You’ll be paying a premium for a slight performance edge that will be eroded when the next generation of GPUs arrive. Save that money and upgrade later.Īfter doing some research I knew I was interested in building what could be described as a budget performance PC. At the same time you should resist the urge to purchase today’s top of the line components.
If you’re going to invest the money in a PC now it’s a good idea to make sure the hardware will still be relevant 12 to 18 months from now. One of the main goals for a VR PC build should be flexibility. The recommended specs are a good starting point for the build. If building your own PC seems too daunting don’t worry, you can buy an Oculus Ready PC bundled with the Rift and save yourself some stress. The good news is RAM is cheap and any modern motherboard should have the correct number of USB ports. The main difference between the two requirements is the amount of RAM and the number of USB ports. Video port: HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2, or better.CPU: Intel Core i5 4590 or AMD FX 8350 or greater.Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better.Oculus and HTC have both released official recommendations for PC system requirements and interestingly the specs are almost identical. Many people will have to upgrade their graphics card or invest in a new PC to meet the minimum specs required. The answer is likely “No.” VR content requires a powerful gaming PC to pump out the high frame rate required to make the experience fluid and enjoyable. The RequirementsĪs VR awareness becomes more mainstream the big question for most people is, HMDs such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are only one half of the VR equation. Hardware manufacturers are tripping over themselves to build flashy virtual reality head mounted displays but the PCs to power these devices receive little attention.