The Oculus Rift VR headset has been in development since around 2012. Four years later, after three development kit releases and the company's purchase by Facebook, we are finally close to seeing the headset release.
Consumers should be seeing the headset in "early 2016," (around the same time as Sony's Project Morpheus releases) according Oculus, but the price for the headset has yet to be announced.
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe revealed the "all-in-one" price for the headset plus a PC that has the capability of to run the device during the annual Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California. “We are looking at an all-in price, if you have to go out and actually need to buy a new computer and you’re going to buy the Rift … at most you should be in that $1,500 range.”
What type of hardware will your computer need to run the headset? A couple of things:
- NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
- Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
- 8GB+ RAM
- Windows 7 SP1 or newer
- 2x USB 3.0 ports
- HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture
The last bullet point has a catch, some laptops have their external video output connected to the integrated GPU and drive the external output through hardware and software mechanisms that can’t support the Rift. The hardware and software can't be determined to run through laptop specs, meaning that you might have the right architecture — but not the GPU performance to handle the Oculus Rift (most laptops do not have the right GPU anyway).
You might not even need to buy a new PC to run the Oculus Rift, as it is possibly be headed to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Hopefully we see a standalone price for the headset soon.
