Poll: Gaming PCs Cost vs Performance?

[Assassin Xaero]

Mine is above average, but not really top of the line. 4GB DDR3 ram, quad core processor, Nvidia 9800 GTX+, bluray burner... don't really need anymore than that right now...

 

[Azure Sky]

Spoiler: Snip for size

I suppose, however, from my observation there are more and more people putting 'wants' ahead of 'needs' in this day and age. It's a simple question of what a person would 'do' not what they 'should do'.

But again, people have different wants, and different preferences and priorities for those wants. Gaming is hardly the only want, much less a need, to be satisfied with a limited amount of money. People generally tend to go towards maximised total satisfaction. If they can save significant amounts of money on their computer that is still sufficient for them, they can satisfy more of their wants by spending their money on other fronts (such as partying, eating out, going on a cruise, bying that new skateboard and above average comp instead of bying jsut the Gaming Beast etc.) For some, having the Gaming Beast brings lots of satisfaction, for (what I suspect to be the majority) having a sufficient computer brings enough satisfaction on the gaming front with the Gaming Beast bringing very little extra satisfaction. So instead of going to the expensive and maxed out satisfaction purchase, they go for the budget purchase that still leaves them close to maxed out satisfaction on that front and spend the money saved on other sources of satisfaction or needs. It's just the way it goes. It's the reason why the most cars sold aren't Ferraris or Chryslers, but rather Hondas, Fords and Toyotas.

Part yes, part no, as at least at the moment the poll is suggesting a 60/30ish currently.
Just goes to show that neither of us are wrong.
Enough with the cars though. XD

I am going to use myself for an example, minority or not, here I go.

I am basically a gamer, grew up on consoles, mainly PC these days. Like many others, I dislike large social gatherings shall we call them. I also do not see the point in one-off, few and far between vactions. So seeing as gaming is my main interest, that is where I choose to spend what I save.

Slightly off topic, but out of curiosity, how much is a new release game where you are? PC or Console.

 

[YuriRuler90]

I've built my last two PCs, so I've saved a bit of money compared to what it would cost to buy them.

My last one was built about 4-5 years ago; an Intel E6600, 2GB DDR2, and a nVidia 8800GTS. Cost me about $1,100 at the time (with all the extra peripherals), but lasted me a while. My brother has it now.

My current PC is an i7 920, 12GB DDR3, with a Radeon 4890. Cost me somewhere near $1,200 for the total, along a bigger, faster SATA HD and a new PSU. It's almost future proof, and in the two years that I've had it nothing has been able to give it a run for its money, and it's easily upgradable if something ever does. Money well spent.

 

[Zacharine]

Slightly off topic, but out of curiosity, how much is a new release game where you are? PC or Console.

For PC, a new release is ~50-55? as a hard copy. For console, 60-65?.

But thank Haruhi for international online stores. And no, I don't mean Steam If possible I buy the games I play on actual disks, on that you can call me old-fashioned.

 

[GideonB]

For me, I'd for the £500 upgrade every 3 years or so.
Generally speaking, I buy/upgrade my PC every 3 years.
But usually I'm limited to £300 or so depending.
Either way, I custom build my own PC's making them cheap and future-proofed for 3 years. Now all I need is a Spare HDD to run Arcade rips *evil laugh of piracy*

 

[migo]

I would go cheap for the most part, so that's what I'd pick. Components that would remain good for a long time I'd get higher up, so I'd start out with a really good case and power supply to really facilitate upgrades (Puget's mineral oil system as a base) and then I'd get the best low end CPU for overclocking in the ~$100 range and a solid bang for buck video card. I'd also wait for memory prices to drop a bit as given RAM, GPU and having to get a solid state base hard drive I'm looking at an easy $100-$200 price difference due to RAM. I'd also keep my eye out on the used market, as whenever RAM prices go up it seems to be a really good idea to buy used.

After that, whenever something comes on sale and is a really good deal to upgrade, I'd buy it.

I'd also look at one or two games I really want to play and make sure it can run it. Right now that's Guild Wars 2 and Civilization V, so 4GB RAM would be a minimum, making it a bit hard, and I'd likely have to go for a Phenom II X3 at least, although an overclocked Core i3 also has potential.

 

[viranimus]

Im really not going to get too deep into posting about parts and pcs cause I could cause a war with every word.

Im just going to say that when you choose bleeding edge top of the line you get to a point of diminishing returns.

 

[Azure Sky]

Slightly off topic, but out of curiosity, how much is a new release game where you are? PC or Console.

For PC, a new release is ~50-55? as a hard copy. For console, 60-65?.

But thank Haruhi for international online stores. And no, I don't mean Steam If possible I buy the games I play on actual disks, on that you can call me old-fashioned.

Fair enough.
As far as PC goes, online or disc, whichever takes my fancy at the time.
But as Yahtzee puts it, the 'best beaches tax' means we pay an assload over here, it's not just games either, I would hazard a bet that computer components are a little on the padded side as well. But it's either that or shipping. =(

 

[GideonB]

Slightly off topic, but out of curiosity, how much is a new release game where you are? PC or Console.

For PC, a new release is ~50-55? as a hard copy. For console, 60-65?.

But thank Haruhi for international online stores. And no, I don't mean Steam If possible I buy the games I play on actual disks, on that you can call me old-fashioned.

Fair enough.
As far as PC goes, online or disc, whichever takes my fancy at the time.
But as Yahtzee puts it, the 'best beaches tax' means we pay an assload over here, it's not just games either, I would hazard a bet that computer components are a little on the padded side as well. But it's either that or shipping. =(

Heh same in the UK. Except the games I order are usually PSP imports, and I just buy my games off Steam or play-asia if I really want the PC game from Korea that badly

 

[Treblaine]

"Top of the line" more often than not mean 4x as expensive for only 50% improved performance.

Like GTX 480 is TWICE the price of the Radeon HD 4890 ($450 vs $225) yet gives only 25% better performance with game like Crysis. So you can see how if you aren't very smart PC gaming can be a lot more expensive than is really needs to be.

 

[Azure Sky]

"Top of the line" more often than not mean 4x as expensive for only 50% improved performance.

Like GTX 480 is TWICE the price of the Radeon HD 4890 ($450 vs $225) yet gives only 25% better performance with game like Crysis. So you can see how if you aren't very smart PC gaming can be a lot more expensive than is really needs to be.

But ATI is ATI, and not everyone is willing to deal with the driver problems that come with it.

Also, Name change. ^^

 

[Skratt]

I budget $300/year, so that gives me $1200 every four years to build a new PC. As long as I don't have to buy a monitor or operating system, that translates into a pretty sweet rig.

In 2007 I built a PC with a quad core processor that will still run circles around the best dual core PCs out there, so I know it can be done.

 

[KEM10]

One problem with the build it yourself, getting started is a bit more of a hassle than running to Best Buy and taking on off their shelf.

I decided to save money this summer and build my own after talking to a few people here and at home. Did some minor research, double checked which were more reliable, etc. It has been 3 weeks since I first started and I spend a little more than $500 for this PC, which is alright. However, I had to return and replace my memory and now the power source is shot. The only way to return the power source is to ship back the whole tower and I can't store my motherboard anywhere else. Also, since the power was shot and the way it was, it may have blown out the motherboard, but I won't know until I get the new one.

3 weeks, and only possible end in site. Almost worth the extra $150 to know it will work within 5 min of opening the box, or if it doesn't can take it back and just pick another one off the shelf.

 

[shaboinkin]

Even though Intel makes better processors and Nvidia makes the better gpu
I always get the AMD/ATI build. Cheaper, almost same performance.

 

[daftalchemist]

I went with above average, aiming specifically for parts that would be easily upgradable later on. I know someone who got a large sum of money for a birthday present and just bought everything top of the line for a new computer. The problem that the parts he bought would not be easy to upgrade later on because of something with the motherboard (I do not remember what at this point). So now his computer is starting to act up and he'll have to spend even more money to fix it because he'll even need a new motherboard and a new processor.

 

[Flunk]

Computer performance is a system of diminishing returns where the more you spend the less performance you're getting for each dollar. If you're a gamer the best ticket is a modestly powerful processor, above-average RAM and a $200-300 graphics card. That way you don't spend too much and you get a system that will be able to play new games with high detail for 3-4 years with the possibility to slot in some upgrades later if you need them. The GPU is where you want to spend your money for gaming.

Anyone looking for a good deal in graphic cards today take a look at the Gainward/Palit GTX 460 1GB cards with the custom shorter PCB. I picked one up because it was cheaper and I've got it over 200Mhz overclocked to where it outperforms a stock GTX 470. 5850s are still a decent buy too.

 

[migo]

Im really not going to get too deep into posting about parts and pcs cause I could cause a war with every word.

Im just going to say that when you choose bleeding edge top of the line you get to a point of diminishing returns.

I'm also finding that to be the case at the lowest end. For instance, if I look on NewEgg and budget $100 per component, I can put together a system that easily handles Civilization V's hefty system requirements, but if I drop down to the cheapest I can possibly go I'm only saving $40/component and it only meets the minimum requirements. It's $120 total difference, but with that I'd rather spend just a little bit extra up front and get quite a bit more for my money.

With a Netbook I go for the bottom that gets me what I need (so I paid $224 after tax), since there's no way performance will ever be enough, but for a gaming PC, just slightly above the base price does it.

It's also rather hard to go second hand right now thanks to PCI-E, all the second hand systems run on AGP which is a dead end.

 

[Treblaine]

Price/performance is the king as long as you have monetary constraints.

This is true, but everyone is different, in both budget and preferences.

Indeed. But according to very basic microtheory of economics, people use money to satisfy different needs and wants. These needs and wants have different weight. Having a top-of-the-line gaming computer is rarely among the top needs or wants ; people would rather use money to buy a car, a better apartment, go for a holiday etc. And that means, for those of us who aren't obscenely rich or among the very very top of the PC-gaming enthusiasts, we try to see if we are getting good price/performance for our computer. Because as we start improving the build, we are seeing less and less increase in performance for a steep rise in cost. ANd as long as the build does what we want it to, we can be quite unwilling to pay those almost exponentially increasing prices for the absolute newest stuff. Because components that are 6-12 months old are more than sufficient (from our point of view) but are simply incompareable in price/performance ratio.

And once we have the computer, many of us are unwilling to upgrade it within the year, or three or even six. After all, you don't buy a new TV every few years. In return, we are more than prepared to accept that we aren't having the top-of-the-line stuff. Because we'd rather spend our hard-earned money elsewhere.

Funny you should say that as I started this thread:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.224268-Challenge-1000-on-Gaming-entertainment-from-scratch?page=1

That's a moderate sum of $1000 for ALL of your electronic gaming and entertainment needs.

See I notice a lot of people saying "oh consoles are so much better value" tend to be teenagers living at home using either their parent's HDTV or a HDTV that was bought for them. HDTVs are SOOO EXPENSIVE and playing a console on a cheap + small monitor... well... you might as well be playing on a PC in that case.

I found in the thread the majority of respondents would rather get a gaming PC + monitor + old console than a HDTV + console + old computer, when there is a limited budget and they aren't casually excluding major components from consideration (like a HDTV).

I'd like to start another Poll asking people would they rather live without a TV or without a PC?

Which would you choose? I know which I'd choose.

But ultimately I thing more people choose console gaming because they are Lazy Idiots. They can't look at costs of things overall and they are too lazy to bother any more than a ready made PC using ready-installed programs.

Hell, the reason Internet Explorer is the most popular browser in the world is it is pre-installed on every windows machine and hundreds of millions of people can't be bothered to find an alternative or they "don't want it to be different".

 

[TerribleAssassin]

I'd build my own if I could fund it, so I'll settle with a bog-standerd normal market PC.

 

[Treblaine]

Also, Name change. ^^

I don't get it