Valves Reveals New VR Headset, But It Will Cost You

Valve has officially revealed their latest entry into the world of Virtual Reality with their Valve Index and though the peripheral is stunning, it also has a pretty whopping price tag. 

According to Valve, the Index is state-of-the-art and unlike anything else on the market. Also unlike anything else on the market, it also sells for $1,000 for those that decide to go the full monty with the entire kit. According to Valve, the headset itself will be dropping on June 28th and is required to be connected at all times to a “high-range” PC via cable, which is a veer away from how the upcoming Oculus Quest functions. The reason for this is that Valve didn’t want to forgo quality for portability, which means that even though there is limited mobility – the quality is bar none. 

Here are a few things you need to know about the headset if you decide to get the full kit: 

• Headset
• Integrated Headphones
• Headset Cable 
• Headset Connection Cable with DisplayPort 1.2 and USB 3.0 Connections
• Headset Power Supply
• Regionalized Headset Power Adapter(s)
• Headset Cradle Adapter (for smaller heads)
• Headset Face Gasket
• 2 Controllers, Left and Right
• 2 USB Controller Charging Cables
• 2 SteamVR 2.0 Base Stations
• 2 15 ft (4.5 m) Base Station Power Cables
• 2 Base Station Stands with Mounting Hardware
• Regionalized Base Station Power Adapter Plug(s)
• Cleaning Cloth

Specs: 

• Dual Core with Hyper-Threading minimum requirement, Quad Core + recommended
• 8 GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, AMD RX480 minimum, GTX 1070 or better recommended

For comparison as far as how it runs, the HTC Vive launched with dual 1080 x 1200 OLEDS with a refresh of 90Hz. The Index is set at 1440×1600 RGB LCDs and runs at 120Hz. Though there were headsets for Valve’s client, this is technically the company’s first real foot into VR with their own product. 

So far the reaction has been one of aw about the new hardware, though it will be interesting to see how that translates to sales. You can learn more about the headset right here.