How much WILL you pay for a graphics card?

[xPETEZx]

In proportional terms I don't think there's a huge amount of difference. Top end consoles used to cost half what they do now.
I don't know when you started out but if you go back 25-30 years, top end PCs were genuinely expensive if you consider their shelf life. Nowadays, you can buy a PC and run it for 3+ years. Back then, you were essentially forced into upgrading. CD-ROM drive because games were coming on cd. Bigger disk drive so you can install CD games. Soundcard so you can play cd audio. 3d graphics accelerator to enjoy new games. RAM upgrade. Another 3d gfx card because the old one can't handle new games 18 months later. CPU and Mobo (and possibly RAM/Case/PSU) because you are now bottlenecked on new GPU. Modem so you can go online. CD burner so you can burn all the stuff you downloaded. New monitor to replace that dodgy 14" CRT. Etc etc.

I started out with Win 95 / Pentium 1 PC. I remember getting my first 3D accelerator to play incoming.
Friends had SNES / N64 and Playstations. My parents bought that PC, so I dont know the cost exactly.
I cant remember costs of consoles back then either.

But even going back to 'last gen'. A PS4 cost £350 at launch. The PC I build in Dec 2014 cost me about £900. So just over 2x the cost of a PS4.
A PS5 costs £450, and a similar PC is gonna cost at least £1500 if you can get the GPU at MSRP. Closer to £2k if your getting AIB. Thats between 3x and 4x the cost.

 

[Haggisman]

But even going back to 'last gen'. A PS4 cost £350 at launch. The PC I build in Dec 2014 cost me about £900. So just over 2x the cost of a PS4.
A PS5 costs £450, and a similar PC is gonna cost at least £1500 if you can get the GPU at MSRP. Closer to £2k if your getting AIB. Thats between 3x and 4x the cost.

The problem with these sort of comparisons is that they are too oversimplified. Yes, looking at it in isolation, buying a completely new PC is far more expensive than a console, but there are other things to take into account.

You don't need to upgrade your entire PC every generation, the case, cooling, storage, PSU etc. will often last 2-3 generations, and even the motherboard/CPU/RAM will tend to last through 2-3 GPU upgrades. My son's PC is still running an i7 2600 + board and RAM to match, which must be going on 10 years old now (e.g. PS3 era), and with a modern GPU is still capable of running all new games at high settings - ignoring the current situation, sticking something like a 3060ti or 6700XT in there for £4-500 and you're very close to the console cost. You don't get that kind of flexibility with a console - you have to buy the whole thing.

Cost of games - particularly with more and more console games going digital, building up a decent library is significantly more expensive than on PC, and you lose most of it with each new gen.

Most (although granted this is reducing due to prevalence phones & tablets) of households have need of a PC/laptop anyway - you cant use a console to WFH, do homework, job search etc., so take off the cost of that since it would no longer be needed.

 

[FoxEye]

As much as I bulk as the idea of having to pay £500+ for a graphics card it may help to put it into context that a iPhone 12 Pro Max costs £1,100 and has a fraction of the compute power a modern GPU. Granted this is comparing Apples and Oranges but both are essentially just compute devices all be one fits into your pocket.

My Nokia 5.3 phone cost £150. It's more than good enough.

iPhones are a joke, no? A joke upon people who must buy Apple products.

 

[DeliciousStorage]

Any PC I buy, I've instantly got access to thousands of hours of gaming in my Steam library, whereas you buy a new console and none of your old games will work on it (other than the few which are cross-buy)

You realize that both PS5 and XSX have full compatibility with last gen games right? Granted not all of them will get a patch to take advantage of the new hardware, but most of the popular games do, and at the very least you will benefit from more stable frame rates.

 

[xPETEZx]

The problem with these sort of comparisons is that they are too oversimplified. Yes, looking at it in isolation, buying a completely new PC is far more expensive than a console, but there are other things to take into account.

You don't need to upgrade your entire PC every generation, the case, cooling, storage, PSU etc. will often last 2-3 generations, and even the motherboard/CPU/RAM will tend to last through 2-3 GPU upgrades. My son's PC is still running an i7 2600 + board and RAM to match, which must be going on 10 years old now (e.g. PS3 era), and with a modern GPU is still capable of running all new games at high settings - ignoring the current situation, sticking something like a 3060ti or 6700XT in there for £4-500 and you're very close to the console cost. You don't get that kind of flexibility with a console - you have to buy the whole thing.

Cost of games - particularly with more and more console games going digital, building up a decent library is significantly more expensive than on PC, and you lose most of it with each new gen.

Most (although granted this is reducing due to prevalence phones & tablets) of households have need of a PC/laptop anyway - you cant use a console to WFH, do homework, job search etc., so take off the cost of that since it would no longer be needed.

I am not sure. With my PC(s) pre my 2014 build, I was upgrading piece meal all the time. New GPU, then new RAM/CPU/Board, then another new GPU.
The case was all that was constant. Even the PSU needed upgrading. (I ran crossfire GPUs at one point)
So yes.... in that case the 'upgrade' cost was lower.
For the 2014 build I wanted a clean slate. Everything was new, except a DVD drive and 1 SSD.
All I upgraded in the 6 years I used it was the SSDs for more spare.

When it came to build my new rig last December, there really wasnt anything I could re-use.
I was going to need a bigger case as I wanted to have USB-C and go back to ATX from mATX.
I needed a new PSU as 30-sieres cards just draw more power than my old one would provide.


So yea, it is possible to do incremental upgrades, but its not always a given.
Never know what new power requirements might be.


And saying all that.... look how long a console lasts. PS4 lasted 7years. So thats technically a + for them.

Of course the PC can do more. But as you said... now more than ever people probably dont NEED a PC or laptop. Tablets and smart phones can do a lot of the day-to-day.

 

[Haggisman]

I am not sure. With my PC(s) pre my 2014 build, I was upgrading piece meal all the time. New GPU, then new RAM/CPU/Board, then another new GPU.
The case was all that was constant. Even the PSU needed upgrading. (I ran crossfire GPUs at one point)
So yes.... in that case the 'upgrade' cost was lower.
For the 2014 build I wanted a clean slate. Everything was new, except a DVD drive and 1 SSD.
All I upgraded in the 6 years I used it was the SSDs for more spare.

When it came to build my new rig last December, there really wasnt anything I could re-use.
I was going to need a bigger case as I wanted to have USB-C and go back to ATX from mATX.
I needed a new PSU as 30-sieres cards just draw more power than my old one would provide.


So yea, it is possible to do incremental upgrades, but its not always a given.
Never know what new power requirements might be.


And saying all that.... look how long a console lasts. PS4 lasted 7years. So thats technically a + for them.

Of course the PC can do more. But as you said... now more than ever people probably dont NEED a PC or laptop. Tablets and smart phones can do a lot of the day-to-day.

All true - I guess it depend on personal circumstances. I need a relatively powerful PC for work anyway, so with the choice being an extra £500 for a gaming GPU over a low end one, or an extra £400 for a console, it was a relatively easy one to make given all the extra benefits!

You realize that both PS5 and XSX have full compatibility with last gen games right? Granted not all of them will get a patch to take advantage of the new hardware, but most of the popular games do, and at the very least you will benefit from more stable frame rates.

So you can put your PS3 and PS4 discs in the PS5 (and likewise for the xbox) and they just work? Shows how much I know - the last console I had was a PS3, and for any "backwards compatibility" you had to buy the games again!

 

[xPETEZx]

All true - I guess it depend on personal circumstances. I need a relatively powerful PC for work anyway, so with the choice being an extra £500 for a gaming GPU over a low end one, or an extra £400 for a console, it was a relatively easy one to make given all the extra benefits!



So you can put your PS3 and PS4 discs in the PS5 (and likewise for the xbox) and they just work? Shows how much I know - the last console I had was a PS3, and for any "backwards compatibility" you had to buy the games again!

Well my point was more that it must be hard for a new kid to become a 'PC gamer' just on cost. Where when I made that 'choice' It was maybe 2x more to go PC, now its more like 3x or even 4x to make the same call.

PS5 can play PS4 games. Not PS3. That was a different architecture. PS4/5 are both x86 based.

 

[azazl187]

A grand for top of the range. Need those 3080tis to come down in price

 

[Haggisman]

Well my point was more that it must be hard for a new kid to become a 'PC gamer' just on cost. Where when I made that 'choice' It was maybe 2x more to go PC, now its more like 3x or even 4x to make the same call.

Ignoring the GPU, a midrange gaming PC (Ryzen 3600/16GB RAM/500GB SSD) will set you back ~£450-£500, which is pretty much the MSRP of the PS5.

So it hinges on what GPU do you need to get equivalent graphics? I'm guessing (happy to be corrected if wrong), that 4k on a PS5 is around the same as 4k medium on a PC? A quick bit of research suggests it's equivalent to a ~5700xt/2070 super, which are (in normal times) £4-500 GPUs. This is close to 2x cost, not the 3/4 you've suggested.

 

[CuriousTomCat]

Also don't you need to pay a £50 yearly subscription to play console games online? So £250 for 5 years. It's free on a PC.

 

[RBImGuy]

Ignoring the GPU, a midrange gaming PC (Ryzen 3600/16GB RAM/500GB SSD) will set you back ~£450-£500, which is pretty much the MSRP of the PS5.

So it hinges on what GPU do you need to get equivalent graphics? I'm guessing (happy to be corrected if wrong), that 4k on a PS5 is around the same as 4k medium on a PC? A quick bit of research suggests it's equivalent to a ~5700xt/2070 super, which are (in normal times) £4-500 GPUs. This is close to 2x cost, not the 3/4 you've suggested.

basically you can still buy ssd,mboard, cpu, ram for the same price a decent gpu used to cost.
I have yet to replace my vega56 due to one it plays all games I play at 1440p and the prices to upgrade are double what they should cost.
so in my case, I wait for 2022 and whenever prices drops a lot before I may need an upgrade.
and my idea is a 400euro or so for an upgrade which is far away atm in current market

 

[DeliciousStorage]

So you can put your PS3 and PS4 discs in the PS5 (and likewise for the xbox) and they just work? Shows how much I know - the last console I had was a PS3, and for any "backwards compatibility" you had to buy the games again!

Not for PS3 games as it had a different architecture, though I think XSX has some limited compatibility with 360 games via software. PS4 discs work just fine though, or in my case with the digital edition I just plug my external SSD into the PS5 and they are all there.

Also don't you need to pay a £50 yearly subscription to play console games online? So £250 for 5 years. It's free on a PC.

IIRC it's around £32 if you renew it when it's on offer, and you get a ridiculous number of (usually decent) games that easily make it worth it.

 

[harmattan]

£700 incl. VAT is the absolute most I'll pay for a card, and it's gotta be a "flagship" GPU not midrange e.g. 3080. I'll never pay a red cent more than that. And I'm not mining to recoupe cost, that's ridiculous. I mined back in 2012-14 for fun, the minute it became a chore and low ROI I had no interest.

For me, video cards are a way to play video games (and have some minor fun tweaking). Far too many activities/hobbies out there waiting in the wings if the cost-to-fun ratio is not there with video cards.

 

[KiNgPiN83]

I paid £550 for my 1080 in 2017 and that pained me... So I'm going to say £500 for its replacement.

 

[bonusssi]

Wouldn't eating Dominos and McDonalds all month be VERY expensive?

I was spending 50-60£ weekly on it...so 1 month is like 250£ easily...

 

[Purgatory]

Depends on the prices at the time and how much I need the upgrade. Reality is msrp has become meaningless and used as a PR stunt and passing the blame for silly prices to the AIBs. So for me depending on the gpu at the time and the price to performance gains I will get by upgrading. Really no more than msrp but reality is not that simple, what if msrp is insane? It will mean I will wait till next generation and see and if by then same madness I will be buying second hand if I can find a good upgrade at the price.

My normal max price was £500-650 but that went out of the window many generations back. Now the gpu makers want us to pay £1k+ for an upgrade that is worth upgrading to. So I will be holding on to my cards longer now before upgrading again.

 

[lovelyhead]

I don't think I would be willing to spend any money on a new GPU. I used to have a 6800 but sold it to CEX and used the profit to buy an Xbox Series X.

The Series X is an overall superior experience to the 6800 / Ryzen 3600 system I was running previously. I would need to upgrade my motherboard, cpu and GPU to exceed the series x in most (but not all) performance aspects. It would probably cost me about £850 to upgrade (assuming MSRP prices).

I stuck a £10 Nvidia quadro into my PC to make it functional and my plan is to stick with the Xbox and will save any money I might have spent on a gpu and put it towards any mid gen refresh of the Xbox if one comes along.

PC gaming is pretty much dead to me now thanks to ridiculous GPU pricing and availability.

 

[chemb]

I spent £1350 on my Gainward 3080ti from a competitor. Within a week it was £100 more. That was about 3 weeks ago. I was replacing a GTX 780 3gb. I tend to keep my components as long as possible so I'm hoping the new one will last me 10 years like the 780 but I doubt it. That works out as almost £10/month which I could justify.

 

[Smokey26]

People trying to justify PC gaming as not that expensive compared to consoles. Lols.

I want a 3080 but I'm not paying the daft prices that there still at. I'd probably pay 800 max. I've just got a PS5 and new TV so really no need to. Also don't know of any PC games I want coming soon, other than dying light 2. Was going to get resident evil 8 but I think ill get it on ps5.

 

[Scougar]

I would have said utterly 500 max previously, but now I'll pay upto 1000 and only MSRP or extremely close to it and only if the wife agrees lol.