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Virtual reality (VR) demands anything but virtual hardware—if you're not powering your VR set with a gaming desktop, you'll need a powerful laptop with a discrete graphics processing unit to enjoy the most immersive experiences. We at PCMag were testing laptops long before VR became R, putting high-performance gaming rigs and workstations through comparative benchmarks and evaluating battery life, connectivity, and portability. Our top pick as today's best mainstream laptop for virtual reality is the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9, thanks to its sweet mix of components and solid build quality for a reasonable price, but our recommendations don't stop there—we've applied our expertise to find five more where that came from. Read on for the complete list, followed by a detailed buying guide and a handy comparison chart to prepare you for your VR purchase.
Our Top Tested Picks
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9
Alienware m18 R2
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)
Asus ProArt P16 (H7606)
The Best Laptop Deals This Week for VR*
- Alienware m16 R2 Intel Ultra 9 RTX 4060 1TB SSD Laptop — $1,599.99 (List Price $1,899.99)
- HP Omen Intel i9 RTX 4070 1TB SSD 16GB RAM 16" Laptop — $1,439.99 With Code "DUO20"
- Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Intel i9 RTX 4070 1TB SSD 16" Laptop — $1,748.99 (List Price $2,259.99)
- Alienware m18 R2 Intel i9 RTX 4070 1TB SSD 32GB RAM Laptop — $1,999.99 (List Price $2,399.99)
- Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 Intel Ultra 9 RTX 4080 1TB OLED Laptop — $2,274.99 (List Price $2,699.99)
*Deals are selected by our commerce team
- RELATED:
- Best Desktop GPUs for VR
- Best Gaming Laptops for Everything Else
- Best Gaming PCs
- Best VR Headsets
Best Gaming Laptop for VR for Most Users
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9
- Excellent sustained performance
- Classic quality keyboard
- Lengthy battery life for a gaming laptop
- Limited color gamut and contrast
- Mostly plastic build
- Hefty and chunky
Lenovo's Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 laptop balances price, performance, and size for an effective, affordable package for gaming and productivity.
Best Budget Gaming Laptop for VR
MSI Cyborg 15 (2023)
- $999 price in our Core i7/RTX 4050 test unit
- Able to play at the highest 1080p settings
- Peppy processor for the money
- Decent build for a budget gaming rig
- RTX 4050 GPU didn't wow versus RTX 3060s
- Display is dim and disappointing
- Sharp chassis edge can dig into wrists during typing
MSI's Cyborg 15 is far from a perfect gaming laptop, and not plush, but its low price and playable performance make it a very workable option for PC gamers on tight budgets.
Best Giant-Screen Gaming Laptop for VR
Alienware m18 R2
- Blistering processing and gaming performance
- Relatively approachable starting price
- QHD+ 165Hz display with FHD+ 480Hz option
- Optional mechanical Cherry MX keyboard
- Expensive as tested
- Heavy, even for its size
- Screen could be brighter
The Alienware m18 R2 is just a modest upgrade over the first generation, with Intel’s latest 14th Gen HX chips joining Nvidia's GeForce best, but it's still a sleek, super-fast gaming machine with premium flair.
Best Compact Gaming Laptop for VR
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024)
- Elegant, compact redesign with metal chassis
- Powerful all-around performance and gaming speed
- Brilliant 1800p 120Hz OLED panel with G-Sync support
- Wide selection of ports
- Long battery life
- Limited configurations
Well-built, satisfying to use, and a high-power performer on the back of AMD’s latest Ryzen 9 processor and an Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, the redesigned Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is our favorite super-portable gaming laptop.
Best Laptop for VR Content Creators
Asus ProArt P16 (H7606)
- Lightweight, durable chassis
- Speedy CPU and GPU
- Beautiful OLED display
- Useful AI-assisted features
- High-end audio quality
- Runs hot with big workloads
- Fans get loud under load
- Basic refresh rate
Powered by AMD's latest mobile AI processor and hearty Nvidia graphics, the Asus ProArt P16 is an unrivaled content-creator laptop that's also ready for anything short of 4K gaming.
Best Cost-No-Object Gaming Laptop for VR
MSI Titan 18 HX
- Unmatched gaming performance
- Plenty of power (and memory) for professional workloads
- 18-inch 4K 120Hz mini LED display
- Haptic glass touchpad with customizable lighting
- Mechanical Cherry MX keyboard
- Prohibitively expensive
- Big and heavy
- Short battery life
The Titan 18 HX is a gigantic desktop-replacement laptop for enthusiast gamers and professionals seeking as much power as possible, but its premium features and loaded specs command a sky-high price.
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.
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.)
The Best VR Headsets of 2023
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.
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.
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.)
The Vive Pro 2 asks for 8GB of system memory, as do Meta headsets and HP's Reverb. Since every current gaming laptop comes with at least 8GB of RAM, and plenty include 16GB, you won't have to go out of your way for sufficient memory or processing power unless you're shopping for a used laptop.
Which Ports Does My Laptop Need for VR?
Being able to plug in all of your headset's required connectors is the main concern here, and realistically more of a limiting factor than the CPU or GPU in your gaming laptop, given the modest spec requirements. Modern VR headsets don't hog three USB ports as the original Oculus Rift did (it required cables for the headset, as well as two wired sensors), but you'll still need to be careful about your new laptop's selection of ports. Knowing which ports you'll need requires checking the fine print. One laptop may be a good fit for one VR headset, but not have what you need for another, so make sure to check the laptop against the specific cabling needs of the VR headset you're using.
The Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3's optional Oculus Link is a fancy USB Type-C 3.2 cable, but other headsets like the Vive Pro 2 and the Valve Index require both a USB 3.0 port and a DisplayPort video connector to work with a PC. The HP Reverb G2 asks for a DisplayPort 1.3 and a USB Type-C port.
The DisplayPort is critical because many laptops, as mentioned, have an HDMI output but no DisplayPort. An adapter that links a full-size DisplayPort to a mini DisplayPort will work (and is sometimes included with the headset), but an HDMI-to-DisplayPort adapter—and this is very important to note when shopping—will not. (We haven't tried a Thunderbolt-to-DisplayPort adapter, but we wouldn't count on it. You want the "real deal" ports to match.) Note that many laptops, gaming and otherwise, now implement the DisplayPort output as a protocol (as opposed to a physical connector) over one or more of the USB-C ports; this can work, but make sure you get the right cables to match.
Fortunately, several gaming laptops and some content-creation laptops do have DisplayPort connectors, but triple-checking the necessary mix of ports before you buy a laptop for VR is essential. If you have ports left over beyond what's required, you can chalk that up as a win, since it will allow you to keep other peripherals plugged in alongside the headset without swapping cables.
Other VR Laptop Concerns: Screen, Storage, and Battery
After meeting the VR hardware requirements, other factors come down to your personal preferences and needs. Laptop screen sizes have changed over the last few years, with 15.6-inch and 17-inch laptops largely replaced by 14-inch, 16-inch, and 18-inch laptops compatible with popular headsets. Of course, you'll wear your headset while playing, not looking at the screen. The display size you pick should depend on how you use your laptop when you're not using VR.
Our laptop buying guide will walk you through the pros and cons of different screen sizes. If your work is mostly confined to your desk, a 16-inch or even 18-inch notebook is a plus, though some can weigh a barely luggable 8 pounds or more. (Also see our guide to the best big-screen laptops, VR-ready and not.) If you'll often take your laptop on the go, a lighter 14-inch system makes sense. (Again, check that it has the ports you need; the more compact the machine, the fewer ports it's likely to have.) In addition to the screen size, you'll want to assess the display characteristics, notably the peak refresh rate; modern gaming laptops use panels with faster refresh rates than most older models. (See our guide to whether you need a high-refresh screen.)
All laptops have distinct visual styles, ranging from businesslike blandness to gamer garishness. The difference is subjective, but you don't want to be stuck looking at something you don't like. For example, Alienware machines tend toward flashy, while most Gigabyte machines look much more conservative.
VR games and apps take up a lot of storage space, so you'll want a machine that can at least hold your favorite titles while letting you rotate others out. Teaming up a speedy solid-state drive (at least 512GB, preferably 1TB) with a larger hard drive is a popular solution. If the laptop of your dreams has room for only one SSD without a supplemental hard drive, buy the highest-capacity SSD you can afford.
Battery life is generally less of an issue for gaming and VR laptops than for ultraportables and convertibles because gaming laptops are usually plugged in. Playing on battery rather than AC power usually diminishes performance, and VR is so power-hungry that you'll rely on a wall outlet for all but the shortest explorations.
Ready to Buy the Right Laptop for VR?
The systems outlined here represent the best VR-ready laptops we've reviewed. Also, check out our roundups of the best gaming laptops (VR abilities aside)—or, if you decide to keep things wholly at home, the best gaming desktops, most of which can easily handle VR duties, so long as they're equipped with at least the minimum recommended graphics card for the VR headset you have.
