Whether you are building your own PC or upgrading the existing one, it has to be fully equipped with all the necessary weapons required for gaming, including the virtual reality. Whatever you choose, whether it’s Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Nintendo Labo, PlayStation VR, or any of the other, in all this, a solid graphics card is what you need. In short, the quality of the visuals you see while wearing a head mounted display (HMD) of any sort, depends on the GPU a lot. Here we have the best graphics card for VR today.
Virtual reality being one of the most important Technology today which has been penetrated in eSports as well. It has given a new track to the gaming immersiveness and has a profound effect on the gamers.
Let’s get you straight into the best VR ready graphics card of this year. But before this, if you are skimming for the answers to the questions popping up in your mind regarding virtual reality and your PC then see below.
Common FAQs people ask about the best Graphics card for VR
A. What is virtual reality?
Virtual reality is the simulation of the senses by the combination of computer technology in which human beings are able to interact with the objects and experience the 3D world. It is beyond just watching the 3D images on the screens rather it creates an immersive environment for the user.
B. What are the benefits of Virtual Reality?
In the educational sector, virtual reality has a pivotal role and seems increasingly overlapping and spreading its scope beyond the imagination of any mind. One of the main and incredibly fascinating uses of this Technology is the teleportation; that is traveling the world and see the globe irrespective of your place. Other major benefits include visiting the past time phases via VR headsets, designing parts of your car till the painting, your industrial sector is fully functional and VR has occupied all over the place. This also include the learning of basic industrial units and hence becomes very easy to demonstrate the different sectors to the students remaining in the classrooms. If you have visited a musical concert, those changing blooming lights on every beat of the drum or instruments and rapidly changing visual effects on the background screens are also caused by VR.
C. Can my PC handle Oculus Rift VR?
To check how good your PC is to run or work with Oculus Rift, you have to download the Oculus Rift compatibility tool, this will help you to know if your computer is compatible to run VR or not. Most significantly, this test will be conducted by the software on your PC’s hardware, i.e. GPU, CPU, operating system and number of ports. Further, if it is not good enough, then it will also suggest a required upgrade of your PC.
D. How does virtual reality feel?
It feels like a real world in which it seems like you can touch the objects and even move around the way real things are, but everything is artificially created by the computer. It gives a sense of authority similar to an active world, you can see 360 degrees around yourself. This is how it creates the most immersive gaming experience for the user unlike playing on the screens.
E. What graphics card HTC Vive required for VR?
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 is the recommended GPU requirement, though the minimum you can go is, with Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290, or (more or equivalent of these).
F. What graphics card Oculus Rift required for VR?
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480 is the recommended GPU requirement, though the minimum you can go is, with Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, GTX 1050, GTX 1050 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 470, or (more or equivalent of these).
Also see: Best Graphics card under 200
List of the Best Graphics Card for VR 2021-2022
- Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 Super – Best Nvidia graphics card for VR
- Asus Rog Strix GeForce RTX 2060 Super – Best graphics card for HTC Vive
- XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra- Best AMD graphics card for VR
- EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Super – Best GPU for 1440p
- MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti – Best graphics card for VR gaming
- XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy – Best graphics card for Oculus Rift
- EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti – Best VR GPU for the money
- Gigabyte Radeon RX 570– Best budget graphics card for VR
- ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 – Best graphics card for Oculus Quest
- MSI Radeon RX 580 – Best GPU for Valve Index
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Best Graphics Card for VR 2021-2022 Reviews
1. Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 Super – Best Nvidia graphics card for VR
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR6
- Latest Turing Architecture
- VR ready graphics card
- Display port 1.4 x 3, HDMIx1, USB-C, PCI-E 3.0 x 16
- CUDA cores 2560, base clock 1605mhz, boost clock 1770mhz
- 256 bit width, 448GB/sec memory bandwidth, 14Gbps memory speed
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 Super is the best graphics card for VR. It is no less than a fortune for Virtual reality game seekers at this cost. This VR ready GPU is extremely capable to introduce you with the immersive VR gaming, hence meet all the graphics needs of the VR headsets. This graphics card supports up to 4 display monitors. Further, calling out for the heat dissipation, it has 3 x 82mm 3D curve blade fans, which are noiseless yet really effective when it comes to bow for hours of aggressive gaming sessions. If you tend to dip yourself in 4k at 144Hz or 8k at 60Hz, you wouldn’t regret your purchase ever. Whereas talking about the frame rates, GeForce RTX 2070 Super is highly recommended for high end games, it can fetch up to 130 FPS with great detail.
2. Asus Rog Strix GeForce RTX 2060 Super – Best graphics card for Vive
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR6
- Powerful AI enhanced graphics
- 6 times faster performance
- Display port 1.4, HDMI, USB-C (Virtual Link), DVI-DL, PCI-E 3.0 x 16
- CUDA Cores 1920, base clock 1365mhz, boost clock 1680mhz
- 256 bit width, 336GB/sec memory bandwidth, 14Gbps
Asus Rog Strix GeForce RTX 2060 super8GB is a VR ready graphics card, enhancing the gaming experience of the user to a great extent. Being one of the best graphics card for VR, GeForce RTX 2060 super is equipped with all the powerful yet necessary Technicalities with which a tear free and a smooth gaming performance is delivered. It includes the game ready drivers, Game Boosters, XSplit Gamecaster which improves the gaming experience no matter which VR headset is connected. Whichever game is played, this VR ready GPU collaborates with the computer configuration greatly. Whereas coming towards its heat dissipation process, it has three wing blade 0bd fans which throws 105% more air pressure as compared to standard cooling fans installed in most of the graphics cards.
3. XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra – Best AMD VR GPU
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR6
- Radeon Free sync technology
- Premium VR ready graphics
- 256 bit width, 448GB/sec bandwidth, 14Gbps memory speed
- Display port 1.4 x 3, HDMI, PCI-E 4.0
- 2560 stream processor, base clock 1605mhz, 14Ghz memory speed
XFX Radeon RX 5700XT is indeed the best graphics card for VR, ready with the powerful components to deliver the top notch VR performance. Enable the user to dive in the extremely immersive gaming with realistic visuals, which you will hardly come out specially when wearing VR headset. This AMD VR ready GPU owns the properties which have exceeded the minimum requirement of the VR GPUs recommended by the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. This has accelerated the gaming performance like no one else, resulting in a great room for VR gaming sessions. Moreover, if you want something extraordinary, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT RDNA Architecture gives a great authority to further enhance the VR experience via FidelityFX, TressFX and many nice features including VR itself.
4. EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Super – Best graphics card 1440p
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR6
- Nvidia G-Sync
- Supports iCX2 Technology, Microsoft DirectX 12API, Vulkan API, OpenGL
- 256 bit width, 496GB/sec bandwidth, 14Gbps memory speed
- Display port 1.4 x 3, HDMI 2.0b, HDCP 2.2, PCI-E 3.0
- CUDA Cores 3072, 1650mhz base clock, 1845mhz boost clock
Meet EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Super, Nvidia VR ready card, it offers substantially better performance and smooth game flow as compared to the founders edition. This GeForce VR ready is more than just good to handle high resolution games and is capable of handling high frame rates. As long as you are ready to fast your belt for immersive gaming, this high end graphics card is extremely well to beat the long and serious gaming tournament with an effective overclocking and huge memory bandwidth. Certainly, GeForce RTX 2080 Super is the best GPU for 1440p, rich with AI enhanced graphics and real time ray tracing. Further, its Hydro Dynamic Bearing (HDB) fans are highly potential cooling systems which make hardly noticeable acoustic sound yet effective to sink out the excessive heat while playing.
5. MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti – Best graphics card for VR gaming
Key Features
- 6GB GDDR6
- Handles famous game titles
- Nvidia Pascal Architecture, supports DirectX 12
- 192 bit width, 288GB/sec bandwidth, 12Gbps memory speed
- 1536 CUDA Cores, 1770mhz base clock, 1875mhz boost clock
- Display port 1.4 x 3, HDMI 2.0 x1, HDCP 2.2, DVI-DL, virtual link, PCI-E 3.0
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the mid range graphics card, although it is good for virtual reality headset and can very much capable of filling the gaming boost. Its Nvidia adaptive shading and Nvidia Studio enhances the gaming experience by letting the gamer not only to play games in free mode but allows to capture the brilliant screenshot, live streaming and immersive highly captivating visuals. This VR ready GPU increases the liveliness of the game, whichever VR headset or whatever the game is played. Moreover, MSI GeForce 1660 Ti as dual TORAX fan 3.0 enables effective and noise free heat sink, an efficient heat dissipation for those who prefer to play or work in peace.
6. XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy Core Edition – Best video card for Oculus Rift
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR5
- Highly recommended for VR
- AMD Radeon FreeSync 2 HDR
- 2304 Stream processor, 1545mhz base clock, 1565mhz boost clock
- Display port x 3, HDMI x 1, DVI-DL-D x1
- 256 bit width, 256GB/sec bandwidth, 8Gbps memory speed
XFX AMD Radeon Fatboy has great features to give a punch in the guts of GPUs listed in the best graphics card for VR. It is highly recommended to perform in a real life environment, no matter which game you play or how high resolution you prefer to play in, this RX 590 graphics card for VR gaming is designed to touch the heights of virtual reality of highest quality. The people who want to dive in AAA title games, for this XFX AMD radeon RX 590 is a 1080p VR ready GPU which handles the latest games like a pro and brings up to 125fps on your screens. Further talking about its double X cooling feature, on a certain level of GPU temperature, these dual fans start shouting, which is somehow tolerable or is considered very low acoustic noise.
7. EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti – Best VR GPU for the money
Key Features
- 11GB GDDR6
- High frame rates
- Built in OLED display
- CUDA cores 4352, base clock 1350mhz, boost clock 1635MHz (OC)
- 352 bit width, 616GB/sec bandwidth, 14Gbps memory speed
- Display port x 2, HDMI, USB-C (Virtual Link), HDCP, PCI-E 3.0
EVGA GeForce RTX 2080Ti is indeed the best graphics card for VR with highest bandwidth, truly devoted to charge on the latest games and brings out maximum frame rates on medium graphics settings. This VR ready graphics card enables the game enthusiasts to build his own empire and get the most ridiculous performance on this price to match the level of highly immersive gaming regardless of the VR headsets or games you want to perform with. In addition, EVGA has built an OLED display, which lets you know the consumption of power, temperature of the GPU, speed of the clock and the contribution of the graphics card as a whole. Then it has an advanced cooling system with a single fan, ensures the very stable performance from start till the end without any noise at all.
8. Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 – Best Budget VR graphics card
Key Features
- 4GB GDDR5
- Customizable RGB lightning
- Efficient cooling system
- 2048 Stream processor, base clock 1168MHz, boost clock 1244MHz
- 256 bit width, 224GB/sec bandwidth, 7Gbps memory speed
- Display port 1.4 x 2, HDMI
Gigabyte Radeon RX 570 meets the need of virtual reality gameplay quite effectively. Though the VRAM and bandwidth is not futuristic, yet it is the best graphics card for VR because it is highly potential to deliver the realistic visuals in the game the way you want it to be. Whether it’s Oculus Rift, HTC vive or any other VR headset, this RX 570 VR is very much capable of running non choppy games and collaborating with the system amazingly. Further, its 3D active dual 90mm fans are responsible to throw 25% more air and passes the air flow directing from the hardware components, plus its copper wind pipes enable the very effective cooling system. Whereas, this AMD Radeon VR ready doesn’t require manual setting for overclocking but single click on AORUS engine, it will calculate the present gaming needs and get overclocked according to it.
9. ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 – Best GPU for Oculus Quest
Key Features
- 6GB GDDR5
- Nvidia Turing Architecture
- OC Scanner
- CUDA cores 1408, base clock 1530MHz, boost clock 1785MHz
- 192 bit width, 192GB/sec bandwidth, 8Gbps memory speed
- Displayport 1.4 x 3, HDMI, HDCP, DVI-DL, PCI-E 3.0
Although ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1660 has less memory bandwidth as compared to GTX 1660 Ti in this recruited VR ready graphics card list, but has better overclocking ability comparatively. There is no latency, no lagging or tearing of the image, just the smooth game play with the finest details of the lively VR gaming. This GPU is highly compatible with leading VR headsets without checking for the system requirement but the straight plug and play efficiency. Moreover, there is no need to ask or worry for the compatibility with the system, this VR ready graphics card is very compact in size yet very feasible to get easily fit in the system. This is a mid range graphics card, it brings 120FPS for latest games on low graphics settings, though these frame rates drops to 40 to 50FPS on high resolution like 4k, yet the VR is incredibly good every time.
10. MSI Radeon RX 580 – Best GPU for Valve Index
Key Features
- 8GB GDDR5
- Effective heat dissipation system
- Advanced polaris architecture
- 2304 Stream processor, base clock 1257MHz, boost clock 1340MHz
- 256 bit width, 256GB/sec bandwidth, 8Gbps memory speed
- Display port 1.4 x 2, HDMI, PCI-E 3.0
MSI Radeon RX 580 is another best graphics card for VR, delivers vivid colors and sharp yet immersive visuals. Highly compatible with the latest VR headsets, gives the optimal VR performance. At 1440p, this VR graphics card brings up to 75FPS on the most demanding games. This MSI Radeon RX 580 VR GPU introduced the immersive virtual reality world which is capable of holding the gamer for a good time period and leads the gamer to real captivating visuals regardless of the VR headsets. Further, the heat dissipation is effective enough to heat sink, credit goes to the advanced level of cooling system which includes two wing style fans and copper heat pipes covered with lots of aluminum fins in order to give passage to the maximum air flow.
Criteria Choosing the Best Graphics card for VR for your PC
Virtual reality is becoming popular all around the world in so many sectors including education, entertainment, work force, medical sector and many more. The gripping realistic visuals of VR is now the necessary feature of the gaming or esports. Nonetheless, it’s not a big deal if you want to fill your gaming with virtual reality as well. But how is it possible to bring this VR into the games? What we need to look for to get the virtual reality?
The answers lies in your capability of the graphics card. In case you intend to upgrade your PC in order to get the richness of virtual reality or trying to get a new setup, make sure the graphics card is VR capable.
Whereas, the case is not that simple, since there are so many GPUs in the market with a label of being a VR graphics card, but that might be an exaggeration unless you are fully aware of the features it really holds.
Keep in mind you can’t just target its VR feature only, but needs to be taken other features under consideration as well. The features which are responsible to bring out the virtual reality in gaming and are helpful to produce quality content. These features include cooling mechanism, VRAM of the GPU, memory bandwidth, clock speed and suitable connectivity as per requirement of the VR headset.
In short; make sure the graphics card for virtual reality:
- Does it have an effective cooling system? How many cooling fans does it have? Is there a need for copper wind pipes or any extra feature to make an efficient heat sink?
- How much memory a particular GPU has? Is it good enough to run the memory and how big memory bandwidth it really has?
- Is My GPU capable of being overclocked? What is the boost frequency and how fast can it render the image?
- What level of video can it produce at 1440p or 1080p resolution? How many frame rates can it bring?
- Most importantly, is that graphics card compatible enough with my VR headset or not?
- The last thing which perhaps needs to be at first place to decide over, is the budget. How much are you willing to pay for a VR ready graphics card? It is an underline fact we all agree that the more we throw the money the better we get in quality. Thus, if you need to get the best out of it, you need to spend wisely as well.
Conclusion
In this the right time to get your hands on the most captivating gaming of the virtual reality world, not just any ordinary gameplay but highly immersive and intuitive games that wouldn’t leave you anytime soon. However, the above given VR ready GPU list consists of the ten best graphics card for VR from both Nvidia and AMD. These include the cheapest VR graphics card as well, in order to prevent you from bucking out lots of cash from your budget while building a PC or upgrading yet allows you to experience the same great Virtual Reality Technology at less cost.
