NVIDIA Partners With System Builders To Enable ‘GeForce GTX VR Ready’ Experiences

Brace yourselves folks, this could be a breakout year for virtual reality. We know, you've heard that before, maybe even long before the Oculus Rift resurrected the category with a high profile Kickstarter run. But here's the thing, the industry at large is captivated by VR, and some big names are making preparations for what lies ahead.

Obviously Oculus is one of them as it gets ready to open pre-orders for its Rift headset. But it's far from the only company enamored with VR -- so is NVIDIA, which has partnered with a whole bunch of companies to offer "GeForce GTX VR Ready" PCs, notebooks, and graphics cards.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti

Sure, it's a marketing play, but it's not an empty one.

"NVIDIA's GeForce GTX VR Ready program designates virtual reality ready PCs, notebooks, and graphics cards from leading add-in card and system builder partners that are configured to deliver an optimal VR experience," NVIDIA explains.

This won't mean much to tech savvy users, but for the average Joe or Jane, the VR Ready badge lets them know the system or graphics card they're eyeing up has the horsepower to run VR applications.

NVIDIA isn't being overly liberal with its program, either -- the cutoff point for graphics cards that meet the performance requirements of the VR Ready label is the GeForce GTX 970. Anything below is a roll of the dice.

As for desktops and laptops, NVIDIA's minimum requirements are as follows:

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or greater
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 equivalent or greater
  • Notebook: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980
  • Memory/RAM: 8GB+
  • Outputs: 2+ USB 3.0 ports; HDMI 1.3
  • OS: Windows 7 SP1 or newer
Expect to see NVIDIA's VR Ready label everywhere you go. NVIDIA's list of hardware partners is extensive and includes some big names like Alienware, Amazon, Asus, Digital Storm, Maingear, PNY, and so forth.