The Oculus Rift VR headset will need a high-end Windows PC for the best experience

Oculus VR has revealed the recommended PC hardware specifications that will be needed to run the upcoming consumer version of its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. As expected, it will need a pretty high-end Windows rig to offer the best VR visuals.

Here's the breakdown of what Oculus recommends for a PC to have inside for the best experience with the Oculus Rift:

  • NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
  • Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
  • 8GB+ RAM
  • Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
  • 2x USB 3.0 ports
  • Windows 7 SP1 or newer

The company added:

"The goal is for all Rift games and applications to deliver a great experience on this configuration by default. We believe this "it just works" experience will be fundamental to VR's success, given that an underperforming system will fail to deliver comfortable presence."

The blog notes that at the moment almost no current laptops have the GPU performance needed for a solid experience with the Oculus Rift, but added that might change with future mobile chips. In addition, Oculus has decided to concentrate its efforts on the Windows platform and has made the decision to put its OS X and Linux development plans on hold.

The consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset will go on sale in the first quarter of 2016. Pre-orders will begin later in 2015 but a specific price has not yet been revealed.

Source: Oculus VR

John Callaham