text, but that is no big deal at all. Els all labels in the cockpit is readable and ofcourse looking out the cockpit window is like looking like if you played on a monitor. Well im so happy about the quality FINALY a vr headset that have ā€œmonitor quality in a vr gameā€.

The performanceā€¦
My computer ryzen 9 3900x ( 12 cores/24 threads ) 3800mhz boost up to 4700
Nvidia 2080rtx oc from gainward
32gb ddr 4 ram 3200mhz
m.2 and ssd harddisk.
windows 10 pro, 64 bit.
Steam VR Beta.

Regarding performance i configured pimax 8kx to run in Normal view mode and i was able to run dcs world at 72hz, ( the build in fps counter say 32-36fps and i imagine its pr eye. )
In case you wonder pimax is working on 90hz and 120hz for pimax 8kx but its not quite ready yet.
To me it felt fluent especially flying, while parked on the ramp in airport it felt a little slower. I like to say I did not fly a real mission yet with many enemys or in multiplayer, but i imagine that fps will drop especially in multiplayer.

My recommendationā€¦: The 2080rtx is a great card that can run almost all games on ultra, however for the 8kx i like to recommend to invest in a nvidia 3070rtx or higher for the very best experience. By the way nvidia 3070rtx is like double the speed of a 2080rtx by the way and will be out in about 10 days from now.

The negativeā€¦:
1). i think the IDP ( distance inbetween eyes ) is wrong and it only goes to 70mm.
I have a big head and i am lucky i did not have to go any higherā€¦ I think my IPD for pimax 5k+ was like 63-65mm so there is some difference. I dont know if its a software problem or if its a hardware design problem.
2). The new comfort head strap on is really great and it fell good to wear it and it dosent feel cheap as the rubber band straps on pimax 5k+ that actual is pretty decent by the way.
However the foam/strap that where you tighten to the back of your head feel like its sitting up way to high, but i know pimax in another forum topic is offering a free metal/plastic thing that changes the angle of headset and you can get this for free if you write in the forum and tell them your order number. :wink:
I dont know if i need this but i have ordered one.
3). The vr headset and cable feel more heavy than the pimax 5k+ and maybe i will add some weight to the rear of the headset for a better balance.
4). regarding the purchase process and waiting timeā€¦ sorry to say i think it was a mess. I have been a client for years and i have two different login pages where i can see my orders one on pimax.com and on pimaxvr.com and its not the same ā€œthingā€. I did along the way refund my base station and controllers and bought the valve index once instead, reason i could get them here and now, while i belive pimax still havent send out theirs just saying im glad i dident wait for them.
5). To get the best picture its very important to find the sweet spot of IPD and to possition the vr headset correctly on your faceā€¦ It have quite a low tolleranceā€¦ And just like with 5k+ and now 8kx i advice people to push your vr headset a bit up/down/left/right and also tilt it forward until you find the best setting for you.
So it do take a little setup time for best experience.

All in all pimax have become better since it was really a mess, and backers have really kept up with allot of stuff. ( psā€¦ i dont understand why i cannot login while im connected to a vpn on one site, but not on the otherā€¦)
What i like most about pimax is the wide screen, but also that no pimax headset have EVER made me VR sick from using itā€¦ I had allot of problems with this in Ocolus rift wich was my first vr headset.

Anyway long story short im happy about the 8kx this is how VR should have been from the start 8-10 years ago :wink: its really a game changer BUT VERY EXPENSIVEā€¦ anyway the future for Vr look very good now and if the 8kx will be the new standard in the future for vr then we are all in for a very good future. :wink:

PSā€¦ now i look forward to the eye tracking module getting shipped, and that i can buy hand tracking and especially that the hand tracking can be used in flight simulators.
PPSā€¦ I doubt that reverb 2 will be better than pimax 8kx the image and widescreen is fantastic and i can read all instruments clearly in cockpit of dcs world.

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Thanks for the great review!

Itā€™s concerning though that your package arrived without you being notified. This is something Pimax had said they dealt with but apparently not. Can you login to the Pimax store and check if you have a tracking number on your order or in email?

I donā€™t want to be checking my front door every day because Pimax doesnā€™t notify on time. Also in some neighborhoods, porch pirates can be a common problem.

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Sounds great.

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delevero what country do you live in?

Hello dmel642.
Unfortunatly i cannot login and checkā€¦ It seem that pimax.com and pimaxvr.com have changed recently.
Before i could login both places and see my orders from each website but now i can no longer get access to pimaxvr.com where the order for the pimax 8kx where. Everytime i login i end on pimax.com I can only see new and older orders nowā€¦ I think they maybe have merged things together and my order is missing. I can see an order from 2018, and one from 2020, but not the pimax 8kx that i order in october 2019.
But i can confirm i never got any shipping e-mail or track and trace numberā€¦ all i know is they asked me to verify my address about 3 weeks ago, and about 10-14 days ago they wrote and asked if it was okay they refund me the import tax that i payed to my account so that i should pay it my self when i recieved the package. But i can at least say i got the pimax 8kx with no warning, no tracking, and the postal service dident ask me to pay taxā€¦ so i guess everything is in order and they properbly did not refund the import tax but somehow found a shipping solution :wink:
My order numer SO4781
I live in Denmark.

e-mail from support 31 augustā€¦ Hi Peder,
we are shipping your 8KX, you have paid VAT in the order,
we canā€™t offer the clearance now, is it OK for you if we offer a refund 324.75$ for you in advance?
You can take the clearance by yourself.
If it is OK, we can arrange the shipment soon.

ā€“ and after that i did not hear anything but the vr headset arrie today )

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+1 on the headstrap feeling a bit too high. It feels like it should be able to move lower, but it doesnā€™t.

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Have you tried signing in to store.pimaxvr.com ?
That is the store used for older orders.

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make sure to request plastic hinges as mentioned in the last update. they allow the headstrap more freedom of rotation.

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Hello thanks for the link, i was able to login and check my order. There is no track/trace information anywhere it just say something about shipping via standard shipping but no information about when it was supposed to be shipped or arrive. At least its not clear to me.

Regarding the store and looking my orderā€¦ I cannot see all of my orders in just one website.

normal i login to pimax.com and then in my account click on a link that send me to another store/order page on pimaxvr.com however the link have been removed .
A few days ago there was a difference if i login to pimax.com vs pimaxvr.com when i login via the different urls i would go to the same account, however the orders where different in both websites.
In pimax.com i had orders from 2018 and 2020ā€¦ but on pimaxvr.com i had the order for my 8kx.
I think it maybe have something to do with pimax along the way have updated the shop system and then I have ended up with two idential accounts but with different orders depending on the website URL.

Example 14 days ago i could login to both urls and get access to two different orders pages on each website.
Today no matter wich website i use im send to pimax.com all the time and cannot see the old order from pimaxvr.com anymore Except if i manualy typie in store.pimaxvr.com

I hope it somehow make scence :wink:

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That will be because you have smart smoothing enabled.

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Awesome, congrats. Did you back the KS?

@delevero Did you get both thin and thick foam? The distance from eyes to lenses affects the IPD due to the canted displays.

Also, in DCS World, you may get better performance at similar visual quality, by reducing Render Quality to 1.25, setting Pixel Density in DCS World to 1.2, and setting SteamVR video resolution to about 2700v, for what I refer to as a TotalSR of about 1.5.

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And Update to my original review ( there is not Edit button i could not change my review. )
After spending more time with the 8kx i like to add.

Negativeā€¦: I have the 8kx version with the standard earphones. To be honest i think the frame with the earphones its pure junk. They do not touch my ears, and i cant lower the frame further down to make them touch my ears.
Dont get me wrong its nice they are build in, however when i put on the headset the earphones are 5-7cm above my ear and 2cm from my skull ;-( And if i dont use them and put on my normal headphones then the frame part where the earphones are build in almost block the option to wear my external headphones.
I think if you use standard Earcups that are not so big you can use an external headsetā€¦ But if you use example a wireless headset from ROG with big earcups there is a risk you wont be able to wear them.

To be honest it feel a bit like they dident think about that when the headset was designed, it would have been better if they made a version without earphones vs standard earphones. OR you could remove the standard build in ear phones.
Also the the rear of the headset where you tighten it firmly to your skull should be lowerā€¦ In my case its sitting in the top-rear of my skull but it would have been better if it sit on my rear middle skull.

All in all i really cant recommend the Frame system and standard earphone version, i am truly dissapoined that the build in earphones are 5-7cm above my ears it just look and feel stupid and like a prooduction error or terrible design. Also these earphones cannot be removed so the frame become flat so i could use external earphones instead. ( look image )

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There is an issue with some hinges, they do not go low enough. You can open a support ticket and request a plastic hinge part to replace your metal one. If you search the forum you will find more details.

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request for free from Pimax, but need to wait: https://community.openmr.ai/t/we-can-replace-the-metal-hinge-in-8kx-for-free-if-you-have-the-needs/30680/68

if you have 3d printer, you can print yourself: Pimax 8kX SMAS Hinge by pruban - Thingiverse

more info https://community.openmr.ai/t/8k-x-modular-audio-strap-mas-is-ergonomically-horrible-can-we-diy-fix-it/30609/418

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Thanks for the update! This looks like a serious design problem. How on earth did this make it past the engineers and QA? It makes me wonder if the metal brackets are installed correctly. Perhaps the left and right sides are swapped?

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The above ear speakers are not meant to touch your ears, theyā€™re supposed to be above your ears almost like you show on your picture. that said, please check sound levels and settings in windows the current build of windows makes the sound in those above ear speakers very low. I know they can be loud enough to almost hurt with the right windows settings.

the frame does not go down far enough to be comfortable with the metal hinges so please request a set of the plastic hinges. thereā€™s a topic around regarding that.

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the metal hinges is just bad, swapping sides makes them worse.

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