Oculus announces first Rift bundles, certified PCs

[Halcyon.]

Oculus promised it would unveil certified PCs and bundles that would meet the demands of its own VR solution. It’s now unveiled the first of those systems, as promised, though there’s been some confusion regarding price points and bundles. We’ll help you sort it out.

The first wave of systems consists of desktops from Asus and Dell (Alienware is a Dell subsidiary). The cheapest configuration is an Asus G11CD, a desktop tower with an Intel Core i5-6400, 8GB of DDR4-2133, a GTX 970, and a 1TB HDD for $1,049. Alienware and Dell both offer systems with identical specs for $1,199, which raises the question of why anyone would buy them when the Asus rig is $150 cheaper.

Bundles, discounts, and Oculus pre-orders
There’s been some confusion over which systems are bundled with an Oculus Rift and which are not, so let’s clear that up first. Bundled systems — by which we mean systems that include the Oculus Rift, an Xbox One controller, and all the software that the Rift ships with start at $1,499. But not every system sold above $1,500 comes with a Rift bundled — none of the systems on the Rift blog post actually include a Rift headset. Oculus notes that this $1,499 bundle price point is for a limited time only, implying that the cost of bundled hardware will rise afterwards.

There is one caveat to this. The various manufacturers are offering a $100 discount if you already pre-ordered an Oculus Rift. The website notes: “For those who’ve already pre-ordered Rift, you’ll be able to purchase discounted Oculus Ready PCs in select countries and regions. To claim your discount, check your order status and opt into partner offers if you haven’t already. Offer codes will appear on your order status page February 16.”

As for the pricing on the systems themselves, it’s not too bad. I did a mock build at Newegg, sourcing the same components and using Asus-brand parts whenever possible. Total cost for my system came to $800 without the operating system and $900 if you need a copy of Windows 10. That’s before shipping, so toss in another $40-50 for that and Asus is making about $100 on the final product.

The rigs from Alienware and Dell don’t look as nice by comparison, since they run $1,149. Personally, I might pay $100 to avoid the hassle of building a PC if I wasn’t intimately familiar with the process, but the $200 difference is pushing it.

Best Buy is offering a $1,499 deal with the Asus G11CD + Rift, which isn’t bad considering that the two would run $1,650 if purchased separately.

One potential problem with the Rift bundle pricing is that the PCs that include are considerably more expensive without a commensurate uptick in hardware capability. The more expensive systems aren’t impressive; Asus wants $1,700 for a Core i7-6700, a 256GB SSD, another 8GB of RAM, and a GTX 980. Alienware is hoping you’ll pay $2,549 for a GTX 980 and a Core i7-5820K with a smaller 128GB SSD. The Best Buy bundle with the Area 51 Alienware system comes to $3,100 — an incredibly steep price for less-than-top-end hardware.

All of the systems shown here are Nvidia-based. We contacted AMD to inquire if AMD-based rigs would be approved in the near-[CENSORED]ure, but did not receive a response by press time.