$400, $500, $budget PC - would you really buy it?

I'm not exactly sure why these threads constantly appear. They appeared 10 years ago, they appear now, and will most definitely appear in the future.

Now, I have a normal question for you guys who apparently believe *matching price with consoles* PC is just great for gaming. So, $400 or $500 PC that apparently can offer an exact same experience at AAA multi-platform games as PS4 and Xbox One. Would you really buy it?

Would you really go to Newegg (or some other PC parts web shop), or to a retail store and pay $400 or $500 for a GAMING PC? Or would you rather buy a console for that price?

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

I mean, I've been PC gamer for my whole life and I always tried to purchase PC with optimal gaming components, and yeah, they were expensive, but that's how it is if you want to REALLY game on your PC.

But hey, I might be wrong.

Yes, for school and play with a limited budget. A pattern similar to Commodore Amiga 500 back in 1989.

Sure, for school and play. To play what? These threads talk about PCs that could rival current-gen consoles.

Games. $499 gaming PC with 7870 GE can be assembled.

Amiga 500 was about $500 USD gaming PC.

Stopped reading after this

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

This explains kinda a lot about consolites

So you're basically saying a $500 gaming PC can offer an exact same gaming experience at AAA multi-platform titles as PS4 and Xbox One?

I would go for a PC every time. Budget gaming PC's are far superior than consoles from both usability, hardware and performance. With the cost of hardware constantly falling as new technology takes it's place the gap between PS4/XBO and PC will continue to increase at lower price points like always.

@jhonMalcovich said:

Stopped reading after this

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

This explains kinda a lot about consolites

What? If you're under 18 you'd most probably ask your parents to get you a PC/console.

@IgGy621985 said:

@jhonMalcovich said:

Stopped reading after this

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

This explains kinda a lot about consolites

What? If you're under 18 you'd most probably ask your parents to get you a PC/console.

Probably I am too old for this thread : ( then

I could build a nice one with good parts for $600. That's probably as low as I personally would go. My current pc is $1000 though.

I don't see where's the problem. I was talking about all age groups ffs. If you can afford it, buy it by yourself. If you're a kid and you can't, you ask your parents to do it for you.

@IgGy621985 said:

@jhonMalcovich said:

Stopped reading after this

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

This explains kinda a lot about consolites

What? If you're under 18 you'd most probably ask your parents to get you a PC/console.

Anyway, kids under 18 need PC the most to prepare themselves for the future. Most of jobs nowadays require good PC skills, if you don't want to be jobless forever and living with your parents. If you don't acquire good PC skils early, you will pass a hard time in the adulthood.

Granted. Except this has nothing with the questions I asked.

If $499 PC has R9-270 or 7870 GE, it would deliver equal or superior hardware performance.

AMD Mantle's up-take is tied with PS4 being successful e.g. BF4 Mantle's rendering path is similar to PS4 version.

If PS4 fails, AMD Mantle will also fail i.e. OpenGL with extensions has similar efficiency gains but PS4 doesn't run with NVIDIA's OpenGL vendor specific extensions.

There is a big difference though between a $400 pc and a $500pc. In fact $500 can get you something decent around console specs and with a decent upgrade path so yeah i might build a $500 pc though i usually go for the $650-750 mid range pc

It has everything to do with the question you asked. PC is the tool that everybody must have in order to be successful in today's life.

You asked what would one choose, having a console or a 500$ PC. And the choice is simpe, if you don't have a PC yet, then you must have one. The question is is 500$ PC ideal for gaming, no, you had better get something over 800$. But 500$ PC is better than nothing. You still CAN game on 500$ PC if you build it right. Spending 500$ on a new console would be exceptionally irresponsible, because gaming should be your lowest priority in life until you get a stable income.

AMD cards are heavily marked up right now due to minors but yes you can build a $500 PC on par with next gen consoles. Everyone with a clue said this would be so in February so no shocker it is this way today.

Sure. Why not? If money is a problem for a person then buying a console is pretty dumb anyway, that's a luxury item, nothing but expensive toy. A $500 PC will do you a lot more good and games are just a nice bonus.

That said, this $500 PC scenarios are pretty unrealistic. Very few people go and build whole PC from scratch. They usually already have a PC and at least some parts can be reused.

Building a $400-$500 for gaming is pretty useless, considering an OS will cost almost a $100.

can someone point to me a rig for $500-600 can build at that price with intel/gforce parts and a mobo i can upgrade to run something better in the future that can run current gen titles at higher resoultion than consoles?

@IgGy621985: They are a bunch of miserable, pathetic liars. Not only do the PC gamers who frequent this site have rigs that far exceed that price, but they don't even take into consideration cooling the internal environment which by default adds more to the price tag. These prices they keep pushing is a joke and a lie. You don't go with a "cheap premium". That is an oxymoron and impractical.

you don't need expensive cooling. A decent case with good airflow and enough fans is all you need. You can get that for like 30 to 50 bucks. Do some research.

Well, ask @jhonMalcovich or @ronvalencia. But we're not talking about upgrading. You purchase a $500 PC and you're done. No upgrading until the end of this gen of consoles. Apparently that kind if PC is able to run games on par, if not better than PS4 and X1.

You dont need cooling if you are not overclocking stop talking nonsense,i hate people like you who think they know it all then just end up talking crap,the standard case fans and stock cooler is more than enough.

The price are not a lie you an build a pretty good pc for $500 and it would last for a couple of years and would be a good thing to build for someone who does not know PC's and does not want to risk destroying expensive parts on their first build..

And calling people miserable pathetic liars just because you do not agree makes you look like a dick.

@NFJSupreme: You haven't said anything I don't already know, so I can't thank you for it.

You have to take into consideration that the purpose of PC is that it is a customization based unit, which you invest in for the long haul. Going cheap is a bad idea, period. As for cooling, I never said it has to be a major expensive solution that you aim for. But whichever route you choose, it's not free.

The biggest part people overlook, is that these "budget builds" typically use components that run hotter than most. Especially anything using AMD. Not to say by default the system will suffer meltdown, but temperature can be a real issue and not something that is smart to ignore.

In the end, any of these PC blowers adamant pitches are of zero merit because they are preaching vehemently one thing and practicing another. Just one of you guys show me your "$400" build or enjoy a well deserved glass of STFU.

Iwould take a $500 pc over a new console....right now anyway.

I have helped about 4 of my mates build Pc's and they have all wanted to go cheap as they have not wanted to blow $1000 on something they do not understand...the second build of course is when they wanted to splash out as they felt more comfortable with the hardware ....how is that a hard concept to grasp??

However getting back to the point of the thread a $500 pc obviously would not last till the end of the console gen, it could last years knocking down the res, aiming for 30 fps and dropping settings to medium/low but what PC gamer wants to do that :P

@naz99:

Defensive butthurt mode in full effect. And you just proved my point: I specifically stated you PC blowers are not being honest because you personally don't own nor use these "budget builds" you borderline worship, yet are the staunch advocates. How much did these unita you helped your "mates" with eventually cost? TOTAL? Buy cheap, expect cheap results. That is common sense and far from a revalation.

Furthermore, it is fact that components degrade over time if exceeding recommended temperatures. We cannot assume that the conditions in which the owners keep their unit are identical to those recommended by the manufacturer.

@naz99: A lie is when you don't tell the truth, imbecile. More reality and less PC dick sucking for you.

And no, you cannot suck my dick so stop hounding me, fagboy.

@Benny_Blakk@naz99Keep it civil guys, come on...

a lot of insecure consolites here. Trying to dismiss a budget PC as not viable. Face it this new generation of consoles are cheaper than in the past. Because of this you can match performance of them on PC on the cheap. Deal with it.

Matching console prices at console launch would be impossible.

PC manufacturers make profits off of selling system components.

Console manufacturers make profits off every game sold on their platform. They sell their consoles at a loss.

That said, a $600 PC is a much better value than either a XBONE or PS4 at this point. There's still a huge game library of older games for very little money. And it is a full-featured PC.

And we have free online multiplayer to go along with that.

I dont buy consoles to push graphics, I buy them for their exclusives. When I build my PCs I stick around $1000.

yeah. I build my PC around $1.500 as I use it way more than just gaming

Right now, arguably better. You're certainly going to have a much better selection of games.

In 6 months, unquestionably better due to PC hardware advancing.

I should note that I just rebuilt my desktop for about $350. It's Ivy Bridge, but still comparable to Xbox One/PS4. My video card is a bit dated but I could update that for another $100 or so. Of course, I re-used existing parts (like the DVD-ROM drive) but I get to do that with a PC, part of the advantage of the platform.

For the tinker that's willing to track down parts on eBay and re-use components, PC gaming isn't just comparable in price to console gaming, but a lot cheaper.

There is also the price of games. Games on the PC are either "a lot cheaper" or "free", depending on how you look at it. Since I don't think there are mods available for the Xbox One and PS4 yet, "free" isn't an option on those platforms. At at least during the last 2 generations, "free" added significantly to the cost of the console.

$ 500 PC? Nope!

Been PC gaming for a few Years, A 400 - 500 Dollar gaming PC would only stay at that price the first year, because in the upcoming years when parts start to get messed up and need replacements that price will go up. It's better to just start up with the upgraded parts. That way it'll last longer.

Right now I would get the console for that price, next year I would go with the PC. It all depends when you are making the choice, right now a $500 PC offers in theory around equal value than the consoles, which isn't a safe bet for me. If you added at least $100 dollars to the budget it would start to be different.

I prefer my PC to be more expensive than a console so I can max out the games. That's the premium experience I am paying for, to play at 1080p+ 60fps at max settings.

@IgGy621985 said:

@jhonMalcovich said:

Stopped reading after this

Would you really tell your parents "hey mum/dad, buy me this PC for $500 so I can GAME on it", or would you rather ask your parents to buy a console for that price?

This explains kinda a lot about consolites

What? If you're under 18 you'd most probably ask your parents to get you a PC/console.

And hopefully they would say no. If you are 14 and older, you can go get a job to get what you want. If you are under that age, you probably don't need a $400 dollar console anyway.

Good point.

Why is it cows continue to push graphics over gameplay? If graphics is what they wanted then they'd go PC.

I would buy it.

I'm not someone who needs to max out PC games in order to enjoy them. I just see the fact that PC gets a few hundred more games than the consoles do each year, tons of free mods, and it has much better online. Plus I'm not limited to playing all my games with a dual analog controller which is severely limiting for some genres, especially my favorite genre; FPS.

That's what keeps me on PC.

@kingtito:

Well, you can have good graphics and even great graphics on console games. PC will always have the best, but that doesn't mean somehow games look terrible on consoles.

Yes I understand that but it seems some don't. My comment wasn't really directed towards you. Just an observation I made towards some of the cows touting graphics above all else.

no 400 is enough for the superior ps4 standart, 500 is much more than what ps4 can offer

do people really pay for OS in rich countries??? because in the rest of the world (80% of worlds population) that would be interpreted as a joke

M$ dont make windows with the intention of selling it for home users, they sell it with a price no home user would buy, then they bribe politicians and law forces to go to companies and do the job of verifying if everyone is using original windows (M$ dont pay for this verification , they use law enforcement payed by us)

90% of worlds windows are not original, says M$

For gaming? Absolutely not.