That used to be the case. I’d definitely be on your side of the argument before this generation. A $500 investment 4 years ago in an Xbox or PlayStation would run circles around a $500 investment into PC parts back then. Heck, I’d be interested if you could find something similarly powered nowadays. The GPU alone gets you to a digital only ps5.
The Arc cards are stronger than the PS5 and are like $200-250 new, you could get used RX 7600/6600XT for cheaper than that. There’s definitely paths to a PS5 equivalent PC for a similar price, and even if you spend $100, $200, $300 more, that pays off in 1, 2 or 3 years anyway.
I thought the arc cards required a beefy cpu to get the most out of them? Used components are kinda cheating the argument because you could just buy a used console. I remember mathing out the pc argument and I just couldn’t justify it. The included ps plus games would also hurt the argument for stuff like steam sales.
If you played the same games, it didn’t make sense for me go pc. The only real use case I could argue was for the Steam storefront itself (and if you take advantage of fee Epic games). I don’t know whether console or pc benefits more from patient gaming or for buying mostly new games. Like… it’s not clear cut either way for a lot of use cases.
There’s probably loads of builds online with new components, I haven’t built a low end PC for a while, so I am not sure on the market. As I said though you have to consider the lifespan and the savings, even just 3 years later you have saved $360. And you can definitely build a PC that is better than a PS5 Pro for $1060, peripherals included even.
With discs falling out of fashion, games are absolutely cheaper on PC for patient gamers. As you say though, the savings do depend on what games you are interested in personally. Big publishers are much more stingy on giving discounts in sales.
I’m just not seeing much mentioned about inexpensive PCs nowadays. The PS5 Pro basically has a 7800XT in it, and that’s like $500 on its own. If you don’t play multiplayer games often, or at all, or you don’t care for the ps plus games, you no longer need to even play for ps plus.
I think the days of PC gaming being the de facto answer for value gaming are gone. It’s entirely situational and I’d personally say the pendulum has swung the console route. It’s unfortunate that we now have limited technological progress on top of expensive GPUs. Remember when you could wait 4-5 years and get a 100% increase in performance for roughly what you spent previously?
The PC market is growing faster than the console market, the value of consoles has completely plateaued.
You can build a PC for just slightly more, an added cost you recoup anyway after a couple years. You can do a lot more with a PC than a console, you have upgrade flexibility, your library of games will always be playable, you can even emulate and play console games.
There’s no reason to buy a console if you put a bit of effort in, their only appeal is the initial plug and play, which you can do with a PC anyway if you buy prebuilt.
That used to be the case. I’d definitely be on your side of the argument before this generation. A $500 investment 4 years ago in an Xbox or PlayStation would run circles around a $500 investment into PC parts back then. Heck, I’d be interested if you could find something similarly powered nowadays. The GPU alone gets you to a digital only ps5.
The Arc cards are stronger than the PS5 and are like $200-250 new, you could get used RX 7600/6600XT for cheaper than that. There’s definitely paths to a PS5 equivalent PC for a similar price, and even if you spend $100, $200, $300 more, that pays off in 1, 2 or 3 years anyway.
I thought the arc cards required a beefy cpu to get the most out of them? Used components are kinda cheating the argument because you could just buy a used console. I remember mathing out the pc argument and I just couldn’t justify it. The included ps plus games would also hurt the argument for stuff like steam sales.
If you played the same games, it didn’t make sense for me go pc. The only real use case I could argue was for the Steam storefront itself (and if you take advantage of fee Epic games). I don’t know whether console or pc benefits more from patient gaming or for buying mostly new games. Like… it’s not clear cut either way for a lot of use cases.
For modest definitions of “beefy”. There are budget friendly options that will work just fine with a B-series Arc card, like an i5-12400.
There’s probably loads of builds online with new components, I haven’t built a low end PC for a while, so I am not sure on the market. As I said though you have to consider the lifespan and the savings, even just 3 years later you have saved $360. And you can definitely build a PC that is better than a PS5 Pro for $1060, peripherals included even.
With discs falling out of fashion, games are absolutely cheaper on PC for patient gamers. As you say though, the savings do depend on what games you are interested in personally. Big publishers are much more stingy on giving discounts in sales.
I’m just not seeing much mentioned about inexpensive PCs nowadays. The PS5 Pro basically has a 7800XT in it, and that’s like $500 on its own. If you don’t play multiplayer games often, or at all, or you don’t care for the ps plus games, you no longer need to even play for ps plus.
I think the days of PC gaming being the de facto answer for value gaming are gone. It’s entirely situational and I’d personally say the pendulum has swung the console route. It’s unfortunate that we now have limited technological progress on top of expensive GPUs. Remember when you could wait 4-5 years and get a 100% increase in performance for roughly what you spent previously?
The PC market is growing faster than the console market, the value of consoles has completely plateaued.
You can build a PC for just slightly more, an added cost you recoup anyway after a couple years. You can do a lot more with a PC than a console, you have upgrade flexibility, your library of games will always be playable, you can even emulate and play console games.
There’s no reason to buy a console if you put a bit of effort in, their only appeal is the initial plug and play, which you can do with a PC anyway if you buy prebuilt.
Arc cards won’t play half of my library. Albeit cheaper and a step in right direction, their driver game is worse than AMD in the noughties.
You checked on that recently? The B series is much, much better.
Yes, in older games it’s particularly egregious.