PC gaming THE COST

[Auron]

Of course those are Gabe Newell's words and we're likely to live enough to see him die(I'm assuming people on their 20's.) but the whole culture he created at Valve and the fact Steam is a gold mine makes the death of Steam highly unlikely, short of a technology breakdown, nuclear war, world devastating EMP wave or something like that.

On building your own computer, I wouldn't go so far as say PC gamers don't deserve it unless they build it, but it's a fun experience in my point of view and usually FAR cheaper(here in Brazil anyway.) to just build your own from parts. All you need is a simple Philips screwdriver and some patience to read the manuals and it's always something I remember fondly.

 

[Clowndoe]

On building your own: Yeesh.

Like I said, I built mine, but it was one of the most stressful experiences ever. I was nervous the whole way through, but in a careful, acceptable sort of way. The real trouble was when I thought I was done putting it together and yet the computer wouldn't start. After troubleshooting long enough for a bunch of cable exchanges, unplugging and re-plugging my computer to take a peek at anything I might have missed about 5 times, and taking a taking pauses to hold back my tears, I finally realized that both my RAM cards weren't 100% inserted into their slots. As in 1/20 of a millimeter sticking out. I had noticed it but since I couldn't push it in any further before without fear of snapping my motherboard, I had told myself it was alright. Sure enough, after double-checking for the 6th time, they slid further into place without a fuss (?!). 6 hours after I had started unboxing and assembling, I had it done.

I still recommend to everyone to build it themselves, since I'm sure I'm a unique case, but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to do it.

 

[The_Lost_King]

hahahaha, you think you are good because you are poor? I am a teenager with no job. Valve has still got $100 - $200 out of me.

Yeah there are great things about a gaming laptop, but There is one huge blowback, you can't upgrade it. That is the biggest reason I want to switch when I don't need to have a lot of mobility.

Captcha: kangaroo court, so is that how courts work in Australia or something?

Shame. From your name and profile pic I had imagined you as Aragorn sitting in Minas Tirith, taking the Gaming PC out on your horse every now and then. No I feel your pain I'm a teenager too who is just about to get in debt because of university funds. I can see how not upgrading may not be quite so good, but you're probably sorted for a few years if you paid $900 though.

well yeah, once I actually get money(though seeing as I want to go into the gaming industry that seems like I might not have as much disposable as I would like) I would like to have a somewhat decent laptop. Riding my horse to visit Frodo in the Shire, hoping Saruman hasn't taken it over again, playing LOTR: Return of the King(was that on pc? I know it was on gamecube) on my laptop. Also, yay, someone got my name's reference, I though the profile pick would help.

 

[Weaver]

My PC cost around $1500 Canadian I think. 5 Terabytes of storage, what what!

verdant, I'm really interested in how you like the PC scene after a few weeks of exploration and trying stuff out.

If you're interested, and have a steam account, I can send you a DOTA 2 key.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

My current PC is a laptop that I bought 2 years ago, while I was still in school. I cost $650 (an incredible bargain) and so far has been able to run every single game but 1, maxed out. It can run Metro 2033 on max settings, Crysis 2 on max settings, Max Payne 3, Bioshock Infinite, Deus Ex Human Revolution, all on max settings. The only game it can't run on max is Witcher 2.

Considering the fact that I've bought the vast majority of my games on steam at during massive sales I've saved hundreds of dollars on games alone. If you were to compare that to paying $300 for an xbox 360, $60 a year for xbox live, and between $40 and $60 for every game I would still come out way ahead if I was exclusively a PC gamer.

Then again, I have an xbox 360, a PS3, and a PC, and I enjoy playing on all of them. PC is definitely the better experience though, I have to say. Honestly, I might not even get the next generation of consoles, and if I do it'll pretty much only be for the couch coop aspect (which is slowly dying anyway).

 

[ResonanceSD]

about $3500 all up. Then there's games to be added to that. totally worth it.

 

[00slash00]

how much did i pay? thats a tough question to answer. i bought my pc about 7 years ago and paid somewhere around a thousand for that. over the years i have obviously upgraded it multiple times so i guess ballpark estimate....somewhere between $2,000 and $2,500? thats only the pc itself, of course. that doesnt include the cost of speakers, mouse, keyboard, monitor, headset, etc

steam sales are great but fortunately steam is starting to lose some...well, steam to sites like green man gaming and gamers gate. green man gaming, in particular, blew steam out of the water during their christmas sale. i love steam and having all my games organized in the steam library is very nice. but just remember, no matter how great and noble a company seems, monopolies are always bad. i have no reason to think steam will fuck me over but at the end of the day, you dont own any of your steam games. still, i trust steam a hell of a lot more than sony or microsoft

 

[Little Gray]

Welcome though, enjoy your stay, and remember, Steam is one manipulative ************.

Thanks!
Really? Steam seems like a good guy to me :s his sales are nice and everyone I've talked to sings its praises.

While the sales are nice their standard prices are often far more expensive then anywhere else.

 

[Easton Dark]

I run Skyrim on ultra settings with a couple dozen graphical mods as well as a couple dozen other mods.

I do that with my $1000 computer here, what the heck did you spend that extra thousand on? Don't say the case!

 

[yamy]

I have been thinking about the state of console gaming recently, and I'm not liking what I see and hear. I've never like paying for xbox live it always seemed like a massive waste, there are other things I could slag the xbox off for but suffice to say its not perfect. And sadly the future of consoles seems equally as bleak, as its depressing present.

The PC gaming scene has always held a certain allure for me. I have never been one of those people who get a raging boner for hd graphics and the performance of a machine, those things seem utterly shallow and pointless to me. Its the extensive library of games, the MODS, and the comparative cheapness of games. Also the amazing Steam sales (I saw the Witcher2 for £6 the other day, on Xbox the minimum would be around £15).

So I finally relented and bought a PC which I am waiting for at the moment, I also need to buy a monitor, wifi card, mouse, keyboard, speakers, and a headset. Now onto the threads actual point... IT COST and is still going to cost A LOT OF MONEY. I got the pc for £325, the wifi card will be around £15 and the monitor will cost £97, and the other things I have budgeted to get individually for under £5 each.

Its gonna cost around £500 all together... (apologies to any Americans reading this but its costing me around $760) and if its as good as you PC gamer guys say I won't regret it at all. If anyone is interested in the PC here is a link to it http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200886653771?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648

So how much did you guys pay for your rigs? that is what you call them yes?
Also please don't make any PC gaming master race comments, they churn my stomach and make PC gamers seem terrible.

I know you don't really care about PC hardware but honestly the graphics card that your computer comes with is pretty weak. My GPU (a GTS 450) from almost 3 years ago now is still 50% faster than it and just slightly more expensive. It just doesn't seem that good a deal purely from a graphics card point of view. Everything else seems decent though.

This is not about 'getting a hardware boner' just from a purely practical point of view: you might find yourself having to upgrade your graphics card sooner than you think. Personally I probably would have went with their 7770 option in oppose to their 6670. It's more than twice as much performance. But then again it is £70 more so maybe that was a factor for you (which is strange because it should only be £30 more according to amazon. Maybe they have to change some of the other parts to accommodate)

My rig? Cost about £500, £530 with keyboard, speakers. It's alot cheaper if you get it custom built.

 

[RicoADF]

Nice find there mate. As for my machine, well I have built, rebuilt, upgraded and tweeked my machine so many times it's hard to give a price as it's an evolving machine. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably cost me around $7-800 + the 26" TV it's connected to (yes you heard right, I use a TV via HDMI connection). The videocard is the only part I'm looking at upgrading (Radeon 6950 2GB), it's a good card thats still running anything I have at max setting, I'm just debating jumping over to nvidia with the 680 series.
Main PC specs:
Intel i7 2600K @3.4ghz (turbo to 4ghz)
8GB of 1600mhz corsair ram
120GB corsair SSD (550mb/s read/510mb/s write)
700GB Western digital HDD
Samsung RW bluray drive
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB

My 2nd machine, the laptop, cost me $1300 (on sale last year), it's an i7 6GB 1600mhz ram with a nvidia GTX 650M, not bad for the price actually. It's not quite the power of my main rig (2GB less and well a laptop so slightly slower), but it still plays all my games on med-high with no issues. Great little machine I often use going to mates for LAN parties etc.

I also have a core 2 duo mobo and CPU laying around with ram, thinking of putting it into an old case and setting it up or giving it away, unsure.

As for consoles, well I haven't touched my PS3 in years, and the 360 never had live (except the free months), I'd never waste my money on that crap. I might get a PS4, but the nextbox can jump in the lake, esp if it requires always online. Yeah yeah Im always online, but when I use my consoles thats when I'm not (weather it be away from home or the net is down), thus it'd be useless.

 

[mrhateful]

Ahh it is good to see another have seen the light.

My PC is a bit old, I spared no expense on the graphic card but kinda cheaped out on the rest so it was only about 10000kr or 1700 USD.

It still performs nicely and I have not regretted my purchase for a single moment.

However if you are new to the PC I would recommend a few of my personal favorite games(Which are not on xbox)(sorted DESC by favorite):

Single player
Baldurs Gate 2+Exp
Neverwinter Night 2
Dragon Age: Origins(on xbox but I don't see how you can play with a controller so Ill leave here anyway)
Planescape Torment
Neverwinter night 1
Baldurs Gate 1
Alpha Protocol
Dark Messiah of might and magic
Psychonauts(Probably on xbox but i have no clue)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Warcraft 3

Multiplayer
League of Legends
WOW(arena)
Starcraft 2

I feel like I am forgetting some games but anyway its a fine list and one that should keep you entertained for a long time.

 

[BaronFelX]

As far as extra costs go, remember that the monitor, keyboard/mouse, and other accessories will long outlast your computer, and the computer itself should last quite a while too. By the time you replace it in 5 or 6 years, you'll be able to keep most of that stuff and save a bundle on a new rig.

 

[Kyrian007]

If you really look for good PC deals, cost isn't really that bad. Mine is a little over a year old, can high end Skyrim, and cost less than a PS3 did new at the time. It was a lot of effort, I had to scrounge for deals. But now with folks going to laptop and tablet, tower and desktop PCs are cheaper than ever to build and impressively powerful for the cost. And the other benefit... with mine I still have plenty of room to upgrade when I need to. I didn't max out my board's ram or cpu, so after a upgrade to coolant and power supply I can still go even more powerful. But I'm still getting medium to high performance on new releases, so that's still a cost I can save up for. Honestly I'd classify the cost of PC gaming to be equal to or better than console. With Xboxes and PS3s bricking after the warranty runs out after a couple of years, and no backwards compatability after an upgrade, its just more bang for the buck.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Too much.

*Sees mod lifting the ban hammer*

Um! Err!

My entire set up (so including m+k, monitor, ect) cost me about £1700. Insane amount of money really, but I love my "rig" to bits. Never found a game I can't run on it's maximum settings, and I'll hit 60fps in a 1080p window consistently so I won't need to replace anything in it for at least a few years.

I don't feel the need to buy a console ever again either.

 

[loc978]

Built mine for around $1300 in early 2007 (counting a monitor, but no peripherals. Those are considerably older). Still runs everything I've thrown at it so far, but the newest game I've tried is Far Cry 3. My poor ol' Athlon X2 and 7950GT can just barely manage a smooth framerate on the lowest settings. Still I wait on building a new one. I think I've grown attached (or maybe I just hate current-gen operating systems that much).

...and that system seems expensive to me for what it is... unless the graphics there are a typo and it's actually a 7660 on-chip. Never seen an FM2 APU running the 6670, especially not one clocking 4Ghz. Sounds like the A10 5800 to me, which runs the 7660... which would be just about worth that price. Probably actually worth it, considering the price is in pounds. I hear
...you learn something new every day. An FM2 that's not an APU. You got screwed, that video card is weak for the price. Then again, you guys get royally fucked on electronics prices.

 

[clippen05]

Always consult the Falcon Guide [http://www.logicalincrements.com/] when buying/building a PC.

Technically, my computer is around the $1,500 range. Though it has costed me more than that because I have lots of things related to more than gaming.

I have quite a few hard drives and extra computers made of spare parts. PC gaming is getting better. We're getting a few jRPGs and fighting games and other console type of games. Also the indie community is vibrant.

Uhh.. No thanks mate you can keep your Falcons guide. I'm told you certainly don't need to spend over £1000 to make a decent gaming pc, that will run the latest stuff on medium settings. Then again I am happy with Gameboy colour graphics so I suppose you could say my standards are pretty low when it comes to what stuff looks like.

I can't wait to jump into that indie game crevice, there are so many good things I'm missing out on. But as for Jrpg's and fighters, I'm still buying a ps4 for that. Because I survive off three things Water, Air and JRPG's, and the PC although impressive doesn't seem to interest Japan in the slightest.
Thanks for suggesting though.

I don't know why anyone would ever need a case costing more than $100... what could possibly make me want to spend as much as some of the higher tier cases on there cost. Better Airflow... looks...? That alone doesn't justify the insane cost of some of those cases. Aside from that, that's a cool guide, although I'm not in need of any upgrades or a new system for a while.

 

[Xanadu84]

Remember that a console buys you a gaming device, while a PC buys you a gaming device, an internet machine, a work station, a place to watch movies, and a billion other things. Its hard to compare the 2 by sheer numbers. Its not the cost of the PC, its how much more the PC costs when compared to the computer you would have bought instead.