Is it really worth buying a high end gaming rig any more?

LordBritish

2[H]4U
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My computer is now about 4 years old - may be older.

I can still play games fine though not as well as I used to.

It almost make sense with fewer PC titles being made to have a non-gaming PC for surfing/email and then a console like a PS3 for gaming.

What do you think?
 
Oh boy, this is going to be intresting. There's TONS of PC games out there still, the majority that are multi-platform are still on the PC and you really take a hit on eye candy these days on the console because there are so far behind.

And I do SO much than game on my systems, software development (which sucks without multiple monitors), HTPCing, video transcoding and editing, etc. I think it does boil down to lifestyle. I do almost everything digital with a Windows PC with a few notable exceptions like phone calls. One platform for EVERYTHING. Really don't even use my phone as much if I don't need to except for phone calls. A few key apps, GPS, that sort of things but I don't waste my time or money on phone games anymore.

I've never been more satisfied with PC gaming or the PC experience in general than today. It's such a rich and powerful experience.
 
Give me a high-end gaming PC or give me death!

(check sig)
 
PC Gaming will always be the premier platform for a gaming experience.

Consoles are horrible for FPS, RTS, MMO's...

It is very worth it, if you enjoy gaming.
 
I think it really depends on the type of person. Some people just play games for enjoyment and dont mind the graphic quality or how new it is. Then there are those that need the newest and fastest hardware that is currently available to enable all the eye candy.

I think consoles are more for the people that just want to plug-and-play, or dont want to bother trying to stay with all the new technology for the most part. Yes, there are those games that are console exclusive, but so many games are being made for every platform.
 
It's worth it to me, but obviously that's a decision you'll have to make for yourself.

I like being able to play a lot of the same games that are popular on consoles while using a mouse and keyboard (or 360 gamepad if you prefer) and enjoying higher resolutions and more eye candy. The games simply look better, and that's a sentiment that is echoed throughout this forum. People who have played games such as COD4, Batman, GTAIV, and Just Cause 2 on multiple platforms unanimously agree that the games look much better on PC. But it doesn't come cheap if you want to play them at high resolutions with all the eye candy on. However, it doesn't take a $2,000 PC to get the better experience...a lot of us just pour money into them because we want to, or we're extremely demanding and/or picky.

One thing to consider is the price of games...I can't tell you the last time I paid $50+ for a PC game. Gotta love picking up relatively new titles for $20-$30 on sale shortly after their release. With consoles, you're stuck paying close-to-new prices for used games for many months in most cases. I typically do not sell my games, which is one reason why Steam works so well for me. I realize that with console games, I could play and then sell to recoup some of my money, but that may be changing at some point also.
 
I think it really depends on the type of person. Some people just play games for enjoyment and dont mind the graphic quality or how new it is. Then there are those that need the newest and fastest hardware that is currently available to enable all the eye candy.

Exactly, it really is this simple.
 
One thing to consider is the price of games...I can't tell you the last time I paid $50+ for a PC game. Gotta love picking up relatively new titles for $20-$30 on sale shortly after their release. With consoles, you're stuck paying close-to-new prices for used games for many months in most cases. I typically do not sell my games, which is one reason why Steam works so well for me. I realize that with console games, I could play and then sell to recoup some of my money, but that may be changing at some point also.

Actually this is an important point. If you want a mobile, non-phone OS gaming experience, you buy a Steam game and it's availble to a laptop at no additional cost and you don't need a disc though you will need a net connection.
 
i've never owned a high end gaming PC, but i used to game exclusively on a desktop. it's true that the PC offers the best graphics, more options in inputs (controllers or kb/m), better graphics etc, but there are advantages to the console

my friends can come over to play rockband or split screen co-op on games without having to bring their own hardware. and i can buy a game for my 360 knowing that i won't have to worry about compatibility issues or whatnot.

i think the biggest advantage though, and this is purely for myself, is that i can relax on my couch and play on my tv.

now, before i start a flame war, i want to say that it's personal preference, and that i really miss my pc gaming days sometimes, but ya

i know for myself, i'm planning on building a htpc so i can play starcraft and diablo, and then just enjoy the rest of my gaming on a console
 
You get what you pay for, high end gaming rigs cost more but you get a better experience, whether thats worth it depends on how much you like gaming and how much cash you have to spend.

One thing to consider is the price of games...I can't tell you the last time I paid $50+ for a PC game.

This is why PC games are cheaper.
 
It really depends on what games your gonna play also . I your a big sports game guy like me you will want a console for that but when it comes to gps or RPGs you want a pc for sure. I played cod 4 on 360 first then to a e8400. 9800gtx 1280x720 res and it was so much better, the details really shine on pc and the controls are so much faster and better.

I'm tellin ya if your gonna play cod or fallout or games like those get a pc fornaure but if your a sports guy get a console. I play sports games on a ps3 but I'm about to build a new pc now because cod looks like garbage on a console.

Depending on your res and what games you want to play you can get by with a relatively cheap pc. You don't need a gtx 480 for 1280x720 or 16x10 but if you go to 19x10 or 19x12 or higher your gonna be getting expensive on equipment.

My last build was a q9400 and a gtx 260 at 1280x720 well actually 1366x768 and i never had problems in cod with setting madder unless people were spamming smoke grenades everywhere.

Figure out what res you want to use first then go from there. Depending on the games you play you could get away with a c2q setup and be fine, just oc it to 3.6 or higher and use a decent video card. Youncould probably get some really good deals on CPU,mono and ram combos now with people still upgrading to i5 and i7 plus it should be pretty cheap.

I know for me I'd be fine with a c2q oced to 3.6 or higher a gtx 260 and a 27 or 32 inch 720p tv since they are so cheap now. The res is low. The res and games is the key factor here..
 
If you can afford it, its worth it. A gaming rig can not only play games great but also do pretty much anything else great. A high end gaming rig will have a fast, overlooked quad core CPU, large hard drive, plenty of RAM and a monster graphics card. That could easily edit pictures, surf the web, edit spreadsheets and burn DID's without breaking a sweat. So yeah, its worth it be because a gaming PC can do anything else you need as well.
 
i think the biggest advantage though, and this is purely for myself, is that i can relax on my couch and play on my tv.

You do this with most PC games as XBox 360 controller support is generally great these days in PC games as they are console ports anyway. Of course that means your high end rig would have to be attached to a TV or you have another PC attached to the TV.
 
If they would of actually had a following for sports games on pc I would be in heaven. Using the 360 controller and sitting on the couch using the 32 inch tv would be awesome. It would feel just like playing on a console until you look at the screen and see how beautiful it looks.

I played NBA 2k9 I think on pc and it blew the console version out of the water, it ran so smooth and fluid I was in love. Only to hear that there wouldn't be anymore sports games made for pc that I like so I sold the rig and got the ps3 because I was really into sports games then.

See this thread has got me looking around on newegg and micro center ads looking for cheap basic parts like disk drives, hdd and cases lol.. I bet by next week I order $300 in parts lol darn this thread it really brought back some good memories of pc gaming lol..
 
I sorta thought I was at the end of the line until I got into Eyefinity now theres no turning back for me.
 
Yeah I'll take a gaming pc over a console anyday. I don't game that much just a handful of games, but even I did I still wouldn't own a console. I would just build a screaming pc beast. Much more fun that way too :)

And all that stuff aside what I love most about pc gaming is being able to mod the games exactly how you want.
 
I think its well worth it, but recognize that you don't need a ridiculously priced rig to run games well these days. Even something like Bad Company 2 will run very well at 1920x1200 with high settings on a machine that runs $800 or so, without operating system or monitor.

Ask yourself what kind of games you play and how often. IMHO the games that benefit the most are multiplayer games. Any edge you can gain in frames per second gives you an edge over your competitors. Single player is nice for the eye candy, but most reasonably priced systems will get you a solid 60fps+ with all settings cranked at high res on the newest games.

My MO is generally to buy the second most expensive mainstream part, as the difference between #1 and #2 in performance is minimal while the price tends to be substantial. The price difference for my old machine between the E8400 I bought and the E8600 was HUGE, yet the practical difference in performance minimal. Ditto my 8800GT versus the part above it, same thing. Same applies to the i7 860 versus other more expensive i7 CPUs, etc.

The point of diminishing returns is usually pretty obvious to me. There is a point at which you get to a level of excellent performance, drop any more money and what you gain in performance is not significant but the impact on your wallet is. The exception can be when you go SLI or Crossfire, but even then you can apply the same thinking to the cards that you decide to use in that configuration. SSDs are the big thing that makes a substantial difference in general performance these days. I love mine, it is the most substantial upgrade I've made in years, but I also recognize that it carries a huge price premium that isn't worth it to everyone. Someone can have an A+ gaming experience without one, so I wouldn't insist that someone gets it.

As with everything else, its all about balance and taking a holistic view of your game genre preferences, the resolution of your display, and your budget. Unless you're playing Benchmark Hero and are all about e-peen (especially when it comes to expensive "performance RAM", haha), don't worry so much about spending obscene amounts on a gaming PC, a moderate amount (ie - i5 750 with 4GB of RAM and an ATI 5850) will make games look AMAZING, last you a solid 3 years, all without breaking your bank.

Hope this helps!
 
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Yeah I'll take a gaming pc over a console anyday. I don't game that much just a handful of games, but even I did I still wouldn't own a console. I would just build a screaming pc beast. Much more fun that way too :)

And all that stuff aside what I love most about pc gaming is being able to mod the games exactly how you want.

I think if you're a gamer you'd want to expose yourself to as many great games as possible, and unfortunately that is impossible without a console these days. Outside of the Starcraft 2 Beta and Bad Company 2, everything I'm playing these days is on console. Between Red Dead Redemption (OH MY GOD), Alan Wake, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (just got it, can't wait to tear it open) it is a ridiculous time for gaming in general.

I dunno, unless you ONLY play RTS or MMOs, I think its better to have other platforms as well, but that's just me.
 
Holy shit man... that rig in your sig must have been expensive. I can only dream... lol

About $3500 to $4000 for just the rig, it's pretty close to mine currently. Still have to rebuild and get that 3rd 480 that's collecting dust some use!
 
Its very much worth it, I love my expensive PC. It plays everything I want at max settings , its great for anything else I wanna use it for.

I find that using less expensive systems even for brief periods of time just well.. sucks for me. Ever since I could afford a system I've always put alot of money into it and its never been something I've regretted.
 
I dont think there is a lot of point buying a high end rig these days. A mid ranged gaming rig for a couple of hundred bucks more than a console is sufficient enough to play almost all modern games at high to very high at reasonable resolutions. Beyond that it really becomes diminishing returns, spending a lot more money gets you AA and higher res (if you in turn buy a bigger more expensive screen).

Maybe 2 or 3 games actually give big improvements from a high end rig, which hardly warrants the cost of buying them.
 
Now a days, for 700-800 bucks you can get a pretty decent rig that plays a lot of games very smoothly (depending on the game, high/medium settings) that lasts for a couple years, plus PCs add a lot for functionality over consoles.
 
About 6 years ago I spent ~$2k on a top of the line system (3200+ Athlon64, 1GB PC3200, 6800 Ultra). It could play all the then current titles at max settings. Thing is, I never really enjoyed the actual games themselves, so it wasn't worth upgrading my system. Recently that PC died and I was forced to upgrade. I decided to splurge on $3500 high-end system thinking I'll finally get to enjoy all the current titles at max settings. While I did enjoy playing them I don't think it was enough to justify the cost the system.

What did I learn? The price of a high-end system will be worth it if you really enjoy PC games. The only PC game that I went crazy for was Diablo 2. I'm ready to drop another $3500 when Diablo 3 comes out just so I can play it at max settings, I know its overkill but to me its going to be worth it. Heck, If Blizzard charge $500 for Diablo 3 I'd still get it.
 
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A TOP of the line, expensive gaming rig? Nah, it's not really worth it.

A mid-range PC? Totally.

Long gone are the days of a $2,000 PC being worth the money you spend. (Unless you're doing production work, rendering or something along those lines)
 
Lots of good answers here, I'm glad to see [H] isn't just full of yes-fanboys.

I'm going to play devils advocate...

No, it isn’t. The current consoles represent an anchor to a developer in terms of the feature he’ll incorporate into his game. You won’t see the cool effects that can be achieved thanks to unified shaders until the consoles are capable of replicating them (which they aren’t able to with any more than a quarter the efficiency modern GPU architectures are). All this bruhaha about GPGPU’s (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units) is going to go completely ignored until said anchor is alleviated; while I’m absolutely certain amazing physics APIs (inclusive of cool architecture effects and visual effects and effects I can’t even think of) can (and are) being written as we speak, modern gaming won’t use em till everyone can have em.

So, my suggestion, buy a 5750 and 2 more of whatever your current monitors are. Eyefinity is sweet and a juniper GPU is more than enough to handle every game out there in excellent (albeit not the highest) detail.

Also the graphics market sucks right now: TSMC's producing leaky chips, which means high failure rates on any given 300mm wafer, which means expensive parts. Southern Islands autta alleviate that a little bit, and the GTX 460 also should put some pressure on the market to bring the prices down. But really, it seems we're not going to see the high end parts hit the $200 price tag until 28nm (TSMC's next high performance node --expect x-mas 2011).
 
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I faced a similar dilemma recently. I was debating whether or not to upgrade my gpu from a gtx275 to either a gtx470 or hd5870...or buy a ps3. I opted for the ps3 because my current rig plays every game I try at acceptable frames maxed out. For a bit less than the cost of "just" a graphics card, I have a whole new platform opened up to me with some great exclusive games that I didn't before. Plus, I can still choose the pc version if it is multi platform.
 
There are very few reasons to even replace a gaming system that still uses 8800gt/x/s and a q6600 at this point. I mean sure you can push some games further, but nothing has really come along yet to absolutely warrant a big upgrade.

I used to be upgrade my systems every 6 months or so to stay on the curve, but honestly i havent felt the need to lately. I still plan on it in the next year, but only if something comes out that truly demands it.
 
I enjoy picking out the hardware almost as much as I do running it, I'm too lazy to sell off old parts but if you can manage to get the best "bang for your buck" hardware and continuously sell off your old equipment before it's obsolete it's not too difficult to stay relatively ahead of the pack in terms of gaming power. Although, recently I'm finding myself debating whether it'd just be easier to get a gaming laptop instead, easier to take to a LAN & enough power to run pretty much any game out there, maybe not 'maxed out' but certainly well enough to enjoy. :)
 
I am pro PC all the way, but these days i have to say no, it's not worth it. All what we're getting now are console ports and any mid range rig can handle that. If you have an excuse to need high-end PC for something else besides gaming, than maybe, but in this age of poorly made, badly optimized rush jobs they call games, i wouldn't go for the top of the line system. Best bang for the buck is the way to go. Just like Drizzle said, i wanted to upgrade my GTX275 too, but for what, there was nothing out there to justify that move. Geek in me is praying that Crysis 2 will have close to same effect on hardware like the original, just to make me upgrade (which i don't believe will happen).
 
There's a sweet spot of "law of diminishing returns" that each person will have to find for themselves but I can say that a quality PC rig is still quite worth it. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to get something worthwhile, either.
 
$1200 will get you a gaming system with a 5890 and that is more than sufficient for today's stuff
 
Being a diehard FPS player,I have to say yes. The control system on consoles just don't work for FPS,keyboard/mouse is the only way to go. And then there are games like Crysis and the STALKER series that consoles can't do justice to.
 
What's high-end? For about 1500 USD you'll have a rig that can play about everything near maxed out or maxish for the next 2 years... medium to max the next 3-4+....

Anything over 2k is overkill to me..........unless you're raking in some serious $$$.
 
The question was whether it's worth getting a high end gaming machine, not a gaming machine.

The answer is no. A $800 Core i5 rig will run every single game on the market other than Crysis fully maxed out with 8x AA at 1920x1200 resolution. Bump it up to $900 if you want to max out a 2560x1600 display.

Case - $50
Core i5 - $150
4GB ram - $100
Gigabyte P55M-UD2 - $100
1TB hard drive - $70
Radeon 5850 - $260
Corsair Power Supply - $100

$830 for a system that will rape pretty much any game even on 2560x1600.
 
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