Heres something nobody has asked (haha).

Chris.

Chris.

Chris.

Associate
Joined
3 Oct 2010
Posts
477
To the point.

My PC is very old now, built using a value upgrade bundle in 2010, and only really updated once last year with an RX480.

It runs well, HDD is getting noisy but I feel its probably time to upgrade.

Now my partner and I also have an Xbox One. Its in the living room rather than the spare room, and its hooked up to a rather large 4K TV. We were talking about upgrading to a One X to utilise the TV.

Thing is, if you could only do one thing what would you do?

A mid sized upgrade to the PC for 450 or so, or the Xbox One X for the large TV downstairs?

My spec currently is in my signature, and as I said I'm still playing most recent games at (mostly, bar AA) high settings running at around 1440p (sometimes have to drop to 1080). Should I get the Xbox and wait until the PC gets a little older?
 
For reference the upgrade would most probably be for now a Ryzen 5, decent MoBo, 8GB of faster ram than I have now and an SSD with a fresh win 10 install. IOd keep my current HDD as slave and slowly transfer my games across.
 
If your PC is still doing the job then there's nothing wrong with going the Xbox One X route, I have both a solid gaming machine and the X and they both get use.
 
My pc is still made of a core2quad 9550 and a 680gtx, still does my gaming on the 24 inch monitor i have.
I would go for the livingroom console upgrade, unless you desperately need the pc upgrade.
 
I personally can't see the appeal of an Xbox One if you have a gaming PC, there aren't enough exclusives to make it worthwhile.
 
OP, it depends on what you prefer and what gets most use. Seems pointless to uprade the PC if you are naturally gravitating to the Xbox.

Could you reach 1X performance with a £450 upgrade to your PC? Does your partner like to game with you?

Really boils down to your personal preferences. Have you considered a PS4 Pro for exclusives and 4k functionality? Could buy a Pro with game bundle and have £150 to spend on additional games or a PC upgrade.

robfosters said:
XB1X For me, but then I’m getting very disillusioned with PC gaming now.
Click to expand...

Why are you getting disillusioned with it?
 
BuffetSlayer said:
Why are you getting disillusioned with it?
Click to expand...

Few reasons. PC games dont grab me like PS4 exclusives, like GT Sport, Uncharted and some of the really cool games you get on PSN+. Gaming convenience (sofa's better than office chair). I only have a 24 inch monitor as opposed to a 49inch 4K TV. I could upgrade, but that brings me on to my last reason, price. I'm finding the cost of PC gaming prohibitive. If I wanted to upgrade to a nice large, higher res monitor, I would need a decent upgrade to run it. We're talking hundreds of pounds, possibly close to a thousand. I dont have the finances for that unfortunately, and even if I did, I dont think I could justify the expense when I already have a pro and large TV. PS5 will be out in a couple of years or so and that will be true 4K gaming for a few hundred pounds.
 
robfosters said:
Few reasons. PC games dont grab me like PS4 exclusives, like GT Sport, Uncharted and some of the really cool games you get on PSN+. Gaming convenience (sofa's better than office chair). I only have a 24 inch monitor as opposed to a 49inch 4K TV. I could upgrade, but that brings me on to my last reason, price. I'm finding the cost of PC gaming prohibitive. If I wanted to upgrade to a nice large, higher res monitor, I would need a decent upgrade to run it. We're talking hundreds of pounds, possibly close to a thousand. I dont have the finances for that unfortunately, and even if I did, I dont think I could justify the expense when I already have a pro and large TV. PS5 will be out in a couple of years or so and that will be true 4K gaming for a few hundred pounds.
Click to expand...

I have been pretty much exclusively console gaming for 3 years now. I have a fairly decent gaming PC that is around 4 years old upstairs collecting dust (24'' 144hz monitor). Its now only used for printing and occasional web browsing. It cost a fortune to build and is totally wasted but I'm just not that bothered with PC gaming anymore. It cost £2.5k to build and like you I would have to throw another grand+ at it to get anywhere close to 4k on a big monitor. And even then I would have to play on it on my own in the spare room upstairs, sat on a 15 year old office chair! So I guess I'm the same - I couldn't justify the cost and I enjoy sofa gaming and still being able to be sociable with my other half whilst playing (and we can play together too).

I was a PC gamer till I got my PS4 3 years ago and now I also have the 1x and to be honest I don't really miss PC gaming other than mouse and keyboard input. For the money I think consoles are a great choice. I have really enjoyed my gaming in the last 3 years.

Anyway, sorry for slight hijack OP!
 
PC gaming is becoming (has already become) extremely elitist/ exclusive.

I've been PC gaming since the early 90s. It has never cost so much to have a mediocre PC. Your £450 spend will get you naff all in the PC space these days - not even 1/2 way up the ladder anymore.

My brother just built a mid-high gaming PC - not even top end - for £1,400.

For a budget of £450 it is pretty much undisputed that you'll get more gaming bang for your buck with a console.

I still game on the PC but these days it's just indie games. Still rocking a 2500k and a R480 same as OP. It doesn't handle modern games very well. I'd be looking at £450 just to change 3 components; CPU, mobo, RAM. And my PC would still suck big time. Why?

Because a gaming PC today needs a £500 GPU. Anything less doesn't cut it, because that £500 GPU is a mid-range GPU that a few years ago would have cost £250. But now a mid-range GPU costs £500, and £250 gets you a card that really struggles, because it's on par with a 5 year old high-end card.

Prices in the PC space keep going up. The rewards for that extra money aren't tangible enough. You just get sucked in to buying more and more expensive components, and you stop having fun playing the games because the money you spent can't be justified.

At least with a console you buy it once and you spend the next 4-5 years just playing and enjoying games, rather than worrying about how your PC has become obsolete and needs a £500 cash injection every 2 years to keep up.
 
FoxEye said:
PC gaming is becoming (has already become) extremely elitist/ exclusive.

I've been PC gaming since the early 90s. It has never cost so much to have a mediocre PC. Your £450 spend will get you naff all in the PC space these days - not even 1/2 way up the ladder anymore.

My brother just built a mid-high gaming PC - not even top end - for £1,400.

For a budget of £450 it is pretty much undisputed that you'll get more gaming bang for your buck with a console.

I still game on the PC but these days it's just indie games. Still rocking a 2500k and a R480 same as OP. It doesn't handle modern games very well. I'd be looking at £450 just to change 3 components; CPU, mobo, RAM. And my PC would still suck big time. Why?

Because a gaming PC today needs a £500 GPU. Anything less doesn't cut it, because that £500 GPU is a mid-range GPU that a few years ago would have cost £250. But now a mid-range GPU costs £500, and £250 gets you a card that really struggles, because it's on par with a 5 year old high-end card.

Prices in the PC space keep going up. The rewards for that extra money aren't tangible enough. You just get sucked in to buying more and more expensive components, and you stop having fun playing the games because the money you spent can't be justified.

At least with a console you buy it once and you spend the next 4-5 years just playing and enjoying games, rather than worrying about how your PC has become obsolete and needs a £500 cash injection every 2 years to keep up.
Click to expand...
500 quid is a Gtx 1080 which is hardly mid-range, a grand would easily get you a mid range PC if you know what your doing. 450 for a whole PC is going to be pretty **** tho, unless it's only parts (I've upgraded just the graphics card on my PC as doing the CPU meant new mono and ram and came in at 600 but that's for high end parts. PC parts have defiantly gotten cheaper over the years.

Edit:Fwiw my brother has an i5 6500 with a Gtx 970 and it's manages battlefront 2 on ultra at over 60fps so perfectly adequate.
 
FoxEye said:
PC gaming is becoming (has already become) extremely elitist/ exclusive.

I've been PC gaming since the early 90s. It has never cost so much to have a mediocre PC. Your £450 spend will get you naff all in the PC space these days - not even 1/2 way up the ladder anymore.

My brother just built a mid-high gaming PC - not even top end - for £1,400.

For a budget of £450 it is pretty much undisputed that you'll get more gaming bang for your buck with a console.

I still game on the PC but these days it's just indie games. Still rocking a 2500k and a R480 same as OP. It doesn't handle modern games very well. I'd be looking at £450 just to change 3 components; CPU, mobo, RAM. And my PC would still suck big time. Why?

Because a gaming PC today needs a £500 GPU. Anything less doesn't cut it, because that £500 GPU is a mid-range GPU that a few years ago would have cost £250. But now a mid-range GPU costs £500, and £250 gets you a card that really struggles, because it's on par with a 5 year old high-end card.

Prices in the PC space keep going up. The rewards for that extra money aren't tangible enough. You just get sucked in to buying more and more expensive components, and you stop having fun playing the games because the money you spent can't be justified.

At least with a console you buy it once and you spend the next 4-5 years just playing and enjoying games, rather than worrying about how your PC has become obsolete and needs a £500 cash injection every 2 years to keep up.
Click to expand...

Component pricing surges have played a part in that (RAM prices at the moment are ludicrous, and last I checked the GPU I bought a year ago was now £15 more than what I paid), but I don't agree with all that you've said. A gaming PC does not NEED a £500 GPU at all, I've got a £230 GTX 1060 6GB and it flies at 1920x1200 resolution, there isn't a single game I've tried yet that it has any problems with. The rest of my PC, with the exception of the two SSDs, is now over 6 years old; a Core i7 2600 with 12GB of RAM and it's been the best PC I've ever owned. 10+ years ago, the idea of using the same base machine for gaming for that long was unheard of, and I'd have probably been through a couple of substantial upgrades in that time.

The rift between PC and console performance/visuals has certainly closed, but the gap in performance between hardware generations has also shrunk so there's absolutely no need to be upgrading every two years unless you simply have to have the best there is and will accept nothing but maximum settings in all games (in which case console gaming is going to be a crushing disappointment).
 
Last edited:
TheVoice said:
I personally can't see the appeal of an Xbox One if you have a gaming PC, there aren't enough exclusives to make it worthwhile.
Click to expand...

This. All Xbox exclusives get released on PC anyway so it seems pointless getting an Xbox. Unless you just like the idea of sitting on a sofa to play games( which is why I game on console).
 
As cool as an XB1X is... the PC does what the Xbox does and more. Plus you already have an Xbox One anyway, so with Microsoft play anywhere you can play games on both. A PC will also play 4k content easily too, only trouble is getting the content. A shame, but the obvious choice here is to keep on with the PC.

Your £450 budget is easy sorted, this is just an example, but there are other options.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £435.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​

Best bang for buck Ryzen 5 processor, lightning fast RAM to go with it, decent motherboard and a reasonable capacity SSD.

Not much point in upgrading something else, GPUs are terribly priced at this time and would probably be bottlenecked by your CPU. A good CPU and RAM upgrade like this one will ensure you can keep at 60fps and also goes a long way in a few of those CPU bound games like GTA 5.

There's nothing to say you can't hook your PC up to the TV either for couch gaming there (though you might need a wireless mouse and keyboard).
 
theone8181 said:
PC parts have defiantly gotten cheaper over the years.
Click to expand...
They really haven't tho. Compare with the last time I built a PC in 2012.

In the CPU space prices have remained the same or gone up slightly.
RAM has gone up dramatically, something like +100%.
GPU prices - need I say more? (Thanks, miners)
Mobo prices - about the same.
SSD prices - gone up along with memory.

Now let me say something else. The mid-range prices have stayed about the same but performance has also stagnated. The perf from a £250 GPU has been the same for the last 3 years at least. CPU perf has stagnated so badly that many are still using 5-6 year old CPUs.

The top-end has got more expensive, probably by at least +50%. We now have £800 Ti cards and £2700 Titan cards. Back in 2004 (I know, an eternity, right?) nV's top-of-the-range offering was <£400. The 2nd top card was £250 (I had one).

Saying that PC prices have steadily got cheaper is just plain wrong no matter what way you look at it. They dipped in the early 2000s, but in the last 3-5 years prices have been increasing not decreasing. Anybody can see that.
 
GPU's have gone crazy, Nvidia in particular is really pushing the limits of what they can get people to pay. They've been laughing since the Titan really, bet they never dreamed so many people would pay those sort of prices.

Second hand components is the best way to get bang for buck. I still have a pretty powerful PC (not 4k but plays well at 2560 x 1080) and even though I keep buying games in sales I never seem to play them. Always something needs updating (looking at you Windows 10) or have to faff around with resolutions when I want to play on the TV. I'm still new to the PS4 but I'm really enjoying the fact I can just start a game and then pause, put it in rest mode and the next day resume straight away again. If they could just make the PSN games cheaper then I'd never have to get up to put the damn disc in :p
 
MonkeyMan said:
I'm still new to the PS4 but I'm really enjoying the fact I can just start a game and then pause, put it in rest mode and the next day resume straight away again. If they could just make the PSN games cheaper then I'd never have to get up to put the damn disc in :p
Click to expand...

Wait for the sales - they are regular on the Playstation Store and have some cracking deals. You get further discounts (and free games) if you are a PS+ subscriber.

I don't buy physical copies of games anymore - I just buy during the sales. But then I'm happy to wait a while for new releases to drop in price.
 
Yeah it’s nothing like the old days when every game cost £40 minimum. Even retail shops like Game have rows of games knocked down in price and some of the PSN sales are incredible. I’ve got games that are £40+ on release for under a fiver on there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom