THE VR-READY PRICE IS RIGHT

THERE’S SOMETHING transformative happening in the PC space. No, it’s not that CPUs are getting faster, or GPUs are putting out higher frame rates. It’s not even VR. In fact, it’s not the release of any single revolutionary device. It’s pricing.

If I’m going to shell out for a highperformance PC, I’m typically thinking of spending over $1,000 to get something decent, with a penchant for goodies in the graphics department. High-performance storage will typically follow, with a focus on RAM next. The CPU is probably last in line for me, as pretty much every CPU available right now puts out fantastic performance at every major price point. I reckon that the majority of software still hasn’t caught up with the rate of improvements in CPU development.

Now, though, both AMD and Nvidia have done something shocking: they’ve released their new architectures at shockingly low prices. Nvidia announced to the world that its new Pascal cards can deliver above Titan X performance for $500 or less, besting even two GTX 980 cards in SLI. AMD, on the other hand, delivers exceptional performance with its new Radeon RX 480, for a incredible price of just $200.

With these new pricing milestones, you can expect to see much more affordable systems that deliver great at performance. Enough performance, ce, in fact, to build an excellent VR-readydy system for less than $1,000—much less. s.

Think $700. That’s right—you canan have a machine up and running, capable le of powering either the Oculus Rift or the he HTC Vive, for half the price of Oculus’s original recommendation. Given that a VR headset already costs upward of $700 to $800, you’re going to want to save every dollar you can. And with Oculus’s original $1,500 spec including a GTX 970, it’s now possible to get performance that’s even better than that for much lower.

Will you have to make any tradeoffs? Not as many as you might think. If you’re willing to build your own, you can often save a good amount of cash, but there are some system integrators out there that will oftentimes have pricing so good that the components cost less than what you would purchase them for individually online.

2016 is the year of VR, and it’s been a long time coming. Content is starting to really shine. I’ve tried every VR headset on the market, including the ones still in development. There’s a lot of progress made, and the ones already available for purchase are both excellent in their own regard—my favorite being the HTC Vive. If you haven’t experienced VR yet, it’s definitely the future of computing and entertainment.

And now, building a system that shines in VR costs as much as a highend graphics card did a year ago. And, in my opinion, that’s just as transformative as any groundbreaking new product release. Tu an Nguyen is Maximum PC’s editor-inchief, also known as“the pointy end of the stick .” He’ s been writing, marketing, and raising hell in the te chi nd us try for 19 years.