Should I buy a gaming PC or wait for Next Gen consoles?

norrie rugger

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Our happy customer right here

And here

ScumLord

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Not everybody is interested in overclocking and the inherent problems and time that come with it. And I didn't say cheap, I said mid range. No point in paying twice the price for a gtx580 when you can get a card with 20% less performance for half the cost. Same with motherboards, cpu's, cooling etc...

A good quality motherboard is a world of difference from some of the budget options. Things like mouse operated bios, quadruple redundancy, bigger more robust heatsinks and connections.

Same goes for PC cases, a good case is infinitely easier to work with than a cheap case.

As for quality and long lasting parts? I'm not sure where your coming from, the chips and pcb's are coming out of the same factory, being rebranded, then shipped on and the mid range parts are not as stressed in terms of heat and power consumption.

They're not all coming from the same factory, there is a vast range of differing levels of quality out there from a vast range of suppliers.

Meanwhile the 2K super rig over in the corner is outdated after two years like all tech and looks a lot like a waste of money.

I don't see how it would be outdated in two years. My last PC lasted more than 6 and is still going strong I just needed something better for video work. It won't be top of the range in two years time but will will be as close as makes no difference.

I've made a good few PCs in my time and in my opinion (depending on the intended use) I will buy better quality parts for myself personally. I'm a cheap person so I don't like spending that money I just know now that it's worth it.

ShadowHearth

i think some people are forgetting that at this age we got:

HIGH END PC

and

HIGH END GAMING PC

difference is, that you dont need high end pc to have high quality gaming. back in the day there were no limit to reach with hardware, because no matter how modern and expencive your rig was, there would be still games that would need better.

now we got in to the point where you dont need highest and most expencive parts to have good gaming machine.

i5 2500k is maximum you need for high end pc. you can overclock it with 1 click of mouse button to 4.2++ ghz and there are no games that use that power 100%. for example the most load my i5 sow in gaming - 55%.

ram? ram is so cheap that low budget, mid budget and high budget rigs got 8gb ram which is overkill already.

GPU? This is the most important part and the only one that matters. depending on your resolution there is already limit in gpu power. if you play on something like 720p then even mid to high budget card like 6870 is an overkill. if you go 1080p then something like 570gtx, 6970, or 7870 is a high end for gaming pc. it will run any game on the market with plenty of space in the future.

all these items are not that expensive and will make a high end GAMING machine. You dont need i7 extreme CPUs, you dont need 16gb ram, you dont need stupidly expensive 7970 GPU to have a high end gaming PC lads. though PC has limitless possibilities, which are limited only by your balance on account .

Cuddlesworth

ScumLord wrote: »

A good quality motherboard is a world of difference from some of the budget options. Things like mouse operated bios, quadruple redundancy, bigger more robust heatsinks and connections.

I supported over 1500 desktops and 3500 laptops in a enterprise setting over a five year time frame. I can count the amount of desktop motherboard failures on one hand. The only one that's ever popped on me personally was because I hadn't insulated it properly from the phase change unit. So if you want to spend extra on a "perceived" redundancy go ahead.

ScumLord wrote: »

Same goes for PC cases, a good case is infinitely easier to work with than a cheap case.

A good case is a couple of hundred, a cheap functional case 30. And tbh, if you have to get in there and do a motherboard swap every two years, I couldn't give a hoot if it has a removable motherboard. The only time in my life I cared was when it was being dismantled monthly. And after a month or two of that, I ended up with no case and it just sitting on a desk.

ScumLord wrote: »

They're not all coming from the same factory, there is a vast range of differing levels of quality out there from a vast range of suppliers.

I think you would be surprised at exactly how much of the market foxcon has. I believe last I heard it was around 85% of the motherboards made. And the differences between the products are generally deliberately functional because of market reasons. There have been many instances in the past where you could bypass the restrictions on pcb's and chips to allow them the functionality of the products twice the price.

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't see how it would be outdated in two years. My last PC lasted more than 6 and is still going strong I just needed something better for video work. It won't be top of the range in two years time but will will be as close as makes no difference.

Under seven years ago the AMD Athlon64 X2's where just(late aug 2005) starting to compete with the dual core pentium 4's. Which means you were using one of these until recently and found it excellent and completely up to date with gaming and heavy use? 5-6 years was the early dual core core2duo's and they started to show their age three years ago. The quad cores release a year later with list prices of 600-800 euros would be somewhat decent but severely diluted by today's performance standards. I should know, I picked up one two years later for 100. Various interations increase performance.

Personally, I picked up a Opti 144, basic lan party board, ram and 9600xt for just over three hundred. Then I bumped to a core2duo 6600 with mobo, ram and x800 for close to four hundred. Then onto a Q6600 with a mobo, ram and a x1900xt for around 300, cpu second hand. Bumped my gfx to a 4870 which its at now. I'm looking at a AMD six core now, 32gigs of ram etc for close to 400. Still using a trusty Seven year old OCZ 520 watt, but have a three year old 600watt Corsair if it fails and a thermaltake case thats seen better times. I've spent about 1500 in total on my personal machine over seven years and had great performance in that time, and will continue to do so in the future. But I'm obviously wasting my time there.

I will say I've spent far more then that on hobbys, WC, phase change, case modding, overclocking, VM boxs. But those are things that the average punter will never get into.

ScumLord wrote: »

I've made a good few PCs in my time and in my opinion (depending on the intended use) I will buy better quality parts for myself personally. I'm a cheap person so I don't like spending that money I just know now that it's worth it.

If it works great, but I've built and dealt with too many machines to be anything other then jaded to the pricing structure.

Shiminay

This year, I built a new machine and spent a total of €700 re-using a case and a PSU (both of which were around the €100 mark each when I first bought them). My hardware was only now starting to show any signs of age which was a socket 775 C2D 2.8 chip, 4GB of RAM, and an nVidia 8800GTX. At the time I initially built the machine, I spent obscene money as I'd just had my SSIA mature and tbh, in retrospect it wasn't quite worth it. Right now I think you'd be mad to spend any more than €800 on a gaming PC - the stuff moves too fast and the bang for buck you'll get out of €800 will be great. Mid range parts (but an i5 2500k if you can get it) with an upper mid range gfx card (€250-€300 sort of money) and you'll be laughing. Ram's so cheap you'll be able to upgrade that easily when the time comes, but I can't see that happening until we're 12 months into Windows 8's life cycle (and there'll be no major panic on switching to that cause 7's really solid).

[edit]
If you could afford it, a big SSD would be the most important game changer. People are saying that they could never go back to a mechanical drive after using SSDs for a week.

Since building my current machine (i5, 8GB RAM and 1GB 6950), I have barely touched my XBox - even games that I'd probably have initially thought about playing on the XBox are now automatically played on the PC because it's a far better experience for me. Not as loud, mouse + keyboard (which I personally prefer, but the controller comes out for some games) and I have 2 monitors, so I can keep an eye on my Twitters and IM clients etc.

The next gen consoles - we're most likely gonna be seeing them next year, but you also have the delay in the developers learning how to get the most out of them, so lets make a very conservative estimate of 20 to 24 months before they're really up and running. An €800 gaming PC today will more than likely get you through the next 36 months of games without any difficulty and might just keep punching through to 48 months with another €250 worth of video card after the 3 year mark.

The most important questions really are "can I afford it?" and "what do I want to play?" and when you've got a clear answer to those, the choice should be obvious enough

ScumLord

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I supported over 1500 desktops and 3500 laptops in a enterprise setting over a five year time frame. I can count the amount of desktop motherboard failures on one hand. The only one that's ever popped on me personally was because I hadn't insulated it properly from the phase change unit. So if you want to spend extra on a "perceived" redundancy go ahead.

Will do. Enterprise and business solutions are different again from the type of PC we're talking about, their built for reliablilty so I'm not surprised you haven't had to many failures. In my own limited experience of making home PCs I've had a motherboard failure, cheap ram failure, a PSU go on fire. The Dells at work have never failed but there's little to go wrong with them they don't even run the parts at full speed.

A good case is a couple of hundred, a cheap functional case 30.

A good case will cost less than €200, I've used cheap cases and the whole thing was warped and parts didn't fit properly. You can use them sure but I won't any more I don't like them.

danthefan

I own a high end gaming PC, a PS3 and a Wii. The PC absolutely blows the other 2 out of the water imo. As long as I'm a gamer I will have a gaming PC first and foremost.

lasersquad

The only thing really worth spending some serious money on when buying a PC is a monitor.

Which is something that still puzzles me tbh: we all know the old dispute about how 60Hz on my LCD shouldn`t really matter, but...really? I read some reviews of those 'gaming" 100+ Hz monitors and apparently it does make a differnce. i splashed on a good IPS panel, but now sorta start having doubts - anybody have experience with the gaming ones?

ShadowHearth

200eu for good case... I got only a shot case for 100 eu . That crapy crapy corsair 500r

norrie rugger

ShadowHearth wrote: »

200eu for good case... I got only a shot case for 100 eu . That crapy crapy corsair 500r

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=50575&agid=631&apop=1

This case, that you PC forum guys recommended, is perfect at €30.
My case is not visible really, as I knew it would not be, has tonnes of room inside and a great airflow.

ShadowHearth

norrie rugger wrote: »

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=50575&agid=631&apop=1

This case, that you PC forum guys recommended, is perfect at €30.
My case is not visible really, as I knew it would not be, has tonnes of room inside and a great airflow.

There are sooo many cases in the market and you can buy a very good case for 30-50eu.
There are shot too, but it's like any product in any market - there are shot products and there are good.
People give way too much praise to a thing like case. Even a cardboard box or even a plank of wood can do the function of the case. I personally find spending 200eu on case and utter idiocy. Even my 100eu case is a total overkill.

richymcdermott

considering myself to get a gaming pc ...time to save :P

is it worth the investment ?

jaykhunter

As a lifelong console gamer who recently bought a gaming PC; graphically speaking the PC version is definitely better looking in every way. And mods are the business! But the main point against it is what are it's exclusives? Like i'm done buying multi platform games on consoles in favour of PC (providing there's controller support) but what can PCs offer when stuff like Uncharted or Gears etc is just unavailable?

ShadowHearth

jaykhunter wrote: »

As a lifelong console gamer who recently bought a gaming PC; graphically speaking the PC version is definitely better looking in every way. And mods are the business! But the main point against it is what are it's exclusives? Like i'm done buying multi platform games on consoles in favour of PC (providing there's controller support) but what can PCs offer when stuff like Uncharted or Gears etc is just unavailable?

civilisation series
diablo series
heroes series
Stalker series
settlers series.
total war series
starcraft series
Warhammer series
tribes 2
huge list of mmorpg
League of legends
ARMA series
Serious Sam series
Minecraft
witcher series

then ofc all of the PC games that are on consoles, but are way supperior and more popular versions:

L4D 1/2
BF3 ( i dont thing i need even comment on this one )
TF2
Skyrim


lists go on and go on, and thats just from the top of my head. there are so many unique games on PC, which stand for years and where games like uncharted and gears are like a big summer movie ( i love uncharted thought, no offence lads )

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Stalker series!
shadow of chernobyl and call of pripyat
buy game, install "complete mod". play one of the finest fps rpg blends in history

richymcdermott

ShadowHearth wrote: »

civilisation series
diablo series
heroes series
Stalker series
settlers series.
total war series
starcraft series
Warhammer series
tribes 2
huge list of mmorpg
League of legends
ARMA series
Serious Sam series
Minecraft
witcher series

then ofc all of the PC games that are on consoles, but are way supperior and more popular versions:

L4D 1/2
BF3 ( i dont thing i need even comment on this one )
TF2
Skyrim


lists go on and go on, and thats just from the top of my head. there are so many unique games on PC, which stand for years and where games like uncharted and gears are like a big summer movie ( i love uncharted thought, no offence lads )

dam you dude you are really bout to make me becoming a pc gamer , would 800 euros get me a good pc gaming that can play all games you mentioned above with no problems ?

Dave_The_Sheep

richymcdermott wrote: »

dam you dude you are really bout to make me becoming a pc gamer , would 800 euros get me a good pc gaming that can play all games you mentioned above with no problems ?

Short answer, yes. Head over to the PC Building and Upgrading forum - those lads know their **** and will rustle you up a good -> very good machine for that kinda money.

ShadowHearth

richymcdermott wrote: »

dam you dude you are really bout to make me becoming a pc gamer , would 800 euros get me a good pc gaming that can play all games you mentioned above with no problems ?

800eu will take any of those games m8. it depends even more if you need windows and monitor. even if you do need bouth you can make a pc which will play any of those games perfecty. keep in mind you can use your TV for some time too.

Kiith

richymcdermott wrote: »

dam you dude you are really bout to make me becoming a pc gamer , would 800 euros get me a good pc gaming that can play all games you mentioned above with no problems ?

Easily. I'm playing Battlefield 3 on ultra @ 1080p with a €600 pc.

richymcdermott

ShadowHearth wrote: »

800eu will take any of those games m8. it depends even more if you need windows and monitor. even if you do need bouth you can make a pc which will play any of those games perfecty. keep in mind you can use your TV for some time too.

Is monitor needed ? I much rather use my hdtv in my room , also anyway if i get it custom made could i make the pc wifi cause i have no internet connection upstairs at all

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

tv is fine for a pc monitor so long as you use hdmi and it can do a high enough resolution
it can make space an issue, as you need a desk for your kb/mouse and it has to be far enough away from the tv that you're not twisting your neck back and forth every 2 seconds to see what's happening on the edges of the picture

ShadowHearth

richymcdermott wrote: »

Is monitor needed ? I much rather use my hdtv in my room , also anyway if i get it custom made could i make the pc wifi cause i have no internet connection upstairs at all

if you use your TV as monitor, then its even better. it means around 100-150euof your budget can go to beef up gpu.

you can buy wireless adapter for 10eu m8.

richymcdermott

Fecking sweet great help lot ye have been so far, i am sick of the restrictions on the consoles as of late and game prices are too high for my liking , just looking at steam alone prices are better pricing for my liking ... It be by june/july for me to get the money so i be sure to come back to any more questions along the way ...thanks again

ShadowHearth

richymcdermott wrote: »

Fecking sweet great help lot ye have been so far, i am sick of the restrictions on the consoles as of late and game prices are too high for my liking , just looking at steam alone prices are better pricing for my liking ... It be by june/july for me to get the money so i be sure to come back to any more questions along the way ...thanks again

come to "building PC" section m8 and one of us will give you a hand. we got a little form you fill in and then we build you a spec for your budget and needs. If you will have problem putting it together, then one of us can give ya a hand if we are in your area m8.

richymcdermott

ShadowHearth wrote: »

come to "building PC" section m8 and one of us will give you a hand. we got a little form you fill in and then we build you a spec for your budget and needs. If you will have problem putting it together, then one of us can give ya a hand if we are in your area m8.

Will be sure to do that ...thanks again

Blowfish

jaykhunter wrote: »

As a lifelong console gamer who recently bought a gaming PC; graphically speaking the PC version is definitely better looking in every way. And mods are the business! But the main point against it is what are it's exclusives? Like i'm done buying multi platform games on consoles in favour of PC (providing there's controller support) but what can PCs offer when stuff like Uncharted or Gears etc is just unavailable?

The PC easily has more exclusives than all of the other consoles combined. The barrier to entry for creating PC games is much much lower than that for a console, hence there are far far more games. The reason you don't hear about them as much is that because the barrier to entry/break even point is lower, they require a much lower budget, hence will have a much lower marketing budget too.

Aside from the games already listed above, start taking a look at the Indie games that are available on Steam.

There are also a lot of smaller Publishers that are PC only. Paradox is one of my favourites, they have a bunch of ridiculously complex strategy games as well as Magicka, Amnesia/Penumbria, Mount & Blade, King Arthur etc.

Also, don't forget that the PC is backwards compatible for pretty much all games for the past 20+ years. This also includes the ability to play the entire collection of games from pretty much all consoles (the one glaring exception is the xbox) up to the PS2.