VR still represents the bleeding edge of gaming technology. As such, it is outside the reach of the majority of PC builds recommended on our site. In this section, we provide six example builds for VR gaming. Four of them are highly suitable for the task, while the first two immediately below are passable choices just intended to get VR working at some level for the lowest possible cost.

Minimum Specs VR Build ($650)

Recommended Specs VR Build ($800)

Solid VR Build ($1300)

Hardcore VR Build ($2000)

Extreme VR Build ($3000)

No Compromises VR Build ($4500)

Oculus, Valve, HTC, and Windows Mixed Reality certainly have some differences in terms of the experience they offer. The Vive has partnered with SteamVR to offer native support for many of Valve’s old games along with an open API for developers. For high-quality headsets, prices now range from as low as $300 to well over $1000. Some can work at some level without a PC at all (like the recent options in the Oculus Quest series), while most of them are entirely reliant on a separate PC—or else a console or phone—for the processing power that runs their applications and drives their visuals.

Building a PC to play VR games doesn't have to be a complicated process. However, creating a genuinely immersive VR experience is technically demanding, and it’s helpful to understand the graphical demands of the VR platform.

If you prefer watching videos over reading, this video covers many of the points made in this guide (although its specific harware info is a bit dated at this point):

To begin, try to think of each lens in the headset as a separate display. Nearly every option now available uses a dual-lens setup, with one lens (or display) dedicated to each eye. All of them aim to have per-eye resolutions that are comparable to full desktop monitor resolutions (or higher), with a refresh rate of at least 90Hz. These numbers are very important, so when you're deciding on a headset, be sure to look up the exact specifications of your last few contenders.

The resolution and frame rate are not the whole story, though. Most headsets also render an “eye buffer” of 1.4x the size of the resolution. This results in a higher render resolution in each eye, relying on subpixels creating more accurate images while moving your head. The purpose of the eye buffer is to compensate for the distortion of the headset's lenses. Now, for example, after adding in this eye buffer, any given headset might have a rendering resolution around 3024x1680 at a 90Hz refresh rate; despite being far from the highest numbers on the market, that example would create a graphical demand of up to 457 million pixels per second. That’s a lot.

To make the demands even more daunting, the headsets have to render two slightly different scenes per frame to ensure correct parallax and depth cues. So, it’s not quite as simple as looking at the raw pixel cost combined between the two lenses. This is known as “stereo rendering,” and it increases both the CPU and GPU demand of rendering compared to rendering one image on a single flat screen.

According to NVIDIA graphics programmer Nathan Reed, in the worst case scenario, stereo rendering can almost double the graphical demand of gaming on a VR headset compared to a computer monitor of the same resolution. Certain graphical operations, such as physics simulations and shadow map rendering, aren’t doubled with a stereo-rendering device, but the actual rendering is still done separately for each eye. So, to be clear: If you were to render out two 1512x1680 scenes on a headset, it would require even more graphical horsepower than rendering out a 3024x1680 scene on a computer monitor.

So, how do you wrap your head around the true graphical demand of these headsets? If you’re familiar with gaming benchmarks, we have a few relatively simple comparisons to at least give you a frame of reference.

First, let’s forget about stereo rendering for a moment and simply focus on raw pixel count.

1080p resolution (1920x1080) at 60Hz is generally seen as the standard minimum target setting for modern gaming. That also happens to be about one-quarter the raw pixel rendering cost of a first- or second-generation VR headset display at 90Hz. So, you could think of the raw pixel demands of VR gaming at 90Hz as being approximately 4 times the demand at 1080p/60Hz. More recent options are closer to 6 times that demand.

Another simple comparison: the first couple generations of VR gaming had roughly 90 percent the pixel demand of gaming at 4K resolution (3840x2160) at 60Hz. And more recent options have surpassed the demands of 4K somewhat. If you’re familiar with gaming benchmarks, you’ll know that achieving 60 FPS at 4K resolution is no simple feat. Very few gamers have PCs that can play something like Monster Hunter World or Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K/60 FPS.

Once again, before factoring in the additional costs of stereo rendering, let’s compare the raw pixel rendering cost of each display:

• 124 million pixels/second: 1080p monitor @ 60Hz
• 457 million pixels/second: first-gen Rift/Vive @ 90Hz
• 498 million pixels/second: 4K monitor @ 60Hz
• 664 million pixels/second: Valve Index @ 144Hz

Now, factor in the additional graphical demand of stereo rendering with VR headsets, which multiplies the total hardware demand on the PC by somewhere between 1x and 2x (in other words, anywhere from 0% to 100%), depending on what’s occurring in the game (usually much lower than 2x/100%). It’s easy to assume that playing many games on a VR headseat requires more computing power than it takes to play the same game at 60 FPS at 4K resolution.

However, you shouldn’t despair. As we’ll discuss in our next section, "Optimization and Official Recommended Specs," there are several reasons to believe you can have a fully immersive VR experience without a supercomputer.

If you need to get up to speed on this discussion of resolution, it might help to check out our quick guide to screen resolution. Once you’ve got a handle on what this resolution and framerate will demand of your computer, we can begin to break down what components should suit you best.

Your framerate (frames per second, or FPS) is the number of images your PC can produce every second. A higher framerate will make your gameplay appear smooth, while a lower framerate will make the game stutter. As you might be able to guess, a higher framerate is better, and requires more computing power.

Your screen’s refresh rate (measured in Hz) will determine the maximum framerate you’ll be able to see. Many standard computer monitors come with a 60Hz refresh rate, meaning you can see a maximum framerate of 60 FPS, even if your PC is powerful enough to produce higher framerates. For the Rift and the Vive, the maximum framerate is 90 FPS. This also happens to be the framerate that Rift and Vive developers often cite as the minimum or necessary framerate to maintain an immersive VR experience. While the occasional dropped frame may be tolerable when gaming on a monitor, the experience of stuttering gameplay is much more uncomfortable with a screen strapped to your face.

In their Best Practices manual, Oculus advises developers to target framerates exceeding 90 FPS in order to avoid this issue: "Your code should run at a frame rate equal to or greater than the Rift display refresh rate, v-synced and unbuffered. Lag and dropped frames produce judder which is discomforting in VR." And in reality, framerate is almost never constant while playing a game. It's not uncommon for a game to drop framerate on occasion, meaning that if you really want to lock your framerate at 90 FPS, your PC should really be capable of averaging 100+ FPS in your game of choice. For more information on framerate, read our detailed blog post on FPS.

If you’re keen to learn more about the graphical challenges of VR gaming, Valve developer Alex Vlachos gave a comprehensive presentation in March 2015 on the subject of Advanced VR Rendering (pdf version available here). Once again, there’s also the Oculus Best Practices reference for developers, which goes into even more detail about VR rendering demands.

Looking at the numbers, it’s understandable to be worried about how well your PC will handle games on a Valve Index, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality device, or Oculus device. In theory, playing the most demanding modern PC games in VR will require an incredible amount of computing power. This can be especially concerning when considering the need to maintain a high framerate of 90 FPS to sustain immersion, or even 120 or 144 FPS on some headsets. With the advent of VR, a high and steady framerate is more important than ever.

Thankfully, there are several reasons to trust that you can still experience VR games at their ideal level of performance without annihilating your wallet.

Oculus, HTC, Valve, and all of Microsoft's manufacturing partners have set “recommended specs” for PC builders, and they happen to be relatively close together. All of these companies promise that the recommended hardware is sufficient for powering games designed specifically for VR.

The two most critical components for a VR build are a graphics card above the NVIDIA GTX 1070, and a CPU above the i5-4590.

In our Example Builds section above, we’ve compiled complete build recommendations that use such components.

Building a complete PC with Oculus' or Vive's recommended specs should cost around $1000, but could be done for closer to $750 if you buy some of your parts on sale or skimp in a few areas.

It’s unlikely that all games will run on maximum settings at 90 FPS with the exact recommended hardware, but a build with those specs should be able to run at 90 FPS with at least “acceptable” levels of graphical detailing in every VR app. That will all depend on each game, and its level of graphical intensity. (In almost any case where your PC cannot run a game at a steady 90 FPS, you should lower graphical settings until you achieve that framerate.)

In reality, this means that games specifically designed for VR do not have graphical quality on the level one might expect of the most graphically demanding modern games. In order to ensure games run smoothly on the available headsets at the recommended PC specs, VR game developers have to cut back on extremely high-quality textures and other graphically intense effects and details. As a result, you’ll get a smooth gameplay experience, but don’t expect made-for-VR games to push the most extreme boundaries of computing graphics.

However, keep in mind that the official stores of VR manufacturers like Valve and Oculus are not the only way to play VR-compatible games. There are plenty of opportunities to experience games in VR that were not built from the ground-up with VR in mind, as we’ve seen with VR-friendly fan mods of many popular games. More and more developers are also likely to make VR-compatible patches for games not specifically designed for VR, and those games will not necessarily be optimized to perform well on a PC built with the recommended specs. To properly play those games in VR, you’ll need something more powerful than what the recommended specs will get you. But don’t worry—we’ve got you covered for those circumstances as well.

Also note that software developers are continually coming up with ways to reduce the graphical demand of VR headsets. One of the most promising techniques under development by NVIDIA is called multi-resolution shading, which basically helps reduce the rendering of ‘eye buffer’ pixels that are destined to never appear on the screen. Such advancements could mean that VR will demand less of hardware in the future.

With all of that in mind, let’s move on to discussing the importance of each computer component when it comes to building a PC for VR.

Valve has a VR Performance Test that is now a few years out-of-date, but will still automatically determine whether or not your system can hit a baseline of 90 FPS in older VR content. According to Valve, the test takes 2 minutes, and will let you know if your performance is lacking in GPU, CPU, both, or neither.

For newer titles, it is recommended to compare the specs of your system against the official minimum and/or recommended specs provided for each game by the developer.

Now that you’ve got a handle on what gaming on VR headsets will demand of a computer, we can begin to explain which components are the most important. Thus, in this section we’ve listed each major PC component out in order of importance, with a little explanation on how each component influences VR gaming.

This is just a ranked list, from most important toward least important key hardware. For specific hardware recommendations with links, refer to the 'example build' section toward the top of this page.

GPU

Your graphics processing unit is the most important component to consider when building your VR PC, as it’s more critical than ever to maintain the recommended 90 FPS framerate. Atman Binstock, Chief Architect at Oculus explains further: “Traditionally, PC 3D graphics has had soft real-time requirements, where maintaining 30-60 FPS has been adequate. VR turns graphics into more of a hard real-time problem, as each missed frame is visible. Continuously missing framerate is a jarring, uncomfortable experience. As a result, GPU headroom becomes critical in absorbing unexpected system or content performance potholes.”

CPU

When gaming on a flat monitor, you can often get away with using a cheap CPU, but it’s important not to scrimp on the CPU when it comes to VR gaming. Not as important as the GPU, but certainly the second-most imporatnt. CPU bottlenecks are more likely to occur—especially for poorly optimized games.

If you want to read more about CPU cores as they relate to VR, Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a solid article on the subject. The end of the article sums the evidence up nicely: “If you have a remotely recent quad-core Intel CPU, certainly within four years old and probably within six, do nothing. All, for now, is well.”

But as far as providing headroom goes, the sky's the limit on CPU power, with high-end options from both Intel and AMD offering core and thread counts far above 10.

RAM

The third-most important part to consider is RAM. The recommended onboard RAM for most games and VR headsets continues to hover around 8GB. The general consensus online seems to match the advice given by the VR developers, that 8GB will be sufficient for now. If you plan to also be editing video or rendering graphics with your VR PC, though, it might be wise to upgrade to 16GB. Also, RAM is relatively cheap and easy to install, making it easy to upgrade if you need more later on.

Storage

There’s been plenty of debate over the gaming performance boost that solid-state drives (SSD) provide when compared to their spinning brethren (hard drive disks). Using an SSD certainly results in faster read/write speeds, and can be a real boon when working with large files or media management. But when it comes to VR, a solid-state drive should have no real-world affect on your virtual reality experience.

That said, having an SSD onboard will speed up your computing experience considerably, and may improve some load times. It might not be necessary for budget builders, but for those with a little extra cash, a solid state drive is our most highly recommended addition.

Motherboard

There’s a lot to consider when selecting your motherboard. While not directly affecting the VR experience, your motherboard will provide the foundation for the rest of your hardware. You’ll want something that is not only compatible with your CPU, but also of decent quality.

You’ll also want to make sure that your motherboard can support all of your peripherals (such as USB 3.1 or E-SATA) and all of your internal components (such as M.2 SSDs and the like)

These headsets also use a considerable number of USB ports. Make sure your motherboard has all the necessary ports, as well as three USB 3.0 ports and at least one USB 2.0 port available for the headset and tracking cameras. Always make sure you double-check the needs of your exact headset, too, in case they differ from these general guidelines.

If you’re looking for more information on motherboards, Tom’s Hardware has a great beginner’s guide to selecting a motherboard.

PSU

There’s not much to say about the power supply as regards VR, as the quality of the PSU isn’t going to directly impact what’s going on in your goggles. Still, if you’re building for VR, it’s best to think toward the future. You’ll be running some pretty power-hungry peripherals, and having an efficient power supply can help cut down on immersion-ruining fan-noise. Also, if you’re thinking of adding additional graphics cards in the future, plan ahead and make sure your power supply will pack enough punch. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry component in your PC, and adding multiple GPUs sucks up the wattage.

VR is the next frontier of gaming, and there’s still a lot to learn. As people spend more time with each headset, we’ll be able to learn more about the idiosyncrasies behind the platforms. Still, we’ve managed to pick up a few general tricks we’d like to pass along:

• Add a tactile surface to important buttons on your gaming keyboard or controller. This will let you know when your hands are in the right position, without having to remove your VR headset or blindly fumble for the proper configuration.
• Stay organized! Except for some of the most recent and highest-end products, there are a lot of cords and peripheral components accompanying most headsets. That, coupled with all of the loose components and cords that come with building a PC means that you’ll have plenty to organize. Save your boxes and bags, and try to keep your cords managed.
• Keep your headset clean! Regardless of which VR model you’ve chosen, chances are that it will be strapped to your face. Sweat and oil from your hair will accumulate on the set over time, and it's good to periodically wipe everything down so your friends aren’t hygienically horrified when you try to introduce them to “The Future of Gaming.”

Kevin Connolly is an author, photographer and lifelong computer geek. His work has been featured in BBC, NPR, and Digital Trends.

James Andrews is the content manager of Logical Increments.

Logical Increments helps more than 2 million PC builders each year with hardware recommendations for any budget.

Special Thanks

Special thanks to members of the official Oculus forum: owenwp, cybereality, kojack, MichaelNikelsky, galopin, and gunair.

Additional special thanks to members of /r/oculus: whitedragon101, kontis, linkup90, jecowa, and coznefx.

1. Hard OCP: Conclusion - HDD Vs. SSD Real World Gaming Performance
2. IT PRO: HTC Vive VS Oculus Rift VS Playstation VR: Release Date, Price, Specs and Games
3. VRCircle: HTC Vive And SteamVR: What You Need To Know
4. Tom’s Hardware: How To Choose A Motherboard: A Guide For Beginners - Basics And Component Overview
5. Avegant Glyph
6. Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign
7. Ars Technica: HTC Exec: Expect ‘a Slightly Higher Price Point’ for Valve’s Vive VR
8. Oculus Rift: Powering The Rift
9. Rock Paper Shotgun: Quadcore Gaming
10. Oculus Rift: The Rift's Recommended Spec, PC SDK 0.6 Released, And Mobile VR Jam Voting
11. Table of contents source
12. Wired: Here’s What Your PC Needs To Run Oculus Rift
13. Fast Company: Oculus Rift's PC Requirements Are Virtual Reality's Achilles' Heel
14. Alex Vlachos: Advanced VR Rendering (GDC 2015 Presentation)
15. Road to VR: NVIDIA Takes the Lid Off ‘Gameworks VR’ – Technical Deep Dive and Community Q&A