Could pick up a hexa core phenom II.

As fatslob said, it depends on when you plan to get the Vive.

If you plan to get it at launch, in April, then a fast, 4-core Intel i5 and a GTX 970 or R9 390 are your best bets. And as you've been told, if you plan to overclock the CPU, get a "Z" named board and a "-K" processor.

But if you won't get the Vive at launch, but later in the year, then your best bet is to wait. Both AMD and Intel will launch new processors and boards before the year ends, which will give you more options to choose from or the ability to buy current products at lower prices as they try to get rid of the stock. Similarly, AMD plans to start launching products based on their new "Polaris" GPU architecture in June, tho it remains to be seen if they will launch desktop GPUs first or if they'll launch their laptop parts first.

In any case, by November or so that is when the new CPUs will launch, both AMD and Nvidia will have new GPUs in the market, again giving you more to choose from, and hopefully also cheaper.

Personally i would only upgrade your videocard first and see how the experience is with that. Maybe a used 290 is a good affordable option? Depending on the gaming cpu doesn't always make that much of a difference, the gpu just has a much bigger impact especially when it comes to something as heavy as VR. The minimum frame rate is very important however with VR, so if you end up experiencing significant frame drops with your current cpu it might be worth it to upgrade the rest of your system.

Not true.
There are plenty of AM3 motherboards which are compatible with Socket AM3+ processors (Such as the Asus Crosshair IV), just his motherboard doesn't.

A Phenom 2 x4 970 is about half the speed of the recommended requirements for VR... But here is the kicker, Oculus state that the load placed on the CPU is very lightly threaded... Essentially where Intel shines and AMD falters.
You would want a high-clocked CPU with very strong per-core performance...

However, let's also keep in mind that games in VR *will* be rendered at a substantually higher resolution than most people are used to.
From years of dealing with eyefinity, that means the bottleneck will likely always be the GPU in the majority of scenario's, especially if you like to have all the bells and whistles turned on.
A slower CPU usually will only start to hold you back if there is allot of Physics, A.I, Particles and will usually only hit your minimum and maximum framerates... To a point.
But that will also vary from game to game.


My advice is... Wait. AMD is releasing Polaris in a few months... At the very least it could mean a sale on current GPU's, at the most you could get substantually more GPU for your dollar.
Upgrading to Intel is probably the advisable course as Zen is probably not going to drop untill late this year and who knows if it will offer acceptable performance, any modern Intel Quaddy will likely do though.

However, keep in mind that VR on the PC is *not* locked onto any particular hardware, framerates and resolution are the most important factors... As long as you can maintain native res (2160x1200 - 1080x1200 per eye.) and 90fps... It doesn't matter how slow your hardware is.

I would personally go for a Core i5 6600K and dual Radeon 390's at a minimum, vram will be more important than usual too, more the better, even if it costs a few bucks more, the GPU's are where you should invest most of your money into.

I was talking about Intel processors and the majority of the time you do need to get a new motherboard rather than not, am I right ? 

Yes you will be rendering games at a higher resolution but VR headset makers recommend 60FPS at ALL times so it's not wise to hold the Phenom in OPs case ... 

I just assumed you were talking about AMD due to the prior post and your posts wording as you made no distinction towards any manufacturer.

VR makers would prefer for you to have 90fps at all times. :P Unleas you went with the GearVR or Playstation VR.

We should get in touch some more to discuss the latest developments ...

Well I overclocked my CPU from 3.5 to 3.84 by adjusting the FSB upto 240 and the CPU down to 16. I left CPU voltage on auto. I re-ran SteamVR performance test and was upgraded from  "capable" to "ready".  My phenom II 970 is green lit! I'm replacing the 5870 with a 390x as soon as I find a low price. I'm already bidding on ebay. Thanks everyone for letting me know about Polaris and back-to-school timing. I should hopefully get what I need by then. How much do you think 390x will cost when polaris launches?

Yikes, VR does require a decent amount of power...

I wonder when computers will slowly be more accessible to VR. This can be VERY useful, especially in the medical world. Schools can take advantage and allow people to learn hands-on like never before

It doesn't have to, VR games can be designed around lower spec hardware ... 

Oculus's recommendation is based around playing the most technically demanding AAA games in VR which can be had for a price of around a price of $800-1000 worth of hardware ...