The Oculus Rift is available for pre-order and you might have heard that it will cost $599. You might sigh at the price tag, and you might bite the bullet and go ahead and purchase one all the same, but note that $599 might not be all that you’ll be spending. In addition to the Oculus Rift, you will need a PC that’s capable of handling it.
If you already have a high-end PC that meets its specs, then you’ll be fine. However if you don’t, you might need to invest in some new hardware. Now if you’d rather not try and figure out for yourself what kind of hardware you may or may not need, you’re in luck as Alienware has recently unveiled its new Alienware X51 R3 gaming PC, which according to them is Oculus Rift-ready.
Note that this PC does not have anything special in it to run/support the Oculus Rift. Instead what this means is that these PCs are specced out and have been extensively tested to ensure that you can use the Oculus Rift with the systems without any issue. If this sounds like a great idea, you’ll be able to pre-order the X51 R3 via Dell’s website where it will be priced starting at $1,199.
However if you’re so inclined, you could see what kind of specs the PC has and try to emulate that for yourself, potentially at a lower price. We should point out that the price of the X51 R3 is for the PC only and that the Oculus Rift headset will not be included.
Filed in . Read more about Alienware, Oculus Rift and Virtual Reality (VR).