Why haven't you bought a PC yet?

In general, what's the most efficient way to upgrade a gaming PC from four years ago? I don't have access to my specs, but I think it's 8 gigs of RAM and a graphics card that was hot shit years ago.

How much does it cost to buy a decent graphics card nowadays? Or is more RAM the way to go? My priority with PC gaming is framerate, not flashy graphics
 
"Consoles" by its nature implies a plural.

The titles you listed are AAA multiplatforms.

I am still awaiting those "endless more".
That is the worst cop out I've heard. It's like you're more interested in being "right" than addressing the point of the argument.

Sheesh. I wasn't going to say anything (this place has gone to the predictable pile of shit everyone saw coming), but that was just bad.
 
Speaking of hassle, when I come home after a long day of typing on my console at work, I just want to play games, I don't want to wait for loading screens that are 4x longer than on my pc, I just want to play not wait...

Hahahahahahaha...dead

This and ghst posts are made my day. Thank You :)
 
Jetjevon's list does not need to be long, guys.

If his list was honestly only 3 games, if those games are particularly important to him, then that's more than justification on its own. This is a matter of taste.

You can only start picking at people if they make some objective statement, like "consoles have more exclusives," which is objectively false. But if someone says "consoles have more of the exclusives that I happen to personally care about," then there's nothing to argue about. If I play games in 10 franchises* and those franchises include Madden, Mass Effect, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Call of Duty, then I'm going to buy an Xbox because other platforms either don't have these games at all or get them late. The PC completely misses 2 of those franchises and gets 1 other perennially late.

*And for the record, playing the games in 10 franchises is actually a lot. If a person bought every other Madden, every other CoD, every other Halo, both GTAs and all the Mass Effects on Xbox, that alone would be 15 games, which is considerably above the average attach rate of the Xbox without including 5 more franchises to the list.
 
There’s also the option of Steam In-Home streaming which allows you to stream games from your gaming PC to any other machine in the house which works wonders in my experience.
The only way streaming would work is if it was perfect.
Is it perfect?
 
It needs to be longer than three fucking games if its yada-yada-yadaed as "plus endless more"

Third time: I did not mean "endless". Having said that I do believe there are more than 3 multiplatform console exclusives that are important to me as gamer. Not to mention godawful (at launch) PC ports of games that were great on consoles (like GTA IV)

I should make it clear I think PC's are a wonderful, flexible platform. We can keep the discussion civil.
 
Third time: I did not mean "endless". Having said that I do believe there are more than 3 multiplatform console exclusives that are important to me as gamer. Not to mention godawful (at launch) PC ports of games that were great on consoles (like GTA IV)

I should make it clear I think PC's are a wonderful, flexible platform. We can keep the discussion civil.

Right,but for every awful pc port (saint's row 2, rage, dead rising 3, watchdogs, from dust) there are 9 that run much better, have much better features and options (fov slider, turn off bloom, actual texture filtering, vsync options, run at 100+ fps on almost any gaming gpu instead of locked to 30, support multiple input devices, support modding etc)

And even some of the ports that are deemed atrocious and unacceptable by pc gamers STILL run better than the console equivalent...

There are also a fair share of console ports that suffer from heavy tearing, bad framedrops or other issues on consoles, so don't act like this is a problem unique to pc ports.

When the overwhelming majority of multiplatform games run and play better on pc and even some of the bad ones run better than the worse console version, and the consoles have their own rotten apples equivalent to saint's row 2 pc, how do you come to the conclusion that it's better to buy a console for multiplatform games?


The people posting on the pc side in this thread have admitted plenty of other reasons for not getting a pc btw.
Look at opiate's post history in this thread, you know how to do that right? look up post histories? (xD) to see them all listed together.
That doesn't mean it's fine to just claim stuff that is wrong or inaccurate or wildly out of context (my ps3 skyrim one was a good out of context jump to conclusions one to show what I mean) , or just based on experiences or third hand knowledge from ten years ago.


It's far more productive for everyone (especially pc gamers) if people focus on the actual problems, instead of just scaring people off with made up or ill perceived ones.
I sure wouldn't mind if people collectively bitched about digital distribution (e.g steam) violating ownership rights through the 'license' loophole, and that something would be done about it.
Helps people a lot more than shouting about stuff that was fixed ten years ago.
This us vs them crap benifits noone except the platform holders and people trying to sell us all shit.
 
I do believe there are more than 3 multiplatform console exclusives that are important to me as gamer.

And when you make that list and look at it, you might reconsider "PC crusaders" and "zealots" to be people trying to clear up the disinformation, erroneous beliefs and untruths that still plague the PC as a gaming platform.
 
And when you make that list and look at it, you might reconsider "PC crusaders" and "zealots" to be people trying to clear up the disinformation, erroneous beliefs and untruths that still plague the PC as a gaming platform.

Those comments were made in relation to the fervor which you guys responded to my post but in retrospect they were a mistake. I apologize.
 
The only way streaming would work is if it was perfect.
Is it perfect?

I'm not sure what you mean. When I use Steam In-Home Streaming I get 60fps @ 1080p with good IQ (unlike Onlive f.ex..) without the feeling of lag (of course, wired or high speed wireless links is needed for that). Is that what you meant or was it a rhetorical question..?
 
Stand down, everyone. Jetjevons has already done so.

I can say this: if your goal is to convince other people that PC is worth checking out, this sort of hostility is almost certainly counterproductive. If you just want to be right, however, well then you win in this specific case by Jevons' own admission (i.e. he did not mean "endless").
 
Stand down, everyone. Jetjevons has already done so.

I can say this: if your goal is to convince other people that PC is worth checking out, this sort of hostility is almost certainly counterproductive. If you just want to be right, however, well then you win in this specific case by Jevons' own admission (i.e. he did not mean "endless").

Personally i don't understand how exclusives factor in a discussion like this since that is probably the most subjective "reason" there is to pick one platform over the other.
 
I'm not sure what you mean. When I use Steam In-Home Streaming I get 60fps @ 1080p with good IQ (unlike Onlive f.ex..) without the feeling of lag (of course, wired or high speed wireless links is needed for that). Is that what you meant or was it a rhetorical question..?

Doesn't the shield still have 2 frames of input lag at 30 fps (so 4 at 60)? It's still no good if it does, just like vita streaming is pretty pointless with 3 frames of input lag at 30 fps.
Like, you can have it as some little ehhhhhhh side option, but if this became the default way people played games it would be a nightmare, can you imagine if games were all designed around an extra 60-100 ms of input lag? It would shit on the entire medium...


From what I can see the only streaming solution that is viable is the one wii u uses... aka ~10 ms input lag, which is a third of a frame (so effectively one frame in practice) , which is a similar amount to what most monitors have anyway and way better than what you'll get on your tv at home.

Sadly there will never be a shield 2 either, nvidia made it a fucking tablet to sell their dumb tegra chips , because that's what pc gamers wanted, a fucking tablet , not a lagless in home streaming solution compared to wii u... no not that, better make tablet #545646348694
 
I am one of those guys that waits 2-3 years into a generation before buying anything. I am happy with playing through my massive backlog of retro games and trying to beat every one before even playing any new games.
 
Doesn't the shield still have 2 frames of input lag at 30 fps (so 4 at 60)? It's still no good if it does, just like vita streaming is pretty pointless with 3 frames of input lag at 30 fps.
Like, you can have it as some little ehhhhhhh side option, but if this became the default way people played games it would be a nightmare, can you imagine if games were all designed around an extra 60-100 ms of input lag? It would shit on the entire medium...


From what I can see the only streaming solution that is viable is the one wii u uses... aka ~10 ms input lag, which is a third of a frame (so effectively one frame in practice) , which is a similar amount to what most monitors have anyway and way better than what you'll get on your tv at home.

Sadly there will never be a shield 2 either, nvidia made it a fucking tablet to sell their dumb tegra chips , because that's what pc gamers wanted, a fucking tablet , not a lagless in home streaming solution compared to wii u... no not that, better make tablet #545646348694

I've used steam streaming, some games work some don't. Some have more lag than others 30-70ms from my experience on GB LAN.
Using raspberry pi using limelight pi (nvidia Sheild tech) there is constant 30ms lag and I even set personal best lap times on Assetto Corsa using it, so it's more than playable. I streamed it 1080p60. All games work this way too.
 
Cannot afford one at the moment. I had a Gaming laptop from ASUS for one year but then it stopped working (overheated way too often and hardware got damaged because of that).

I'm saving up for a new one at the moment, I'm eying the MSI GE60. I don't know much about laptops though so maybe there are ones with equal performance for a better price. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Well... Cheaper software?
Better performances and image quality?
The fact that you can change your mind at any given moment and "fiddle with settings" when you are willing to?

...

Well, but that's just your problem, isn't it? Why it should be my concern, to any degree, to make you "interested in PC gaming"?
You could be interested in tuxedo scuba diving, for all I care.

Sure, if I could download it, it'd be cheaper. Unfortunately I live in an area where the ONLY internet connection is dish-based or dial-up, and it's rather limited.

As for it being my problem, you're right, but I never asked you to get me interested.

Games run better, are cheaper, you have the option of pretty much any controller, 1000s of exclusive games and 10000s of backwards compatible games. Probably more too.

Aside from the issue of downloading, you need to realize that exclusives do not mean much if I don't care about those types of games. As for running better and backwards compatibility, I believe you're overselling it a tad much. I have a friend named John who only plays on the PC, so for his birthday I got him the Elder Scrolls collection as he'd never played it before. He's never gotten Arena to work and moved on to Morrowind last time I spoke to him about it. His degrees are in computer engineering and computer programming, so I'm not sure what the problem was.

Well, considering all the troubleshooting I've been doing with my PS4 lately (I just had to go in and open a bunch of ports to get Destiny to work, for instance), I'd say the platforms are about on par with each other, unless you plan to do a lot of modding on a PC.

There's a reason I've not gotten a PS4 yet (aside from a backlog). = P

Agreed. This is part of that "fast and loose" definition of a PC I was talking about in a post a few up.

Yes, you can play on PC with almost no fuss. Most games these days play automatically with no hassle, and certainly there is no modifying of INI files or constant driver updates or anything of that sort any longer. That's all a myth. Most PC games just play.

You can also play games on PC that are endlessly modable, as PC gamers often point out. It can be really cool, and you can make games look different or play different in substantial ways.

But doing the latter requires fiddling, and you cannot have both a simple, easy, install-and-just-play game also be an endlessly-modable-have-fun-and-tinker game. Now, you could make the point that the PC is great because it allows you to do both, or either, but this is going to depend on the person. For some people (such as yourself), the PC would be considerably more tinker-y than it is for someone who mostly plays browser games or someone who just installs Steam games and plays them.

Yep, which is why I said that I'd probably end up getting one eventually: mods. They sound awesome.

Sure, if you want to play modded to hell and back Skyrim on PC you absolutely do need to fiddle.
If you want to play it modded on console though? You can't. I don't really see an advantage there.

Well, I could imagine many reasons. Its exclusives, or its superior performance on multiplatform titles, or its options in terms of control methods, or maybe its cheap game prices. Perhaps the longevity of your game library or the fact that your peripherals aren't made obsolete by arbitrary hardware transitions?

Read above. It's pretty much the only reason I'd like to get one eventually.

I also think it's a bit unfair to act like there's no upkeep cost on a gaming PC. You have to upgrade the video-cards, etc. as well as motherboards, etc. I've built almost every computer I've ever owned, and I've helped other build their own, so I'm not unaware of this fact. As for exclusives, there's very few on the PC for me personally.
 
I've heard nothing but bad things about the shield tbh.

How do I use it.? I turn on my vita and play ps4 games with it ...

from digital foundry
Looking across the breadth of our single measurements (not the averages) we found that at its absolute best, Vita Remote Play latency came in at around 90ms. At its nadir, we saw a single measurement - repeated several times over in the same session - of around 160ms.
3-5 frames of additional input lag at 30 fps (and the remote play is limited to 30 fps unlike 60 fps wii u and shield)

they also conclude that it is worse than the shield, and definitely does not come close to the wii u gamepad.

They said that even gaikai (the online streaming crap everyone hates) sometimes performed better despite the computer you play on being many kilometers away , not 3 metres away from the ps4 like in their test setup.

I have a vita and was quite excited for the remote play until I heard about the latency.
I was quite excited for the shield until I heard that it's not nearly as good as wii u gamepad either

160 ms of additional input lag (on top of the input lag from the game itself) is well beyond do not want range, deep into unplayable territory for me.
Same with the shield, it has about 50 ms of input lag which is still equal to several times the lag you get from triple buffered vsync at 60 fps (and I can't tolerate vsync in most games, so multiple times that is out of the question)
 
because i'm planning on getting an xbox one, ps4 and a wii u. i was thinking about getting a pc but the console games grabbed me out. plus im not techsavy. someone told about how to build a pc and i was like:

original.gif

just said if could buy a prebuilt pc and he laughed at me. what's the big deal? what was so funny?


also i saw this thread and shit got me like
606b742e_2ns25vs.gif


deleted all the pc building bookmarks i had

"want this game?" rev up those petitions....before i beat i beat dat ass!"

a damn shame. imagine viewing a gaming conference you rush to change.org thinking you can make a difference. i was looking forward to the customization but i'll just stick with consoles. if you're going to sign your name for every hit ps4/xbox one game then you might as well try picking up a console later on.

"why should i pay for an inferior system?"

alright, fine. while you're busy signing petitions for a port i'll be busy playing this game.
 
I usually keep up with current gen consoles but PC will always be my platform of choice. The benefits simply outweigh the counterpart's in regards to what I enjoy.

just said if could buy a prebuilt pc and he laughed at me. what's the big deal? what was so funny?

Nothing funny about it. Your money just goes a whole lot further if you custom build. It's really quite easy as long as you have direction the first time. After that, you could build them alone without much issue.
 
In general, what's the most efficient way to upgrade a gaming PC from four years ago? I don't have access to my specs, but I think it's 8 gigs of RAM and a graphics card that was hot shit years ago.

How much does it cost to buy a decent graphics card nowadays? Or is more RAM the way to go? My priority with PC gaming is framerate, not flashy graphics

Your RAM is fine. Your CPU might be fine depending on how nice it was when you bought it. GPU should probably be your priority and they cost anywhere from $150 to 500+ depending on your budget a midrange card would be about $300-ish.
 
because i'm planning on getting an xbox one, ps4 and a wii u. i was thinking about getting a pc but the console games grabbed me out. plus im not techsavy. someone told about how to build a pc and i was like:

original.gif

just said if could buy a prebuilt pc and he laughed at me. what's the big deal? what was so funny?


also i saw this thread and shit got me like
606b742e_2ns25vs.gif


deleted all the pc building bookmarks i had

"want this game?" rev up those petitions....before i beat i beat dat ass!"

a damn shame. imagine viewing a gaming conference you rush to change.org thinking you can make a difference. i was looking forward to the customization but i'll just stick with consoles.

Yeah..only Ubishit expects petitions. I mean if you only play what your told to play I guess that's a big deal
 
Here's an example of what I mean when I say people don't take the platform into consideration. On GameInformer's website they have a feature on their website for each respective platforms upcoming games just like this one. These include multiplats as well as exclusive games but they have no such thing for PC. Even though they have a dedicated PC Editor in Dan Tack, there is nothing. I'm not sure why they would leave out the PC when it comes to this but it's a pretty glaring oversight to me.

The traditional games press lives in a megapublisher bubble they created for themselves. That's why they entirely missed the boats on phenomenons like Minecraft and League of Legends while those games exploded in popularity, reaching audiences previously unheard of and launching an entire market segment of 'games personalities'. Now you have people going to their favorite Youtube personalities for gaming news and reviews, while the press continues to churn out the latest rewritten press release.

Places like GameInformer still think it's the glory days of the Xbox 360, where the only games that matter are the big AAA blockbuster title you hype up for a year and then play for a weekend. They are missing out on the biggest games in the world like LoL, World of Tanks, Dota 2, CS:GO, etc.
 
Places like GameInformer still think it's the glory days of the Xbox 360, where the only games that matter are the big AAA blockbuster title you hype up for a year and then play for a weekend. They are missing out on the biggest games in the world like LoL, World of Tanks, Dota 2, CS:GO, etc.

PC is also negatively advertised because video game addiction is mainly associated with computer games and those genres.

Press does not want to advertise those games probably for those reasons.
Besides, they dont need advertisement since they are so popular.
 
I've been playing games since the ZX Spectrum days.
I built myself a PC 2 years ago.
Didnt't have a clue what I was doing, just googled "how to build a gaming PC"
It was one of the easiest things I've ever done, it all just goes together like Lego.
It was probably the best decision I've ever made.
Still play consoles for exclusives, but every time I do, I always think to myself- "I wish this was on PC."
If you count playing video games as one of your hobbies, you owe it to yourself to get a decent gaming PC.
 
Been a player since the 70s. Last gaming PC I built was 2003. Consoles, handhelds, laptop, kindle, phone, tablet, basically everything but for the last 10 years. PC is for work. If I had one at home there's a distinct possibility that work would follow me there, and I have lines in the sand drawn there. Plus you pretty much have to pay me to use Windows.
 
Been a player since the 70s. Last gaming PC I built was 2003. Consoles, handhelds, laptop, kindle, phone, tablet, basically everything but for the last 10 years. PC is for work. If I had one at home there's a distinct possibility that work would follow me there, and I have lines in the sand drawn there. Plus you pretty much have to pay me to use Windows.

I use a PC at work, but I can distinguish between work and not work time :V

If you just use it for playing games, you just boot up, launch Steam, or whatever and play, don't really have to worry about whatever issues you have with Windows. Or play on Linux, or Mac.

Edit: Beaten
 
I have one, but I would never go PC only. Consoles still have the best exclusives for my taste. For example, Mario 3D World and The Wonderful 101 were two of my favorite games last year and the two best games I played at Gamescom were Bloodborne and Bayonetta 2. I also really dig what Sony is doing with exclusive downloadable titles like Journey, Rime, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Tomorrow Children.

Best of both worlds is my way to go.
 
You can just buy an i3 and a 750ti and still beat ps4 performance while using less power, not more.
If you're saying vastly much more powerful hardware uses more electricity, no shit...


And if you want midrange hardware and not low end console equivalent stuff:
In a few weeks nvidia maxwell is out and their midrange card (gtx 970) only has a tdp of 150watts while being about 3x more powerful than what's in the ps4
So then you'll be able to build a haswell i5 and with gtx 970 (which is most likely set to be a massive performance/dollar dissapointment by pc standards , but we're comparing to consoles here ) and stay well under 200watt power total system power consumption while gaming.

So then you can have your performance cake and eat it too power consumption wise.
I'd expect the PS4's APU to outperform the 750ti since it has over twice the bandwidth and 4-8x more memory. In single precision flops you're looking at 1840 vs. 1306. This 760 seems like a better comparison to me. It has a much higher tdp of 130 watts though.

Also could you elaborate on how the GTX 970 is three times more powerful than the APU in the PS4.
 
I'd expect the PS4's APU to outperform the 750ti since it has over twice the bandwidth and 4-8x more memory. In single precision flops you're looking at 1840 vs. 1306. This 760 seems like a better comparison to me. It has a much higher tdp of 130 watts though.

Also could you elaborate on how the GTX 970 is three times more powerful than the APU in the PS4.

It's reasonable to expect that, but the 750 ti and 260X are pretty good (and cheap) GPUs that can trade blows with PS4 games at the same settings.

Also the 970 being "3 times more powerful" is just being said because the Titan was said to be that much stronger, and the 970 will probably be about as strong.
 
The important thing to note with power usage is that the PS4 is not going to represent substantial power savings in all but the most grossly OP builds with triple SLI or something.

Compared to even a high end build, you may be saving a dollar a month with a PS4, maybe. Maybe.

But compared to the Wii U, then yes, your savings are more substantial. That might be 2-3 dollars a month, and that matters.
 
I have one, but I would never go PC only. Consoles still have the best exclusives for my taste. For example, Mario 3D World and The Wonderful 101 were two of my favorite games last year and the two best games I played at Gamescom were Bloodborne and Bayonetta 2. I also really dig what Sony is doing with exclusive downloadable titles like Journey, Rime, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Tomorrow Children.

Best of both worlds is my way to go.

This is the most (only?) reasonable stance to take, and its in that spirit the OP was created.
 
I'd expect the PS4's APU to outperform the 750ti since it has over twice the bandwidth and 4-8x more memory. In single precision flops you're looking at 1840 vs. 1306. This 760 seems like a better comparison to me. It has a much higher tdp of 130 watts though.

Also could you elaborate on how the GTX 970 is three times more powerful than the APU in the PS4.

You're right, the 750ti's bandwidth might cripple it, didn't realise it was that low. I picked it because it is the first maxwell gpu, the 760 isn't as power efficient.
Comparing nvidia and amd tflops is pointless btw, as is comparing tflops across different architectures.
The hd 5870 was a 2.7tflop gpu, yet the 7850 with 1.8TF shits all over it, similarly the nvidia cards perform better despite lower TF performance on paper. It only makes sense to compare them within the same architecture.
I can't explain why (you'll have to ask durante or something) , that is just how it is.

the gtx 760 is a lot more powerful (bigger difference than between ps4 and xbox one, it's close to a 7970ghz edition not a 7850)

As for the 970, because it's supposed to be equivalent to the 780 according to leaked benchmarks (will know exactly in 8 days when it's officially "revealed")
And a 780 is 3x faster than a hd7850 in benchmarks.

The gpu in ps4 is a crippled 7850 (as in they are almost identical spec and architecture wise except apparently the ps4 version had the bits that allow for 'free' texture filtering cut off to save on die space).

edit: looked it up and it's closer to 2.5x difference (I went from memory earlier)
As always the difference also depends on resolution, higher end gpus with more memory bandwidth tend to scale better to very high resolutions, where the difference between one gpu and a higher end one at 1080p may be 70 percent , while at 1440p with msaa the lower end one might be memory bandwidth bottlenecked and get crushed by the higher end one . (70 percent example is just a random number I picked to explain)
In synthetic benchmarks or 3dmark the difference is 2.5x,

Anyhow back to the point: the point is maxwell (980, 970 , 750 ti and any future cards) is way more power efficient than kepler(gtx 6xx cards, titan, 760 770 780), and kepler in turn was more power efficient than amd's GCN used in the amd 7000 series and ps4.
The 970 is supposed to have the same TDP as the 7850 while having the same performance as the gtx 780
The only thing particularly power efficient about the ps4 is the cpu part of the apu, jaguar cores consume little power (and also run at low clockspeed), that's why they are originally designed for ultrabooks and tablets. and why they have ultrabook performance not desktop pc performance
An 80 watt i5 will shit on it from orbit though performance wise:p a 50watt i3 will outperform it too.


The important thing to note with power usage is that the PS4 is not going to represent substantial power savings in all but the most grossly OP builds with triple SLI or something.

Compared to even a high end build, you may be saving a dollar a month with a PS4, maybe. Maybe.

But compared to the Wii U, then yes, your savings are more substantial. That might be 2-3 dollars a month, and that matters.

ehh I think he has a point, he is overstating it yes and maxwell will render it kind of moot even on the high end.
But a high end amd card will consume 250 watt, if one makes the horrible mistake of buying an amd fx 8 core cpu that's another 200 watt (but again the high end intels only use 80watts peak)

In that way a higher end pc does have a higher hidden cost than a midrange or low end one or a ps4.
But even then it's not going to add up to 50 bucks a year... (maybe if you play for 12 hours a day 365 days a year)
You have to consider TDP is not real power consumption, it's theorectical maximum under 100 percent load for the full chip, the only time you approach that is with something like furmark burn test.
Googling it as an example I found a midrange gtx 770 midrange gpu combined with a heavily overclocked i7 , 4 sticks of 1.5v ram and a couple of hard drives drew about 220-240 watt peak at the socket (that is at the power socket, so count power supply inefficiency of 20 percent having added to that number)
The TDP listing for that system would be almost 400watts.

So it's not nearly as power hungry as it looks (also why I scoff at people buying silly 700 watt power supplies for their midrange pcs, puhlease, people were running more power hungry gtx260s and core2quads on 350watt power supplies back in the day, their pc did not explode :p)


So even an older midrange gpu+high end cpu + 20odd extra watts from those ram sticks and hdd raid config don't amount to all that much.
You'd literally have to play all day errry day to get to 50 bucks a year in power bills, if you buy something that's a good deal more powerful than a ps4 (and again maxwell will negate the difference)

Still, power consumption is worth keeping in mind when buying anything.
e.g I've seen people choose an amd fx 8350 over an new i5 or i7 because it's 20 euros cheaper...
But that shitty amd cpu is a ridonkulous power hog especially when overclocked (almost 300 watts on its own when overclocked, not tdp, actual power consumption ; as well as a much higher idle power consumption (even more important)
vs a 60-70watt i5 or i7... 230watts difference or so on the cpu alone under load , and up to 50odd watts idle (which matters more than load power consumption since a pc tends to be on but idle almost 24/7 for many people)
So over the course of 4-5 years of the lifetime of that cpu they're pissing away maybe 150-200 euros on power bills just to save 20 bucks on the purchase price, for no actual performance gains.
 
Because consoles are closed systems, and I take comfort in the belief that this allows devs to optimise their games as best as they can. That I'm playing a finished product, as intentend by its creators. I don't have to put any effort myself towards the smooth running of a game, or have to worry about performance vs eye candy.
I was a PC only gamer during the golden age 1996-2002. Then I got a Gamecube and never looked back.
 
You're right, the 750ti's bandwidth might cripple it, didn't realise it was that low. I picked it because it is the first maxwell gpu, the 760 isn't as power efficient.

the gtx 760 is a lot more powerful (bigger difference than between ps4 and xbox one, it's close to a 7970ghz edition not a 7850)

As for the 970, because it's supposed to be equivalent to the 780 according to leaked benchmarks (will know exactly in 8 days when it's officially "revealed")
And a 780 is 3x faster than a hd7850 in benchmarks.

The gpu in ps4 is a crippled 7850 (as in they are almost identical spec and architecture wise except apparently the ps4 version had the bits that allow for 'free' texture filtering cut off to save on die space).

edit: looked it up and it's closer to 2.5x difference (I went from memory earlier)
As always the difference also depends on resolution, higher end gpus with more memory bandwidth tend to scale better to very high resolutions, where the difference between one gpu and a higher end one at 1080p may be 70 percent at 1440p with msaa the lower end one might get memory bandwidth bottlenecked and crushed by the higher end one . (70 percent example is just a random number I picked to explain)
In synthetic benchmarks or 3dmark the difference is 2.5x, in games it will vary between games (more or less depending on resolution and what bottlenecks the game, heavy tesselation would favor the nvidia card more)

Anyhow back to the point: the point is maxwell is way more power efficient than kepler, and kepler in turn was more power efficient than amd's GCN used in the amd 7000 series and ps4.
The 970 is supposed to have the same TDP as the 7850 while having the same performance as the gtx 780
The only thing particularly power efficient about the ps4 is the cpu part of the apu, jaguar cores consume little power (and also run at low clockspeed), that's why they are originally designed for ultrabooks and tablets.
An 80 watt i5 will shit on it from orbit though performance wise:p a 50watt i3 will outperform it too.

I thought the ps4 gpu was more like a 7870?

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...u-reveals-the-consoles-real-cpu-and-gpu-specs

Article said:
Die size on the chip is 328 mm sq, and the GPU actually contains 20 compute units — not the 18 that are specified. This is likely a yield-boosting measure, but it also means AMD implemented a full HD 7870 in silicon. According to Chipworks, the GPU is 88 mm sq, and takes up about a third of the total die. Looking at AMD’s published figures for the HD 7870, however, the Pitcairn GPU core is a 228 mm sq part. So which is correct? Probably both. Chipworks is only counting the cores as part of the GPU, whereas the full Pitcairn die contains memory controllers, audio processing blocks, video encode/decode hardware, the PCIe 3.0 bus interface, and a number of other low-level silicon blocks that increase total die size. The actual streaming processors are only one component.
 
The important thing to note with power usage is that the PS4 is not going to represent substantial power savings in all but the most grossly OP builds with triple SLI or something.

Compared to even a high end build, you may be saving a dollar a month with a PS4, maybe. Maybe.

But compared to the Wii U, then yes, your savings are more substantial. That might be 2-3 dollars a month, and that matters.

Of course if you have it hooked up to a 50"+ Plasma TV (costing ~$7/month), you probably need to rethink your priorities again. :)
 
I'd like to get a nice, powerful, mini-case with a budget of around 2k, but I do not have the time or experience to assemble it myself. And I do not want to buy a pre-configured one from a vendor like Alienware. So I guess I'll just wait until I have time?
 
I'd like to get a nice, powerful, mini-case with a budget of around 2k, but I do not have the time or experience to assemble it myself. And I do not want to buy a pre-configured one from a vendor like Alienware. So I guess I'll just wait until I have time?

Either that or there are some places that do it for you and help you out depending on where you are located. I think NCIX do that sort of stuff in canada and the US and are meant to be amazing
 
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