Hey @alesk76 I guess for VR you can never have enough horsepower - depending on the game.
Many FPV Games work extremely well with the 4090 - other like DCS or ACC are so demanding, that even the 4090 (and my 5950) are not enough. It’s just a damn large Resolution and the wide FOV makes it a hard hit on GPU and CPU. So you are right - the 3080 will never to a full blown out fidelity. But I have never seen a game that is new and runs perfect no the current gen hardware all maxed out. On the other hand, we are damn demanding. I remember Times where 30 FPS was awesome then 60FPS and the FHD… Now we want 90 or 120FPS on 8K and more…
So my conclusion is - buying the 12k is a future investment - like you said it wont be before the 6090TI 15900k/9950 or something like that it will be a smooth experience in demanding games all maxed out.
If you want the it realistically, then I would suggest the Crystal - most likely that would be my option - very good ppd by reduced FOV - If i want large, I will use the 8KX if I want max PPD then the Crystal. On the other hand, developers really need to get the engines up do modern standards - multithreading, scheduling, DLSS (3), VR Optimized, and so on.
It’s a complex subject so many variables must come in place. But it has been that way since my geforce mx and the voodoo cards.
Edit: You can use SteamVR, OpenXR or Quest with Pimax - what is quite cool. You can do profiles for each game, if I understand the point correctly - and like you said - I never touch Steam VR - all in here (Pimax) or the game and I am done with it:
