The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is coming in early 2016, but you don’t have to wait until then to buy a gaming PC that will be able to work with the hardware. Earlier this year Oculus revealed the minimum specs for a “full Rift experience,” and now the company has started partnering with PC makers to highlight “Oculus Ready” computers.

All of the first computers to earn that label have starting prices of $999 or less.

alienware oculus ready

Right now, Oculus is saying we can expect Oculus-ready systems from Asus, Dell, and Alienware (which is actually a Dell sub-brand, so we’re just talking two companies so far… but more computer makers will probably be added to the list eventually).

Those computers feature Intel Core i5-4590 or faster processors, NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD 290 or faster graphics, at least 8GB of RAM, at least two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.3 or better output, and Windows 7 SP1 or newer software.

Now that NVIDIA is offering desktop-class graphics for laptops, we could start to see portable systems with Oculus support soon. But don’t expect those to be priced under $1000.

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3 replies on “Oculus Rift VR headset will work with sub-$1000 PCs”

  1. Okay. Since when do these companies sell PCs under 1000$ with a GPU as capable as an r9 290? I call doubt.

  2. That’s weird, I just want one of those just to be able to look at stereo pictures and those videos. You know, like… Viewmaster or whatever.

  3. Don’t buy a PC for Occulus now… wait for Occulus to be released, or better yet, just wait for Nvidia’s Pascal cards, they’ll pay for themselves with the electricity they’ll save and you’ll have better performance to boot. 14nm, baby.

    And don’t buy last year’s Intel CPUs either, at least not if you care about reduced power consumption, heat and noise.

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