There’s a common misconception that gamers need thousands of dollars worth of processors to play virtual reality. But now complete systems with Oculus Rift headset are fast approaching the $1,000 mark.
CyberPower’s new Gamer Ultra VR Desktop is badged as an Oculus Ready gaming system. Featuring AMD power under the hood, it costs $499 on its own or comes with a Rift headset for $1,099.98. That brings VR gaming closer to the magical $999 price point which new models should hit later this year.
That is essential if it is to help make VR more of a mass market appeal item, rather than something that only a small fraction of core gamers will think about. Inside the moody, black angular Ultra VR case, with mandatory red LED lighting, is a quad-core AMD FX 4350 processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB storage and new AMD Radeon RX 470 GPU card with 4GB of GDDR5 memory. That specification should provide enough juice and bandwidth for high-resolution gaming and VR-readiness out of the box.
Considering the first Oculus Ready systems, from the likes of Falcon, Alienware and Asus were around $3,000, the price is falling fast, with HP and other vendors soon to join the list of approved sellers. Obviously the more you pay, the more powerful your system will be and the better overall, experience, but as a starter kit, this should perform admirably.
The Gamer Ultra VR Bundle will be available for purchase on BestBuy.com and Amazon.com starting January 9th.
Of course, with AMD about to launch its super-fast Ryzen processors, the company will want to shift as many previous-generation systems as it can. So, if VR isn’t a must-have for you, wait a few months and see what mighty horsepower systems CyberPower and other vendors are selling. 2017 should be a big battle between Intel and AMD in the new CPU war, so expect prices to be as cutthroat as they can afford.
Photo credit: Marco Verch
