As one of the originators of modern VR, Oculus has gained a reputation for affordable VR headsets. The Oculus Quest 2 is the big ticket item right now, as it launched earlier this year and received a great reception. However, the Rift S offers a great alternative to PC gamers looking for a purely tethered experience—especially at its low £299 price tag in this year's Boxing Day sales.
As a tethered headset, the Oculus Rift S requires a gaming PC in order to operate. The specs of which aren't all that demanding by today's standards: an Nvidia GTX 1060, RX AMD 480 or greater.
That'll power the Rift's 1280 x 1440 (per eye) displays, which are capable of pushing an 80Hz refresh rate for a smooth experience. The headset utilises six-degrees-of-freedom head and hand tracking thanks to internal trackers, so you needn't worry about a complicated setup process, either.
You can read our full Oculus Rift S review for the scoop on this headset. But long story short, we're big fans of other high-end VR headsets, such as the Valve Index, but less so of their far higher price tags. The Valve Index is nearly a four-digit headset at £919.
The Oculus Rift S, by comparison, is a far more affordable way into VR. We do fancy the Quest 2 for its potential tethered PC experience, and its specs list is surprisingly impressive, but with stock looking slim for the cheaper 64GB version right now, the Rift S offers a decent alternative on a budget for PC gamers.
