The Best Laptops For VR In 2022 - PCMag UK

What Do I Need for VR on Laptop? It's All About the GPU 

Laptops that rely on their processors' integrated graphics are useless for VR apps. Check the specs: If your laptop uses Intel HD Graphics, UHD Graphics, Iris Graphics, Iris Xe Graphics, or Intel Arc Graphics (without a model number), it's integrated. Just as when shopping for a gaming laptop or a mobile workstation, your priority must be a discrete or dedicated GPU, and a powerful one. Even avid gamers are often satisfied with a GPU capable of showing 60 frames per second (fps) on a laptop screen or desktop monitor, but on a headset that frame rate can at best look choppy and at worst cause nausea—a sustained 90fps is more comfortable. 

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

The two major pioneering (and now discontinued) VR headsets, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, recommended at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or an AMD Radeon RX 480 for tolerable VR performance. Officially, things haven't changed much—the advanced, pricey Valve Index specifies the GeForce GTX 1070, and the HTC Vive Pro 2 still only requires a GTX 1060. HP's Reverb G2 headset merely lists any DirectX 12-capable GPU and a wide range of Quadro and Radeon Pro lines for workstations.

You may be more familiar with Meta's (formerly Facebook's) Meta Quest headsets. Given their internal hardware guts, they are referred to as "standalone" since they don't need to be connected to a PC to operate. They do have an optional cable to use them with your PC for gaming, though, and any GeForce GTX 16-series or RTX 20-, 30-, or 40-series GPU is supported. (See Meta's list of supported GPUs here.)

You won't find all those exact chips in modern gaming laptops, though; most of them have been surpassed. Nevertheless, our advice is to aim higher, at the very least, to the neighborhood of the mobile GeForce RTX 1660 Ti (if you can still find one) on the Nvidia side and the Radeon RX 5500M for AMD-based laptops—or, better yet, a newer GeForce RTX or a Radeon RX series solution. Those GPUs may be the minimum needed to run the headsets, but more demanding games will need better GPUs to run well, just like they would outside of VR.

(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)

This probably means you won't get away with spending much less than $800 or $900 on a gaming laptop. In the sub-$1,000 ballpark, you'll likely be torn among GPU options like an RTX 3050, an RTX 3050 Ti, or an RTX 4050, with a relative smattering of Radeon RX 6000-series machines tempting those on Team Red. All these should suffice for basic VR play, but good basic models start at around $750.

Of course, if you can spend more, you can get a truly powerful GPU. Among Nvidia's offerings, stepping up to a GeForce RTX 4070, RTX 4080, or RTX 4090 will help you run games at much higher frame rates, even at maximum settings, which may make the difference between a dizzying experience and avoiding motion sickness altogether. For games that are particularly demanding outside of VR, an upper-tier RTX 40-series GPU is recommended.

All this said, headsets like the Meta Quest that don't require a PC to function have taken hold of the VR market, with many of the tethered solutions reaching their end of life. But given that older headsets remain available from some sources, users are still holding on to their original units, and the Meta Quest supports laptop use with the optional cable, laptops with strong GPUs are still relevant for VR play and creation.

What Processor and Memory Do I Need for VR? 

Outside of the graphics card, component hardware requirements for VR are easier to hit. As far as the CPU goes, the Vive Pro 2 lists an Intel Core i5-4590 or equivalent. That's a quad-core desktop processor that Intel introduced in 2014, which, needless to say, you won't find in any new desktops or laptops today.

The same goes for that Meta Quest Link cable that connects a Quest headset to a PC to play games like Half-Life: Alyx. The minimum for AMD CPUs is equally light—the Ryzen 5 1500X, a desktop quad-core that dates back to 2017. The HP Reverb G2 lists a minimum requirement of any Core i5, i7, or Ryzen 5, while the Valve Index requires a dual-core CPU as a bare minimum, but recommends four cores or more. This is all to say anything CPU-wise sold in a modern gaming laptop is going to do the job just fine.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

What to know when looking at CPUs: While four processing cores are a necessity (and six or eight cores naturally better still), any modern (from 10th Generation on) Intel Core i5 laptop chips, or AMD Ryzen 5 4000 or 5000 series ones, will be fine for even the latest VR apps. A Core i7 or a Ryzen 7 will give you ample headroom for future software, and the latest generations of these chips will run games smoothly when paired with the right GPU. 

What's nice: You'd be hard-pressed to find a current- or previous-generation gaming laptop that won't meet any of those CPU minimums across these headsets. Gaming laptops almost universally use one of Intel's or AMD's H-series CPUs, which are higher-powered processors than the U-series silicon in most thin non-gaming laptops, and a minimum of four cores. Any late-model Core i5, i7, or i9, or a Ryzen 5 or 7 H-series chip, should do the job nicely for VR, as should Intel's more recent Core Ultra 5, 7, and 9 series. (For a much deeper dive, see our guide to understanding laptop CPUs.)

Recommended by Our Editors

The Best Gaming Laptops for 2026