Why it matters to you
If you have been sitting on the VR fence because of pricing or graphics card concerns, Newegg’s deal could give you the push you need.
Spending $800 on an HTC Vive virtual reality headset might seem like a lot, but deals like the one on offer at Newegg certainly help. The retailer is giving away a brand new Gigabyte Radeon RX 480 4GB graphics card with the headset, making it a better deal and upgrading your PC to a VR-ready level in the process.
One of the most common reasons you guys have given us for not jumping on the VR bandwagon yet is price. Some of you want wireless operation, more AAA games or better hardware, but most want it to be cheaper. While Newegg’s deal doesn’t do much for the original price, it does at least get users a $180-plus graphics card for free.
The RX generation of AMD graphics cards went a long way to dropping the bar for VR-capable graphics, so it seems like an apt solution to the problem of VR pricing to provide that generation of card with the headset.
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While the RX 480 isn’t the most powerful card out there, it is more than capable of handling most virtual reality games at the 90 frames per second required for smooth play. It should be capable of playing a lot of 2D games at reasonably high settings, too, though don’t expect it to hold a candle to some of the new, top-tier cards like Nvidia’s GTX 1080 Ti.
But then again, such a purchase isn’t just about the graphics card — the main focus is the HTC Vive itself. Even though it’s closing in on a year since its original release, we still consider the HTC Vive the best virtual reality headset money can buy, thanks to its motion controllers, room-scale tracking capabilities, and fantastic visuals. We’ll see if this deal attracts the kind of attention Newegg is hoping for.