Abdul Rauf
VR is one of the greatest display technology revolutions that has happened since the advent of screens. It has opened up new horizons in how we experience gaming.
If you want to experience, first hand, the joy of VR gameplay then you need a PC that is suitable enough to handle the demands of the game in a VR headset.
When it comes to the best motherboards for VR, any standard gaming motherboard would do just fine. You may have heard the term “VR Ready” motherboards. That actually holds NO MEANING as it only is a BUZZ term.
In this article, we will review some of the latest high-quality motherboards that are highly suitable for VR gameplay.
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What is a VR Ready Motherboard?
The term “VR Ready” was used a few years back as a buzz and a marketing term for highlighting the fact that the motherboard has enough USB ports and HDMI ports to support VR headsets.
VR headsets, from brands like Oculus, have a number of USB ports that they require to operate. An Oculus Rift, for example, requires 3 x USB 3.0 ports, or better, for its three sensors and one USB 2.0 port for the headset itself.
While the sensors can be connected to USB 2.0 ports, they would not work optimally as USB 2.0 has a slower transfer speed and delivers lower power as compared to USB 3.0.
The sensors basically are the critical components that track your movement and adjust the displayed screen. Failing to provide enough transfer speed to these sensors can result in a less satisfying experience.
Hence, the motherboards that previously listed themselves as “VR” ready basically addressed the fact they have enough USB ports as well as a single HDMI port in order to operate the Virtual Reality headsets.
The Best Motherboards for VR
So given that VR is only a buzz term, and any suitable motherboard with the right kinds of USB ports is good for a VR-based build, there are essentially two routes that you can take and it all depends upon your choice of CPU and its brands:
- The AMD Route
- The Intel Route
For the AMD Route
If you choose to go with an AMD build, you can either go with the older AM4-based Ryzen 5000 CPUs or you can go with the newer AM5 based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs.
I would obviously recommend the latter since they offer much better performance and they are future proof for supporting PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM; however, some of you may want to stick with the older 5000 series because of the sheer value it provides even to this day.
Take for instance the Ryzen 5 5600X (~$156), and Ryzen 5 7600X (~$229). The Ryzen 5 5600X is significantly cheaper and is only about 20% slower than the 7600X in terms of performance. The performance/dollar ratio goes in favor of the Ryzen 5 5600X.
Of course, with the older Ryzen 5 5600X you do lose some newer-gen features such as support for PCIe 5.0, or DDR5 RAM.
With that said, for an AM4 based system, I recommend a motherboard featuring the X570 chipset. It can offer extensive overclocking, plethora of USB ports for your VR headsets, support for Gen 4 SSDs across its multiple M.2 slots.
Ryzen 5000 or older | DDR4 
AM4 | 2 x M.2 (Gen 4) | PCIe 4.0 | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A/C
For an AM5 based build, you have to option to with the mid range or the mid-high range B650 / B650E chipset respectively. The primary difference between the two lies in that the former mainly offers PCIe 4.0 lanes where as the latter offers the PCIe 5.0 lanes as well (so it would support the upcoming Gen 5 SSDs and GPUs.).
Of course, the B650E motherboards are more expensive.
There are also the X670 and X670E motherboards. They are expensive and they are intended for those who need a high degree of expandability. They offer a whopping 44 x PCIe lanes. Sometimes you can find fairly sweet deals on motherboards featuring the more premium X670 chipsets.
Ryzen 7000 | DDR5 
AM5 | 4 x M.2 (Gen 4/5) | PCIe 5.0 | USB 3.2 Gen 2×2
For an Intel build, I would recommend sticking with the newer 12th or 13th Gen processors. Both of these generations are based on the LGA1700 socket. There are two Intel motherboard series that offer the LGA1700 socket, the 600 and the 700 series motherboard. However, some 600 series motherboards may require a BIOS update in order to support the 13th Gen CPUs. As is the case with all Intel motherboard generation, there are four categories for chispets: For a future-proof high-performance VR build featuring PCIe 5.0 support, and out-of-the-box support for 13th Gen CPUs, the Z series motherboards are recommended. It is also the only series of motherboard chipsets that offer overclocking support. So if you are planning on buying a “K” series unlocked CPU such as the Intel Core i7 13700K, then Z series motherboards make the most sense.
Intel 13th and 12th Gen | DDR4 While not directly, since any motherboard so long as it has the aforementioned ports would be able to support most VR headsets, it is the overall system that you want to build that makes a motherboard highly relevant. Playing games on a Virtual Reality headset requires that your GPU has the ability to support very high resolution and at high graphics. Take Oculus Rift as an example. It has a resolution of 1280 x 1440 per eye totaling 2560×1440 on both. As such, in order to game on this large display while maintaining a very high frame rate, you would require a fairly powerful gaming PC. In actuality, the CPU and the Graphics Card are the most important components – with the graphics card being the number one priority. The motherboard should have parity. Meaning, if you choose to go for a good i5 or Ryzen 5 and a decent mid-range graphics card like an RTX 3060 or RTX 4060, then you’d need to pair them with a decent enough motherboard. That depends upon what you want to achieve from the VR headset. If you simply want to watch movies on your VR headset, then even a PC with an integrated graphics card would work. However, that is obviously not the reason why most would choose to go for a VR headset. The primary audience of a VR headset is gamers. Hence, the most critical component here is naturally the graphics card. The recommended graphics card for a VR headset like OCULUS Rift is at leat an RTX 3060 or equivalent for supporting the latest AAA titles at the rated resolution and refresh rate. However, note that this recommendation is based on the fact that the Oculus rift has the resolution of 2560×1440 in total or 1280×1440 per eye. Newer headsets like HP Reverb G2 and Pimax 8k have a resolution of 4k and a whopping 8k respectively. This is multiple folds higher than the resolution on an Oculus Rift and playing on this at top resolution could even require a high end RTX 4000 series graphics card. You would have to invest in a much more powerful graphics card and may even need better ports like USB 3.2, HDMI 2.0. You may even be tempted to build a dual graphics card rig in order to maintain the frame rates at ultra high resolution and ultra high graphics. Hence, a good future proof motherboard with overclocking capability and good phase power design to maintain cool temperatures would become all the more relevant. In short, a good motherboard is the building block of a good gaming PC. If you want to build an ultimate gaming PC to support high end and high res VR headsets, it is recommended that you invest in a good quality motherboard for VR as well. In this article, we talked about some of the best motherboards for VR. We looked at motherboards for an AMD as well as an Intel setup. Along with that, we talked extensively about what it means to be a good motherboard for VR, the requirements for a typical VR headset as well as how to make sure that your system stays future proof with the latest high res VR headsets out there. The point to note here is that in order to support high end gaming on a high end VR headset, you need a powerful overall PC. In that sense, a good motherboard for VR is typically a good motherboard for gaming in general.For the Intel Route
LGA1700 | 4 x M.2 (Gen 4/5) | PCIe 5.0 | USB 3.2 Gen 2×2Motherboard is NOT The Most Critical Component for a VR Build
What is the Most Important Component for a Good Virtual Reality Experience?
Final Words
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