Oculus Link arrives in beta: the Quest can now be your PC VR gaming headset

One VR headset that can plug into everything would cut down on the pile of goggles in my office. Facebook's standalone Oculus Quest, which is already my favorite VR headset ever made, gets a step closer to that today by connecting with PCs and doubling as an Oculus Rift. The technology, called Oculus Link, is available starting today as a beta feature. It's one more step towards Facebook's inevitable VR future of a single VR headset that doubles as PC and standalone device.

All it needs, if you're curious to try it, is a USB-C cable that can carry video as well as charge. (A "USB 3 gen 1 or gen 2 cable," with power and data support.) The Oculus Quest's included USB-C charge cable won't work, but Oculus is also making its own extra-long Oculus Link cable later this year.

Facebook says Oculus Link will work with PCs with at least an "Intel i5-4590 and AMD Ryzen 5 1500x graphics or greater," but also suggests many graphics cards may not be guaranteed to work, including many AMD ones. 

Supported GPUs for the beta are: 

• Nvidia Titan X
• The Nvidia GeForce 1070 and 1080 series
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 16-series
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 20-series

I tried Oculus Link at Facebook's Oculus Connect conference earlier this year, playing a demo of Asgard's Wrath on a PC, and it looked great. The Oculus Quest may not work perfectly with your computer (hence the term "beta,"), but if it can stand in as a PC headset the way the demo I tried suggested, it's a great added perk to go with hand tracking, which is coming next year.