Should I Buy a Gaming PC If I already have a PS4?

Hi,

So I have about $450 to shell out, and was wondering whether or not I should apply it towards a Decent Gaming build. The specs I was pondering on was as follows:

CPU: i3 4130 (Good enough TILL I got more money- Surprisingly powerful)

GPU: R9 270

RAM: 8GB

However, is it truly worth it IF I ALREADY HAVE A PS4? The only reason I have a PS4 is that a lot of my friends have it, and I sometimes like to play online with them. ALSO, I used to have a PC, but sold it for parts as it was getting NO ATTENTION. Im just scared that this is going to happen again. PLEASE ASSIST ME IN MY TIME OF NEED!

No its not worth it at $450 you need to spend more, unless there are some pc only games your dying to play.

My 2-cents: that build isn't worth it if you have a PS4. Given the rash of poor PC optimisation lately, you'll probably have smoother gaming on a given current title on the PS4. Likewise, if you want to play old PC classics, you can probably do that on whatever PC you're already working with without an upgrade.

Part of the answer may depend on what you are looking to do with your gaming PC, but my view is that if the PC is comparable to the PS4 then the only thing you're really buying yourself is access to some genres that aren't really there on console (e.g. RTS) [which may actually be worth it, if that's your goal!].

Final thought: the R9 270 is pretty darn affordable right now, but AMD's next gen graphics cards are coming out very soon. At that point, you might see higher end AMD cards like the 280 and 290 start to drop into your price reach (actually, 280 non-X sometimes comes to only 150 already, if you keep your eye out for deals, so it's a better buy than the 270 right now anyway if you can swing ~$30 more). So it might also be worth waiting a bit before building your budget build, if that's what you decide to spend your money on

Personally I wouldn't go the PC route unless you can go all out. I wouldn't bother with a gaming PC unless you had $1000 to spend on it. Anything less would only be marginally better. But in the future the $450 you are looking to spend might stretch a little farther.

Negatory, the money is better off saved to at least $1000 for a PC build.

Go all out or bust for a gaming PC.

450 = less than half the PC you can start with, you can get a X1 for 350 and have 100 bucks to blow on something else. BTW, Amazon has a killer deal, AC Bundle + Wolfenstein + EXTRA CONTROLLER for $350 and FREE SHIPPING !

Yeah agreed. If I was going to go the PC route, I would go all out and make it worthwhile. Otherwise just stick with PS4.

If you do a build just invest in an i7 build without a GPU. Then when Directx12 comes along you can buy a new GPU to match the API change.

It's not really worth it on the pc end to go less then $800. Can be done but really $800 and above is currently the sweet spot. Though that might drastically change with future dx12 tittles.

It really depends on what games you're interested in on PC and what you have available now. But having both a PC and PS4 covers alot of gaps in the gaming space.

Going by the OP, it sounds like you dont have a PC at all. There's a plethora of great indie games on PC that's far ahead of what the PS4 offers in terms of both quality, quantity and variety that I find well worth the small investment if that's your thing. MMOs, MOBAs, Emulation and a backlog of classics can also be accessed through that intended cheap build, as well as the added functionality of being a flexible multimedia system and an efficient, fast productive tool.

No, that PC will perform far worse then your PS4. If you weren't using your PC much at all in the past, then you aren't going to use it with that build.

Definitely. Better multiplats and exclusives. More games never hurt. If you want to play some exclusive badly then spend that money on PC and play that game and upgrade later. However, if that's not the case then save more money build a better PC that can last you longer.

Go with an AMD board if you going budget route and get AMD 9590 FX processor. Can't beat 5GHZ 8 core processor chip for the price.

Get more money get a IT guy to select the best parts and assemble yourself (or let the IT guy do it in exchange for a beer)

Back in 2006, I didn't know on how to built a PC so I ended up buying a pre-built PC which cost me like $945 within that range and later, I upgrade it and now, PC is just above the recommended specs. I say try the pre-built if your not sure on how to build one but like everyone said, spending like $1000 will give you a better PC and $450 is not gonna cut it. I'm not really a hardcore PC gamer, I prefer to play on Consoles then PC and it's only use for PC games exclusive and few 3rd party games. That said, you really need to spend on hard cash if you really want a good PC and try google or look at youtube videos, there are a lot of PC videos that will give you an idea on how you should spend on PC.

It entirely depends on what games you want to play. Games should lead you to buy the system, not the other way around.

I have to weigh in on this as someone who was playing PC ports in the 90s: PC ports are much, much better today on the whole, it's just that wider coverage of poor porting has created an image that they are more common than they really are. And consider also that consoles too are experiencing the worst rash of poorly optimised titles since... well, ever really. But the poorly optimised PC ports will at least run better on the whole (provided you don't mind locking to 30 for the odd game).

Honestly, it's a pretty shitty time to own any system now that developers are sometimes working on as many as 5 systems at once and not doing a good job on any of them.

My opinion is the TC should at least hold off a bit longer for hardware to come out/prices to fall so that he can better push through poorly optimised games when they do appear. I'd also consider what kinds of games he is into. If he likes western games then the PC is a good choice as it enjoys almost all the same software as consoles. For Japanese games things are improving but widespread support is still some way off and as such I'd caution against going PC.