Half Life Alyx Performance Guide

Half-Life: Alyx is coming and she wants to single-handedly salvage PC VR gaming. Given the fact that the merest announcement Valve was gearing up to send a new Half-Life game based entirely in virtual reality meant the globe ran out of Valve Index headsets should tell yous that she might just practice information technology.

But if you're not already rocking a PC that tin can match the Half-Life: Alyx system requirements then we've put together a handy guide to the PC specs that will make your immersive Combine killfest complete with the best gaming PC for One-half-Life: Alyx. And it doesn't accept to cost you a fortune either – we've managed to build a car that'southward even a little to a higher place the One-half-Life: Alyx minimum spec, including VR arrangement, for around $1,200.

Then, forget pancake gaming* and get yourself onto the VR gravy train because this time it'due south going to stick. This time virtual reality is really, honestly going to have off and anybody's going to desire to get in on the VR activity. Probably. And once you've nailed Half-Life: Alyx there'due south only one place to go… Derail Valley. Trains mothershunters. Yasssss.

The minimum specs for Half-Life: Alyx are entirely reasonable, and that means the barriers to entry aren't as prohibitively expensive as you might expect from 1 of the biggest games ever to exist launched in VR.

In fact if yous're running a gaming PC today and then chances are that you'll already have nigh of the silicon chops to run it. You may just demand a GPU upgrade, or a trivial extra RAM, to hitting the spec, merely if you practice need a whole new rig then nosotros've got y'all covered…

^{*pancake gaming is how boomers play games. On apartment screens. Like suckers.}

MINIMUM SPEC BUILD
RECOMMENDED SPEC BUILD
GAMING LAPTOP

$i,200 Half-Life: Alyx PC + vr KIT

	Half-Life: Alyx minimum PC specs
CPU	Intel Core i5 7500 \| AMD Ryzen 5 1600
GPU	GTX 1060 6GB \| RX 580 8GB
RAM	12GB DDR4

Operating system – Windows 10 Pro 64 –Cost:$27 | £20

Total price – $1,200 | £1,000

We've gone for the AMD CPU option from the minimum spec, and opted for a more than mod version of the from the 2nd-gen Ryzen processors: the AMD Ryzen 5 2600. It's a nifty processor in its ain right, and yet stands up today, fifty-fifty with the Ryzen 5 3600 sitting atop our list of the best CPUs for gaming.

The Gigabyte motherboard is a very affordable one, using the B450 chipset and a smaller form factor board, information technology however has a wealth of USB ports for yous to kit out your virtual reality setup. Given the number of things yous'll need to plug in, having more the usual six USB ports on the backplate is vital.

On the GPU front we've picked the AMD RX 580 8GB. Information technology offers a little more than video memory than the 6GB Nvidia GTX 1060 equivalent, and they're also far more readily available and affordable correct now.

The minimum spec for One-half-Life: Alyx says 12GB in terms of system memory, but that would either pb to some weird asymmetrical 8GB / 4GB stick combo, or iii 4GB sticks filling out your motherboard'due south DIMM slots. Exist safe and opt for a decent 16GB kit split across two sticks for dual-channel goodness.

The speedy Addlink S70 is equally affordable as decent one-half terabyte SSDs get, and will be perfect for storing both Windows and your presentlyhoped-for-blimp virtual reality gaming library.

When it comes to the bodily VR headset itself… well, fifty-fifty if Valve is able to ramp up production to ensure that there are enough Alphabetize headsets around when the game launches, they'll still be hugely expensive units. But One-half-Life: Alyx isn't locked to Valve's ain VR ecosystem – though it will likely play all-time on the fantabulous Index Duke controllers – so the Oculus Rift South would be a great culling at a swell price.

$two,200 Half-LIFE: ALYX PC + VR KIT

	Half-Life: Alyx recommended PC spec
CPU	Intel Core i7 9700K \| AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU	RTX 2070 Super \| AMD RX 5700 XT
RAM	16GB DDR4

HMD – Valve Index VR kit – $999 | £919

Operating arrangement – Windows 10 Pro 64 –$27 | £20

TOTAL Toll – $ii,200 | £2,100

Our own recommended spec nevertheless sticks with a six-core, 12-thread AMD processor, but we've opted for the Ryzen five 3600 from the latest generation to give you as much unmarried core processing ability as the cherry-red team can muster right now without breaking the bank. The motherboard is nonetheless a last-gen, second-tier chipset, merely you lot don't demand the X570's PCIe four.0 support and we really desire that mini ITX form factor. Because without it you tin can't get your Half-Life: Alyx rig to fit into something that looks like it was engineered by GLadOS herself.

Nosotros've gone rather bigger when it comes to the GPU, considering you lot are going to demand some graphical grunt to run One-half-Life: Alyx at the sort of frame rates and resolution that really makes the Valve Index headset sing. The Nvidia RTX 2070 Super is a great card for this, offering essentially an RTX 2080 Lite feel for a lot less cash.

On the SSD front we've opted for the full 1TB version of the Addlink S70 drive – it'due south still an impressively affordable option, and still delivers a huge amount of solid country storage functioning for the coin. All of that is neatly wrapped upward in the gorgeous Bitfenix Portal chassis – that incredibly Valve-esque mini ITX case which nosotros just had to use for this build.

Though there are valid reasons for making your VR rig every bit small as possible – portability. At that place's a good take chances your desktop rig and the space yous want to game in for VR don't necessarily always reside in the aforementioned place, so being able to move the machine effectually might exist well worth the endeavor.

Of course, for the ultimate Half-Life: Alyx experience you are going to need the Valve Alphabetize virtual reality kit. The base stations are accurate, the headset comfy and with the clearest optics nosotros've used, but information technology's the Knuckles controllers which will likely make the experience unforgettable. They're pressure sensitive and runway the individual digits of your hand, making interaction with the game world a far more immersive thing.

Best gaming laptop for Half-life: Alyx

Only a hulking gaming desktop is not necessarily the all-time machine to utilise as a base for your virtual reality setup. I'm of the stance that VR gaming is best done on a loftier-end gaming laptop. The specs we've put together above are all simply including the base PC and the VR headset, not the keyboard, mouse, and monitor that you lot're also going to need to go alongside it.

That all comes part and package with a gaming laptop, and if yous are going to exist doing your VR dance away from the identify your standard desktop rig would live then only having to take a laptop around the house with you is far easier. Lugging around a monitor, mouse, and keyboard with everything else is an absolute nightmare.

So we've picked a choice of quality gaming laptops that tin can also admittedly deliver on the vital specs of One-half-Life: Alyx.

But whichever gaming PC – whether desktop or laptop – you end upward playing Half-Life: Alyx on, at that place'due south a good risk it could become the gateway drug to virtual reality for a whole lot of gamers.