VR advice

I haven’t a clue about what I need, so maybe somebody here can point me in the right direction.

I want to take advantage of the Oculus Quest Link cable option. I mainly use VR in my downstairs lounge, so I’d prefer a laptop as I can hide it better. I understand it’s harder to upgrade a laptop, and they probably cost more....

I’m only going to be using this for VR... I’m kind of thinking I can use the virtual desktop on the Quest to run things exclusively in the headset. Any ideas? What kind of budget am I looking at?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I haven’t a clue about what I need, so maybe somebody here can point me in the right direction.

I want to take advantage of the Oculus Quest Link cable option. I mainly use VR in my downstairs lounge, so I’d prefer a laptop as I can hide it better. I understand it’s harder to upgrade a laptop, and they probably cost more....

I’m only going to be using this for VR... I’m kind of thinking I can use the virtual desktop on the Quest to run things exclusively in the headset. Any ideas? What kind of budget am I looking at?
For a desktop, around £1.5k

For a laptop, more like £2k.

You need some power for VR, especially on the GPU. Mobile (laptop) graphics are weaker than their desktop counterparts so you need a higher tier card to cope.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Is it best to get a off the shelf pre-made one or get one built with specific specs?
PCSpecialist have got some good deals at the moment for Black Friday which would be idea for desktops:


For laptops, you'd need to custom build off this site.

We can't comment on other manufacturers or suppliers.

I'd highly recommend a desktop over a laptop though, the desktop you can modify as you go and the main platform (CPU, RAM and Motherboard) will last for years.

As you say, laptop, you're stuck with what you've got and the first bottleneck will be the GPU. You'd really need a minimum of an RTX 2080 and you'd start noticing the slow down after a couple of years.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I can only echo what's been said before. I went down the exact same path that you are considering. I got myself a shiny new Octane III a couple of years ago with my eye on VR. It smashed the requirements with a 6700k and a GTX1080 Notebook edition GPU.

At the start of this year I built a new desktop with the RTX2080 at its heart. I then paired it up with the new Valve Index. The Laptop will run the Index well enough I guess, but it really shines with the desktop. If I could have justified the Ti I would have got that as when you get serious about VR they are GPU hungry for proper games (Sim racing being one of the more demanding).

My laptop gathers dust now for the most part. The desktop is FAR better and I can upgrade it at any time. As a secondary the Laptop is a great backup to have (I had a 2 player in-room going on with my GF a few weeks back which was fun) but a desktop is a far better primary solution.

Something else to consider. I would actually sell my laptop now if there was a market for it where I wasn't getting ripped off, it doesn't exist. There isn't a good second hand market with fair value put on such equipment as it's so high end and bespoke. With desktop components you can individually sell them which makes them far more marketable.
 
Top