Update: May 1st, 2019

Valve has officially opened up pre-orders for all Index bundles and accessories, and the company’s staying on course with its June 28th shipping date.

Original Article As Follows

Dropped in the midst of Facebook’s F8 livestream, Valve revealed that their Index headset begins pre-orders tomorrow (May 1st), and the headset alone costs $500, with a full bundle including a pair of Index (aka Knuckles) controllers and two SteamVR base stations for $1000. Valve says that Index will be shipping by June 28th.

Here’s the full spec sheet, as per Road To VR:

  • Display: 1,440 × 1,600 dual LCD panels. Custom full-RGB LCD promises good fill-factor and minimal screen door effect, providing 50% more subpixels that OLED. Low persistence displays: 0.330ms
  • Frame-rate: 120Hz, full backwards compatibility with 90Hz, experimental 144Hz mode
  • Optics: Custom dual-element lens boasts increased sharpness, FOV 20 degrees larger than HTC Vive (estimated ~110 degrees) and large eye-box
  • Adjustability: Mechanical IPD adjustments, “eye relief” adjustments to let lenses sit as close as possible to the eye for max FOV
  • Audio: Near-field off-ear speakers (speaker drivers, not headphone drivers) boast higher fidelity audio. No physical contact with ear aims for increased play-session length
  • Comfort: Reduced weight, high-quality fabrics and padding, geometry targeting “95% of adult heads”
  • Mod-ability: Extensibility through “Frunk” USB expansion bay and stereo cameras. Stereo cameras don’t provide room or hand tracking, although Valve will be providing CAD models, specs and sample code to the maker community
  • Minimum Specs: Dual core CPU with hyper-threading, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD RX480
  • Recommended Specs: Quad core CPU or greater, NVIDIA RTX 1070 or greater

Valve’s focus on high-fidelity PC VR appears to be directly aimed at Oculus’ offerings with the Quest and Rift S, which are more of a side-grade rather than the first offerings in the second generation of VR. The impressive spec sheet combined with a reduced price-point also counter the Vive Pro, with HTC’s full bundle currently priced around $1400. However, Oculus will have a one month head start to ship the Quest and Rift S out to consumers, as per today’s F8 conference.

The headset can be pre-ordered on Steam starting tomorrow, May 1st.