Minimum cost gaming PC sticky?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have noticed that one of the main reasons people give for switching to consoles from PCs is cost.

However, IMHO building a reasonable gaming PC should not be too expensive to build. Maybe it would be worth having a sticky or a Hexus member article with a budget build specifications updated once a month?

[Fuzzed_out]

I have noticed that one of the main reasons people give for switching to consoles from PCs is cost.

However, IMHO building a reasonable gaming PC should not be too expensive to build. Maybe it would be worth having a sticky or a Hexus member article with a budget build specifications updated once a month?

Sounds like a plan, but we have to have some rules. It should have to be a PC we would buy so no power supply that will explode and kill the family pet in a shower of flames.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sounds like a plan, but we have to have some rules. It should have to be a PC we would buy so no power supply that will explode and kill the family pet in a shower of flames.

Of course it will have decent parts and also include the price of an OS. I estimate between £400 to £500 for the base unit.

[shaithis]

Would be nice to keep the data archived so we can draw cool graphs from it showing the relative costs of building them over time. If it gets updated regularly, it could be interesting to trawl through the data in a couple of years time

[shakerist]

Funny because i moved from consoles to pc's (well as soon as i get mine working) because i thought it was cheaper, its all in one and the games are a lot cheaper

[Fuzzed_out]

Ahh! A big problem we will find is that what makes a PC cost more is a monitor, and most people already have TVs so they can't factor that in on consoles.

As Shakerist says we have to win this one on game cost for money.

[Terbinator]

Funny because i moved from consoles to pc's (well as soon as i get mine working) because i thought it was cheaper, its all in one and the games are a lot cheaper

By all in one do you mean in the same vein as an iMac ?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Many people are under the impression that the up-front costs of PC gaming are too high. It is not helped that when people look on forums and see so called "experts" indicating the need for expensive hardware if you want to be a PC gamer. For example if you don't have a Core i7 at 4GHZ your games are going to be CPU limited,if you don't have 2GB of VRAM you are RAM limited, or if you don't run the game at uber high at 16X AA it looks rubbish,etc.

People see this and think it is not worth the effort and end up getting a console instead.

If you are doing a self-build then the extra costs of converting a standard office machine into a gaming machine are not that high IMHO. Basically,you need to get a discrete graphics card and perhaps a slightly more powerful PSU.

[shakerist]

By all in one do you mean in the same vein as an iMac ?

By all in one I mean you can nearly use the computer for anything, watching tv, making phone calls (voip) ,gaming, word processing , browsing the net, playing dvd's blu rays you can do nearly anything with a computer if I had to choose one electrical device to live with it would be a computer. Make it two devices to include the monitor

[garin94]

Sounds like a good idea, I agree with shaithis on the graphs idea. Would be cool to see how the prices decrease and the quality increases over the next few months/years.

[Fuzzed_out]

Upgradeability is another thing we should probably discuss.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yep,upgradeability is another important factor.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I also think that overclocking while useful to mention should not be a major factor unless we have an overclocking optimised budget build too.

Overclocking is not guaranteed and many people will probably not do so anyway.

[ed^chigliak]

Value PC gaming is about carefully planned upgrades so timing is important to get the maximum use out of any particular motherboard. An entry level budget build on a new chipset and then 18-24 month CPU / GPU upgrades. How do you remind your newly converted PC gamers who have close to zero interest in hardware roadmaps that they need to take action. Several of my friends are locked into my hardware upgrade / build cycle because they have come to trust my judgement else they would be console gamers too.

I currently have older P35 / P45 boards running Q6700 and Q9450 with DDR2 RAM and you all know why this is a sticking point for me and that my next builds will be major and not refresh. How do you persuade a console gamer to get interested in the hardware. They just want to play games full stop. I don't think money is the only issue.

[Fuzzed_out]

I also think that overclocking while useful to mention should not be a major factor unless we have an overclocking optimised budget build too.

Overclocking is not guaranteed and many people will probably not do so anyway.

Agreed, expecting Joe Blogg's to overclock is too much, and you can't sell something expensive under the pretence "it might work".

[Fuzzed_out]

Value PC gaming is about carefully planned upgrades so timing is important to get the maximum use out of any particular motherboard. An entry level budget build on a new chipset and then 18-24 month CPU / GPU upgrades. How do you remind your newly converted PC gamers who have close to zero interest in hardware roadmaps that they need to take action. Several of my friends are locked into my hardware upgrade / build cycle because they have come to trust my judgement else they would be console gamers too.

I currently have older P35 / P45 boards running Q6700 and Q9450 with DDR2 RAM and you all know why this is a sticking point for me and that my next builds will be major and not refresh. How do you persuade a console gamer to get interested in the hardware. They just want to play games full stop. I don't think money is the only issue.

Money saving, better graphics and the two birds with one stone aspect of it.



On another note we also have to remember consoles are more social, you can't invite a mate round a play him on a pc.