Want to build a PC on a budget? Meet the $500 gaming rig...

[The Rockerfly]

Wait, you can get a current gen console for $200 now? What looks to be the cheapest package at JB hifi (a pretty typical Australian vendor) is considerably more. The ps3 is even more and that's not including the cost of subscription (xbox live adds up).

...Sooooo, yeah, where I'm from PC gaming is still quite a bit cheaper (you could comfortably shave $100 off the gpu and still have a system that outperforms current gen consoles).

I will throw this in that is with kinect and a large storage space.

EDIT: actually after looking at game australia, even without kinnect it's still $450

Yeah, this concept of console gaming being in any remote way as cheap as PC gaming is completely alien to me, perhaps you really can get an xbox 360 for $200 elsewhere, but you sure as hell can't down under (and that $500us PC works out to something like $490au, so the currency exchange isn't the reason).

5 years on a single rig wihtout upgrading it? WTF?
Also, even with the repairs...... Thats still $175 cheaper than the PC. Also, looking at your previous posts..... why would you buy an $800 t.v, JUST for the PS3?. That doesn`t seem like the absolute cost of a *complete* system, that seems like excessive personal preference. Add to that the fact that most people have a working T.V. in their house, and you undercut you huge $1200 budget by $900

In the UK I can get an xbox for about £120 including games so I think different countries have very different prices. That probably is a reason why so many people think why one or another is so much cheaper

 

[Dys]

Wait, you can get a current gen console for $200 now? What looks to be the cheapest package at JB hifi (a pretty typical Australian vendor) is considerably more. The ps3 is even more and that's not including the cost of subscription (xbox live adds up).

...Sooooo, yeah, where I'm from PC gaming is still quite a bit cheaper (you could comfortably shave $100 off the gpu and still have a system that outperforms current gen consoles).

I will throw this in that is with kinect and a large storage space.

EDIT: actually after looking at game australia, even without kinnect it's still $450

Yeah, this concept of console gaming being in any remote way as cheap as PC gaming is completely alien to me, perhaps you really can get an xbox 360 for $200 elsewhere, but you sure as hell can't down under (and that $500us PC works out to something like $490au, so the currency exchange isn't the reason).

5 years on a single rig wihtout upgrading it? WTF?
Also, even with the repairs...... Thats still $175 cheaper than the PC. Also, looking at your previous posts..... why would you buy an $800 t.v, JUST for the PS3?. That doesn`t seem like the absolute cost of a *complete* system, that seems like excessive personal preference. Add to that the fact that most people have a working T.V. in their house, and you undercut you huge $1200 budget by $900

In the UK I can get an xbox for about £120 including games so I think different countries have very different prices. That probably is a reason why so many people think why one or another is so much cheaper

This is probably true, still though, I have a lot of friends (with whom I share a common hometown) who claim religiously claim consoles are cheaper, in my experience this has never been the case, but I expect that had I bough consoles under different circumstances (eg later in their lifecycle or from a vendor who absorbs the "fuck Australians tax") it's completely plausible for them to be cheaper, though I can't imagine it being by any huge margin.

 

[Asehujiko]

however there are other initial costs you haven't included such as keyboard, mouse, headset, monitor, software, controller (you will need a controller for some games) and potential added extras (such as webcam). Those add up to and you can be pressing even further depending on how good you want the equipment to be.

Does the price of a console include a couch and tv? And the fact that they're posting here is a good indication that they already have everything except a gamepad(which is only necessary for games that are shit ports and shouldn't be supported anyway)

 

[agnosticOCD]

You would be surprised how many times I see something like "had to rma this for the third time XXXX company is such shit" in newegg reviews. It amazes me that someone can go through three or four of a product and not have it finally dawn on them that they might be the problem.

It's kind of the same with people on this thread. The entire argument is pointless. People are going to cling to whichever they picked up, what other choice do they have? It's not like they can take it back to the store at this point. So nobody is going to actually admit that the system they picked up might not actually be ideal in some manner.

It doesn't matter, get over yourselves, have fun and play some games. You wouldn't stop a kid on the street and tell him his mountain bike isn't ideal for ridding on the roads, and he should have picked up something else would you?

Stop! Bad forum junkie, you leave that kid alone. He is just trying to have fun.

^This.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Still waaaay more expensive than a PS3 or Xbox. $500 is just far more than I can spend.

Is it? $300 more than a stock console, without games. While the multiplatform games are all $60 new, you can find a plethora of fun games for cheap, and I don't just mean flash based games either. For example F1 2010 is $20 on Steam right now. Black Ops is $45. Witcher 2 is $45 to preorder. First Witcher is only $10. There's 957 games under $10 on Steam, including games like Gothica, Magicka, Neverwinter Nights... I bought Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for my PS3, used, for $55 2 weeks ago. Saving anywhere from 10-40 dollars on games means in the long haul, you save.

I agree, some people could argue that PCs are more expensive, but the majority of people are going to buy a brand new console and brand new 60$ games, so it almost totally invalidates their point.

Games on Steam are so amazingly cheap, I just got Gothic 4: Arcania, which costs 60$ new at Gamestop, along with Gothic 1, 2, 3 & 3's expansion for 18$ total on steam.

And of course there's the point that computers are equipped to do many things consoles aren't.

 

[Squato]

Best tip on that.

Become mates with someone who owns/runs their own computer buisness* and then get everything you want for mates rates. Not just at a good price, but stuff directly from the importers/those who make it.

*By this I mean not somewhere like JB. More akin to the type of small business that will often build a computer the way you want, talk to you about what programs they will install, and often make sure there is no bloatware/dudware on the system. You know, the type of place that knows what this little thing call customer service is.

 

[Wolfram23]

Wolfram you should seriously rethink what kind of Mainboards you are recommending or you might put people off PC gaming forever xD ASRock, Biostar, FOXCONN? They're a prime environment for having a shitty PC experience filled with incompatibilities, instability and outright crashes. I'd wager a MoBo is the most important thing about a PC... while a CPU and GPU have a visible effect on performance MoBos are what make a PC

With PCs as with almost anything else you usually get what you pay for... that's also why the X360 loves to break down on people and RROD etc. cause they cut corners for a lower price xD

Well, no doubt you get what you pay for. But they're not bad. I picked the two uk/euro builds in about 15 minutes because I just don't give a crap and wanted to prove the guy it's doable, but as for the original build, that's not me. That's Tom's Hardware's build.

However, I upgraded my girfriend's PC - she has an HP with a 1.8ghz dual core and 2 gigs RAM. I upgraded to an E5400 2.7ghz C2D, a Biostar mobo, 4 gigs DDR3, and Win 7 all for ~$300 (we split it) and it runs like a champ.

 

[Wolfram23]

A lot of people also like to comment about how, oh, you upgrade every year! So pricey! Well, no. Most people do not. If you look at the Steam stats, there's still a plethora of people running 9800GTs and 8800GTs from, like, 5 years ago. With this $500 PC, at most, you could simply add a second 6850 in crossfire and get superb 1080p performance.

I really have no clue what a 6850 is, or 9800GTs... O_O Plus when the time comes that I would have to upgrade it, I don't think I really would know how.[/quote]

Understandable, but it doesn't take much research to find out. I spent about a week doing research on current hardware before building my PC, and my knowledge went from nil to knowing pretty much all I needed to know. There's not just a lot of hardware sites full of info, but they usually have really good forums too with lots of people willing to help you out.

Just FYI, Nvidia's 3 gen old GPUs were 7xxx,8xxx, and 9xxxx (like 7600, 8800, 9800). Nvidia's next gen was the 2xx series (220, 240, 250, 260, 285 etc), then they upgraded to their DX11 cards aka "Fermi" which are the 4xx series (450, 460, 470, 480), and just this year they came out with their upgrade to Fermi, the 5xx series (550, 560, 570, 580, and just this week the 590 which is two 570s on one card).

From ATI (now called AMD Radeon) all you need to know is they came out with their 5xxx series with DX11 a year before Nvidia's 4xx series. The 5xxx series is huge ranging from low end cards like 5550, 5650... up to 5850, 5870, and 5970. ATI just released their 6xxx series this year, the 6850, 6870, 6950, 6970, and just last week the 6990 juggernaught.

With both companies, the higher the number, the better the card. As for which you might want to buy, it comes down to budget and expected performance.

 

[lacktheknack]

Still waaaay more expensive than a PS3 or Xbox. $500 is just far more than I can spend.

Is it? $300 more than a stock console, without games. While the multiplatform games are all $60 new, you can find a plethora of fun games for cheap, and I don't just mean flash based games either. For example F1 2010 is $20 on Steam right now. Black Ops is $45. Witcher 2 is $45 to preorder. First Witcher is only $10. There's 957 games under $10 on Steam, including games like Gothica, Magicka, Neverwinter Nights... I bought Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for my PS3, used, for $55 2 weeks ago. Saving anywhere from 10-40 dollars on games means in the long haul, you save.

"In the long haul" is nice and all, but not everyone can afford to pay $500 in one go on what is essentially a luxury.

If your computer died tomorrow, it would become a $100 luxury, which a ton of people CAN buy (because a $400 computer is not really a "luxury" anymore).

 

[Kabutos]

OP,it just isn't worth it to make these threads, admirable as it is. I see about two or three of these topics roll around every month and they all degrade into the same arguments over and over again.

At the end of the day, no one's opinion is really changed, sure, you might have helped a couple of people out, but they would have probably been able to learn by themselves anyway.

It's easier to help those who want to learn, rather than try to convert the masses, where you get posts like these:

Okay here's what you're not understanding, that site you linked? I don't understand it. I don't understand PC parts, what ones are good, what ones are bad. I shouldn't have to. It shouldn't be that complex. It might seem simple to you, but to me it's a headache. I often see computers like the one you linked and right within the comments people are saying the power supply is weak, the GPU needs replaced, etc.

Basically, like I said to begin with, you need to have technobabble know-how to get a cheap PC.

EDIT: And looking at your last post, you might want to be more careful when you say things like higher number means better performance; this is not always the case, for instance the HD 5870 still outperforms the 6870 and 6850.

 

[The Rockerfly]

however there are other initial costs you haven't included such as keyboard, mouse, headset, monitor, software, controller (you will need a controller for some games) and potential added extras (such as webcam). Those add up to and you can be pressing even further depending on how good you want the equipment to be.

Does the price of a console include a couch and tv? And the fact that they're posting here is a good indication that they already have everything except a gamepad(which is only necessary for games that are shit ports and shouldn't be supported anyway)

No but you can use a sofa as a place to eat anyway, you need one plus it increases the value of the house but that's besides the point. I can also use that as a more personal social item while with a computer while there is online social interaction it is not the same as human interaction you can have with a sofa, tv and split screen on a console.
So people posting from public libraries or public internet shops aren't considered?

Assassins Creed series
Racing games in generally
Devil May Cry series

Rts games and fps games are much better but there are a lot of games that would be better with a controller.

 

[Chibz]

No but you can use a sofa as a place to eat anyway, you need one plus it increases the value of the house but that's besides the point. I can also use that as a more personal social item while with a computer while there is online social interaction it is not the same as human interaction you can have with a sofa, tv and split screen on a console.
So people posting from public libraries or public internet shops aren't considered?

Assassins Creed series
Racing games in generally
Devil May Cry series

Rts games and fps games are much better but there are a lot of games that would be better with a controller.

You're right. Having a friend over for monster hunter 3 is an experience that you'll likely never get on the computer without your friend bringing over their system, or you having more than one. But even then it's not the same. With split-screen games like MH3, my friend just needs to bring over his wiimote (and if you want to get technical, classic controller pro).

Also, do people actually exist who don't have a sofa? That doesn't seem... practical. I bought a sofa simply because of how USEFUL they are overal. It's something for people who have to stay the night to sleep on, too.

Personally I can (and have) posted using my wii.

 

[thedo12]

Talking as a pc gamer myself, the pc master race in here are getting a little over zealous.Comparing buying used games to pirating and ignoring all of the obvious advantages to console over pc gaming.

The greatest advantage consoles have over pcs is there convenience. To go over to a friends house and have a friendly game with a console is a simple matter, to accomplish the same with a pc if it is possible at all takes a great deal of set up time. Requiring you have two versions of the game and 2 pcs capable of playing the game (good luck if your friend isn't a pc gamer)while the console equivalent simply requires and extra controller.

And lot of pc games have technical issues which no matter how good you are with a computer will be annoying and troublesome to solve never mind if your a novice.I can go on but there's no need to, all pc gamers like myself know downside of pc gaming but are too insecure to admit it.

 

[Cronq]

If you own a $1500 Macbook/iMac and an Xbox/PS3 and claim gaming PC's are too expensive you are a moron, no way around it.