I am thinking about buying an Oculus Rift for christmas because the Vive is too expensive but I am not sure if a 970 is required for the Rift to run or if it is just strongly recommended. If I buy a Rift can I play games with a 760 (the card I have) or will it not allow me?
you can try the compatibility tool provided in the download section, but im pretty sure a 760 wont cut it, but 970 isnt the minimum anymore, and i think youre better off gtx 1060, which is cheaper than a 970 and also if im not mistaken VR compatible
If you don't have a specific brand-loyalty to NVIDIA, you might also consider something like an R9 290X. I got one of those on eBay for a real bargain, and I haven't been disappointed by it yet.
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.
A friend of mine just bought a Rift and he's only got a GTX 960. He says everything seems to be running mostly fine but I'm not sure what games he's actually playing. He is planning on upgrading to a GTX 1070 towards Christmas though, so maybe he's just seeing the 960 as "ok for now".
I went from a 970 to a 1080 recently. The jump isn't that big visually just the ASW tends not to kick in as much. You can get a 970 on ebay for about £100.00 at the moment.
Man get a used 970, I just got another for my wife. This old card still has an awesome price/performance ratio and it can WELL cover for most/many things in VR. Look on classified sites or hardware forums. I think it's absolutely worth it. I wouldn't go with below min spec "just to be able to run VR".