Why I love the Radeon RX 580 for VR

High-end virtual reality on the PC requires a ton of flexibility and dedication. But you can make it a more enjoyable experience by building your rig with AMD’s Radeon RX 580 video card. It can handle almost any game at 1080p and 60 frames per second, it packs a ton of power for its price, and it has two HDMI ports. It starts at $250 — although it’s still hard to find at that price for the moment because of the rush to mine the Bitcoin-like Ethereum cryptocurrency. But if you can find one, it’s the card I’d choose for building a VR machine.

AMD rolled out the Radeon RX 580 in April, and I’ve been testing the MSI RX 580 X 8G. As the heart of a gaming rig, this card can easily drive a 1080p display at 60 frames per second most of the time. It’s quiet and power efficient, and — at least with MSI’s added fans — it stay relatively cool under load. The 580 could potentially even run certain online multiplayer games at 144 frames per second if you’re looking to get a monitor that supports that refresh rate.