• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Is computer gaming is expensive?

Is computer gaming expensive?

  • Yes

    Votes: 292 68.2%

  • No

    Votes: 30 7.0%

  • Only if ur stupid

    Votes: 106 24.8%
  • Total voters
    428
Status
Not open for further replies.
Hell, Yes... To put together a nice rig with a monitor you easily need 1500 bucks min.
 
When I compare what I spend on a decent gaming computer to a console, it is extremely expensive.

Right now I could buy all the current generation consoles and all the games I could possibly want for them, and it would be a fraction of the price I spent on just my computer hardware.
 
Gaming is not expensive. Gaming at high quality, high resolution is expensive. Similar to driving. You can get a car for $2,000. Or you can get a Ferrari for $100,000+. All depends on what you want from the experience. I'm sure Ferrari owners will tell you that driving your Honda isn't really driving. :p

Astaroth
 
it's very expensive. Then again, so is gas....but hardware is where I prefer to spend cash.
 
Astaroth125 said:
Gaming is not expensive. Gaming at high quality, high resolution is expensive. Similar to driving. You can get a car for $2,000. Or you can get a Ferrari for $100,000+. All depends on what you want from the experience. I'm sure Ferrari owners will tell you that driving your Honda isn't really driving. :p

Astaroth
Click to expand...

Amen! I'm happy with my delapidated P4 2.53Ghz 533FSB and Radeon 9700. The only new part is the DVDRW drive, the rest is hand me downs.
 
It is expensive if you want the best. I have managed to build a rig for about 1000 that play games really well. You might get away w/ about 600 for a rig w/ decent vid card, minimum. Plus the games cost $50 each, which is craxy expensive.
 
I don't know exactly what people are talking about with gaming being expensive. You can game on a even a low end system ($600).

The worst cost of gaming IMO is buying the games. Spending $30-$50 in games all the time get fricken expensive. I don't pirate.

That said, I am looking at spending ~$4000 on my next rig.
 
Don't forget that when you buy a pc you don't only get a gaming machine, you can also surf the web do school/office work on it etc.
 
No. Gaming is not expensive. The rig in my sig cost less than $400 and I play all sorts of games on it.

Gaming at high resolutions and high levels of detail, however, is expensive. I can understand how having a higher resolution might help you in FPS games, but I simply can't justify spending hundreds of dollars more than I have to simply so I can get sharper textures.
 
Omg yes its alot of money to be a PC gamer. Way cheaper... to some degree for to be a console gamer.

PC gaming is way better though :D
 
its an expensive hobby, but once you make the initial investment it is not bad.

paintball on the other hand is expensive, i have been playing every weekend recently, and each time i go i spend about $60. i mean a game cost about $50, but you are not buying 1-2 every week ;)
 
Astaroth125 said:
Gaming is not expensive. Gaming at high quality, high resolution is expensive. Similar to driving. You can get a car for $2,000. Or you can get a Ferrari for $100,000+. All depends on what you want from the experience. I'm sure Ferrari owners will tell you that driving your Honda isn't really driving. :p

Astaroth
Click to expand...

I feel pretty much like what Astaroth stated. You can go midrange and with some upgradability and game fine for a long time.
 
Im still running a geforce 4 ti4200.... and it plays HL2 pretty nice.... what really makes gaming expensive though is a nice connection!
 
yes. it is.

its also lots of fun. not only to play the games, but the whole hardware thing ;)
 
compared to cosole gaming, yes it is expensive. Compared to girlfriends, car sterio/tuning, paintball, and a lot of other things its not that bad. With the updates and patches you get with most computer games they can last a LONG time. I have only spent about 120$ in games in the past year and I play almost every day.
 
Thats whats pretty funny about the computer industry, the ratio of money spent on gaming hardware versus games, is pretty out of whack... and I try to support the industry. AKA a nice excuse for buying more games. But keeping in mind I'm a uh... pro-consumer, even if I spend 4-$500 in video games... I don't even want to start counting what I pay to play them with! :eek:

But at the end of the day every game out there is playable on a 9700pro. I distinctly remember playing farcry demo on my cheaply gotten 9700np probably almost 2 years ago. Even after tweaking the settings for smoothness, it was the best looking game I had ever seen. If you don't get too greedy with those settings you could still be battling it out in BF2.
 
Im one of the sensible people who buy hardware for the longhaul. I get close to top of the line, but I leave it alone till I NEED to upgrade again. I usually sell my old parts to help pay for the new ones. I have had the same computer for over 3 years now, but there isn't one part in there besides a 20gb hd (for backup) that hasn't been replaced.

It started off as a:
AMD Duron +1200
Bottom of the line ECS motherboard
256mb Ram
20gb 7200rpm Maxtor HDD.
Memorex 56x cd burner
Onboard video and sound.

It has since morphed to the rig in my sig.
 
After you put down the money to buy a decent rig you can upgrade it much more cheaply than buying a whole new system. Say you bought a 6800GT last year for $400, now you could sell it for $200 and only be out $200 on your purchase of a 7800GT. If you play your cards right you can get much better deals than that. The answer is "Only if your stupid".

Also I'd like to point out that this is a very objective question. If your into pro drag racing or your in the yacht club this hobby might seem quite cheap. To a console gamer who doesnt know his way around the industry then it might seem very expensive.
 
Most people already have a computer for other uses, therefore gaming is only a decent video card away in most cases. For the price of a console alone you can buy a mid to high-end video card.

So I vote no, it's not. Not unless you INSIST on playing all games at high resolution and high detail (I know I do).

That's one of the great things about computer gaming.. you can pick and choose your level and combination of hardware to fit your needs or budget.
 
if you keep putting together sentences similar to the thread title then yes, computer gaming is going to be a HUGE investment for you.

/just a joke :D
 
Astaroth125 said:
Gaming is not expensive. Gaming at high quality, high resolution is expensive. Similar to driving. You can get a car for $2,000. Or you can get a Ferrari for $100,000+. All depends on what you want from the experience. I'm sure Ferrari owners will tell you that driving your Honda isn't really driving. :p

Astaroth
Click to expand...
Well agreed
I spent $350 max on this computer and it plays doom3, BF: vietnam etc. no problem just so long as you don't max out the settings. I spent $29.99 and $39.99 respectively so games are decent priced.


Compared to cars gaming is VERY cheap, $600 to buy it $4100 to get it street legal, and I still have another $10,000 at least to go before it's back to showroom condition.
 
It is ONLY expensive if you want it to be. By that I mean that it is expensive when you insist on playing games at 2048x1536 with full eye candy on.
 
But if your wife divorces you because you're playing too many computer games and not paying attention to her and your "duties" then lawyers and alimony are expensive. So in this case there're very expensive. :D (No it didn't happen to me.)
 
kcthebrewer said:
I don't know exactly what people are talking about with gaming being expensive. You can game on a even a low end system ($600).

The worst cost of gaming IMO is buying the games. Spending $30-$50 in games all the time get fricken expensive. I don't pirate.

That said, I am looking at spending ~$4000 on my next rig.
Click to expand...

in my opinion 30-50 bucks of unlimited gaming for the rest of your life is a very good deal.

but yes it is expensive i wont stop upgrading, i just built my first rig 2 months back and i keep buying new heat sinks video cards ,now i want 2 gigs of ram an x2 another vid card and new mobo ahh im addicted to technology!!! i even posted my rig for sale on here but no one liked it i guess..... but u can easily build a very nice rig for 700-800 easy mine was like 1100?1200?monitor included of course .
 
i dont think it is that expensive if you stay on top of it, on average i spend about 1000 dollars a yeart to stay top of the line on my pc gear. my latest upgrade involved selling my ram processor and motherboard and video card then throwing in 200 dollars and getting an x2 and a geforce 7800gtx.
 
only if your stupid.

had this rig for oh about 3 years now. the only things that i have changed is upping the ram to 1.5GB, new power supply, new hard drive, and 2 new video cards.

I will only upgrade when I see a great deal. The additional 1GB of ram only costed me $80 bucks, the 160GB hard drive cost me $30 (yay compusa rebate), and im always on the lookout for great deals on video cards such as my x800xt for $200.

that last part was the stupid part. borked my 9700 pro by installing a new heatsink on it, got a 9800 pro as a replacement, sold 9800 pro for $100, bought a x800 xt for $200. not that bad but i could have saved a bunch by not messing around with the 9700 Pro.

oh and not to mension ive been thru my fair share of computer cases.


Speaking of great deals, whens black friday?
 
lloose said:
Im one of the sensible people who buy hardware for the longhaul. I get close to top of the line, but I leave it alone till I NEED to upgrade again. I usually sell my old parts to help pay for the new ones. I have had the same computer for over 3 years now, but there isn't one part in there besides a 20gb hd (for backup) that hasn't been replaced.

It started off as a:
AMD Duron +1200
Bottom of the line ECS motherboard
256mb Ram
20gb 7200rpm Maxtor HDD.
Memorex 56x cd burner
Onboard video and sound.

It has since morphed to the rig in my sig.
Click to expand...

QFT
I sold my Athlon XP2200+, Asus A7n8x-e Deluxe mobo, 512 pc2100, radeon 7500, 520W Codegen PSU
Now im using the laptop in my sig
In a few months im hoping to build my SFF that would have to last the most of the next 4 years in college
X2 4400+
7800GT or GTX
300GB SATA HDD
One of the soon to be released Tforce mobos
AntecNeopower 480W PSU
X-Qpack

I think its expensive "Only if ur stupid"
 
Not too expensive if you play games that require just some minimum requirement. For myself I play alot of MAME and counsole emulation, which most stuff will run on a simple 500mHz system. While sometimes I like to try something like Half-Life 2 or Doom 3. The last computer I had was a 1.4gHz AMD processor with a Gig of ram and a 5500Geforce Nvida card. That was plenty to run the games, and that was just to run the game. I wasn't looking for anything fancy.

Think if I had to build another computer to get the most out of my type of gaming I would spend somewhere in the ballpark of $1500-$1800, that including things like monitors and keyboards. Yes, it more than buying a console, but a computer has so many other uses.
 
I will say that it is expensive, but it is money well spent because playing PC FPSs is one of the only things that I excel at.

I don't have any real skills besides gaming and computer knowledge.
 
I actually think many of you are wrong and its infact getting cheaper with the advancements that have been made with everything overall that goes into a pc and not just the video card. Before it would cost you near to $1000 if not more to build a decent gaming rig now you can build one that will last you years for half that. You can get a super duper A64 or P4 for less than $100 and a gig of great ram for about the same price. Hell you can find the best a dual-layer 16X DVD-RW drive on the market for $30 plus change.

More-over I think there has been such advancements that company's now have to bluff consumers into spending more for products though probably twice the cost does not provide twice the performance. Look at Intel to Nvidia which now trys to sell there products on features and not mainly pure horse power. "Dual Core" and "the power of 3" is what there trying to sell now. You even have ram with nifty titles and facy lights that cost $300 for a gig that is not even 5% faster than value ram at $90.

Everything in a computer is affordable while providing great performance and this sounds crazy but I think we can thank Dell for driving down prices. The only people that prices have not fallen for is the ones that has to have the best of the best even though you can spend for less and get about the same performance level . Right now there called enthusiasts but soon they will be called idiots. :(
 
pandora's box said:
that last part was the stupid part. borked my 9700 pro by installing a new heatsink on it, got a 9800 pro as a replacement, sold 9800 pro for $100, bought a x800 xt for $200. not that bad but i could have saved a bunch by not messing around with the 9700 Pro.
QUOTE]

the same thing happened to me and they sent me back 9800 pro 256mb
anyone?
Click to expand...
 
Stellar said:
Most people already have a computer for other uses, therefore gaming is only a decent video card away in most cases.
Click to expand...

Stressed for truth. Most lowend prebuilt home PC's here are only MX4000's, but already has a pretty decent processor and memory (Mobo's usually suck tho).

If you're willing to settle for 2nd or 3rd best, you can actually lower the price down considerably. A good gaming rig (That can play all current games decently) will cost you no more than $750.00.
 
LiquidX said:
I actually think many of you are wrong and its infact getting cheaper with the advancements that have been made with everything overall that goes into a pc and not just the video card. Before it would cost you near to $1000 if not more to build a decent gaming rig now you can build one that will last you years for half that. You can get a super duper A64 or P4 for less than $100 and a gig of great ram for about the same price. Hell you can find the best a dual-layer 16X DVD-RW drive on the market for $30 plus change.

More-over I think there has been such advancements that company's now have to bluff consumers into spending more for products though probably twice the cost does not provide twice the performance. Look at Intel to Nvidia which now trys to sell there products on features and not mainly pure horse power. "Dual Core" and "the power of 3" is what there trying to sell now. You even have ram with nifty titles and facy lights that cost $300 for a gig that is not even 5% faster than value ram at $90.

Everything in a computer is affordable while providing great performance and this sounds crazy but I think we can thank Dell for driving down prices. The only people that prices have not fallen for is the ones that has to have the best of the best even though you can spend for less and get about the same performance level . Right now there called enthusiasts but soon they will be called idiots. :(
Click to expand...


Can you find me a processor for under $100 that will let me play a game on one monitor and do something else on a second monitor (Browse the web, play solitaire, whatever), with absolutely zero lag? How about finding me a gig of DDR1 memory for under $100 that will do DDR-660 speeds? Furthermore, nVidia's Power of 3, though a cheesy marketing campaign, is a great thing. With the 7800 series, we have finally reached a point where we have enough horsepower to do some really astonishing things with image quality. And no FX 5200 will touch either the speed or image quality of a 7800-series.

There are different products aimed at different people, and the higher end products do have their uses. Going back to the cars example, you don't see everyone driving a Ferrari do you? No, most drive Honda's. Does that mean Ferrari doesn't have a valid target audience since it would be stupid to try to market a high end car when there is a cheaper alternative? There will always be a market for enthusiast level items, both in cars and computers.

Astaroth
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top