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Build A Gaming PC – Console Price, Superior Performance
Looking to step into the realm of PC Gaming?
Need assistance in component choice?
Don't want to break the budget but break the console limitations?
"Oh, you think consoles are your ally, you merely adopted poor framerates. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see 60 frames-per-second until I was already a man; by then it was nothing to me but blinding! The High-Definition textures betray you, because they belong to me." (Guess my movie influence here)
This guide is intended to help those looking to get into PC Gaming, coming from the restricted world of consoles. This guide will dispel the myths of the PC platform such as price, performance & console advantages – providing a list of components adequate for building a Gaming PC equal if not greater than a game console, at a similar price.
(Noob Friendly)
History: Consoles Vs Gaming PCs
Since the release of Sony's PlayStation 4 & Microsoft's Xbox One game consoles, there's been a great deal of the gaming audience making a switch to the PC platform. While the benefits are clear & everybody knows the pros & cons, many still remain unconvinced – uneducated, that the PC is more expensive, more troubling & less convenient than a game console.
Around 3 years ago, roughly around the time of the console's launch dates, PCPerspective (Technology News Coverage Website For PC Enthusiasts)wrote an interesting article detailing the cost, technical make-up & the shortfalls of the latest game consoles. Noted in the article was the common misconception that gaming PCs can't be built for the same price of an equivalently spec'd game console. The article goes on to detail that the entry price that gamers have is in-fact cheaper. But when taking into account the online-gaming fees and higher game prices, which then translate to a visual sacrifice & less than optimal performance that the machines have to offer, not only are the consoles more expensive in the long run, but they also provide a limited experience.
Written within the article is a subject on pricing:"You cannot build an equivalent gaming PC for what I can get a console for." My response has been, "Correct and neither can Sony or Microsoft; they are bleeding to gouge you later. Add up those license fees and PC gaming is often cheaper."
3 years later & that fact still remains true. The primary benefits of prior gaming consoles have always been a lower entry price, graphical fidelity on-par if not better than an equivalently spec'd gaming PC, & ease-of-use configuration. Simply plug the console in & put in the disc. In the modern age however, these things no longer apply. Prior consoles had the advantage of custom hardware, powerful hardware & an easy to program system architecture – due to software & hardware accessibility being much deeper than a PC operating system. To put it simply – they were designed to play games. As a result, games continued to look visually better over the years as developers learned more about the hardware & what it was capable of.
The Shift
With modern consoles now equipped with standard, off-the-shelf PC hardware, that's been designed & programmed to run games on the same X86 architecture that PC's have been using for the past 20+ years – when combined with hardware that's not cutting-edge – but rather on-par to an entry-level gaming PC, the results become clear as to what kind of experience these systems can provide when stacked up against an equivalently priced PC that provides the same technical performance.
That software & hardware advantage, that's gone. Developers learning the ins & outs for what these machines are capable of – they're just PC's, that's gone too. That low-entry price that seems friendly at first yet makes no sense in the long run, that's gone. The ease-of-use for games being playable on the day of their release, unlike prior PC games which required troubleshooting due to the large variety of PC configurations that the game has to be able run on – that's gone. Patches, sub-par performance, less-visual fidelity. Modern-day game consoles have effectively become what gaming PCs were 7 years ago.
PC gaming has gone the opposite route – becoming more trouble-free, user-friendly, & more technically streamlined towards gaming. And this is down to graphics card manufacturers such as AMD & Nvidia creating extremely powerful GPUs, paired with exceptional driver support – forcing game developers to wake up & take note of the power that's offered by the PC platform. Are there still problems on the PC? Yes. The difference between console problems & PC problems are down to the solutions being applied to fix them. Console gamers are held hostage to the will of platform holders & game developers releasing patches. PC gamers face the same issue too but they also have a stronger & more vocal community who are willing to put in the time & fix the games themselves – pushing the developers to speed up the process.
Where console games often face the unfortunate fate of their games never being efficiently fixed, PC gamers can still rely on their community, fix the games themselves, and last but not least – scale the graphical settings of their games in order to accommodate their hardware & the development problems the game has been throguh. Situations which come to mind include: Assassin's Creed: Unity, The Witcher 3, Homefront: Revolution, Just Cause 3, Watchdogs, Batman: Arkham Knight, & Dying Light – all of which suffer from severe performance issues running below 30 frames-per-second at a visual quality that should be no problem whatsoever for not only high-end hardware, but those less than capable. PC games do face the same problems but stated as previously, PC gamers are more vocal, meaning these issues stand out more, while console gamers just accept it.
Proving difficult to build a PC that's equivalent to a game console is an obvious one. Taking into account that console manufacturers place orders for their hardware in bulk – often leading to discounts with a build price that's initially higher for them at the start but recuperated through the profits of higher game sales, then the argument for building a PC that can rival it falls flat on its face.
With PC graphics cards falling in price every year yet doubling in performance then it's easy to see why consoles will never hold a performance advantage ever again. – As clearly predicted by game studio Crytek's boss –Cevat Yerli, during an interview with Eurogamer back in 2013. "We used Moore's Law," he said. "If you predict how hardware evolves at the current speed of evolution, and then take consumer pricing evolution, already two years ago you could see, whatever launches in 2013 or 2014 or 2015, will never beat a PC again.
The Competition
Sony's PlayStation 4 successor is said to arrive by the end of 2016, the PS4 Pro. It's been designed to co-exist alongside the current PlayStation 4 model while delivering higher resolution variants & improved performance of current games – thanks to it's improved graphics chip & overclocked processor. PS$ Pr, Roughly on par with AMD's RX 470 which retails for around £200, the current PS4 model falls short of AMD's R9 270 & even gets beat in some instances by Nvidia's lower spec'd GTX 750TI. The new console is said to retail for £349 - identical to the launch price of the PlayStation 4.
The question still remains. Can you build an equivalently priced gaming PC that delivers the same technical performance of a console?
The answer is yes. Taking into account the "build cost" rather than "purchase cost" then it is indeed possible. Console manufacturers pay more for the build cost than the consumer's buying cost. Taking a look to the specifications of each current-generation console, the Xbox One & the PS4 both use 8-Core AMD Jaguar APUs designed for laptops. This means their power requirement is much lower and as a result so to is there performance. With a CPU speed rating of 1.6GHZ & 1.7Ghz respectively, and a GPU spec rating that equals the AMD Radeon 7790 & the 7850, building a PC rival isn't do difficult. But how about the PS4 Pro? Is this the specification that console gamers should be targeting when looking to a build an equivalently priced PC? Can it be done?
Using a £400 starting price point, something close to the likely build price of the console, this build guide will rival if not perform better than the upcoming PlayStation 4 Pro – giving those who wish to get into the world of PC gaming a great starting point, also proving that PC gaming doesn't have to have an expensive entry price, while dismissing some of the myths of the platform.
The Build
CPU
AMD Athlon X4 880K Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket FM2+) Kaveri Quad Core Processor (AD880KXBJCSBX) @ £81.95 inc VAT
Providing 4-Cores with a speed rating of 4.00Ghz, while the core count may be lower than the 8-Core processor in consoles, this is a desktop part - not a low-power mobile component. This means the improved clock speed and power requirement outpaces those in game consoles. This allows the CPU to perform instructions at a much greater speed, giving the GPU all that it needs to perform more efficiently & deliver higher frame rates. – PS4 Pro may have improved clock speeds from its predecessor – 1.6Ghz to 2.00Ghz, but the console still remains bottlenecked, meaning it's not quite fast enough to feed its improved GPU.
GPU
HIS Radeon RX 470 X2 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card @ £179.99 inc VAT
Providing 2048 processing cores clocked at 1216MHz, a memory speed rating of 7000Mhz, & 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM, the RX 470 rivals the GPU said to be featured in the upcoming console while improving on clock speed and its TeraFlop rating. – Think of TeraFlops as a general rating for performance. PS4 Pro : 4.2 TFLOPs. RX 470: 4.9 TFLOPs.
RAM
Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Channel Kit (HX313C9F/8) @ £44.99 inc VAT
8GB of RAM is commonly accepted as the standard for gaming PCs, with the PS4 Pro containing 8GB of GDDR5 RAM which is shared between the the GPU and the CPU, the benefits of shared RAM are clear. While this RAM provides faster access between the two components which are already combined onto one chip (APU), general bandwidth becomes restrained. PS4 PRO may have access to 8GB of VRAM but it doesn't have anywhere near the raw horse power of its GPU to take advantage of it all. The RX 470 has more than enough VRAM required by modern games at the desired visual settings & performance that the PC will deliver. The 8GB of system RAM the PC has proves more than adequate for transporting data – free from bottlenecks.
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 AMD A68 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard @ £44.99 inc VAT
All gamers need to know about the motherboard is the form-factor & the socket type. This motherboard has a M-ATX form-factor, meaning it's physical size is only suited for PC cases that support M-ATX. The motherboard is spec'd as a FM2+ socket, the processor is a FM2+ socket, this means instant compatibility. While there are advance features on motherboards for users to choose from, as far as gaming goes and support for the required components -RAM, graphics cards & processors, the socket type is what gamers should be looking at.
Power Supply
Kolink KL-500 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply @ £32.99 inc VAT
Delivering 500W of 80 Plus Bronze efficient rating, this PSU provides more than enough power for the system components. All gamers need to know when choosing a PSU is the physical size – ATX in the case of this PSU, the amount of wattage it can provide – 500W, & to make sure it holds an "80 Plus" rating. This rating means it has been approved to perform efficiently and is safe for use. As the system uses nowhere near the 500 watts the PSU can provide, those wish to upgrade to an additional graphics card in the future may do so. When shopping for a power supply it's best to make sure that it contains a 6+2 pin connector. This connector is what the graphics card requires for power & with most graphics cards requiring two connectors, & the majority of power supplies already providing two connectors – compatibility is already a guarantee.
PC Chassis
Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black @ £26.99 inc VAT
Instant support for M-ATX motherboards, 2 expansion slots for graphics card compatibility, and an ATX form-factor PSU support. While cooling options and storage quantity are also to be considered, the basics retain to motherboard support and clearance for the length of graphics card – which this case provides.
Storage Solutions
Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100) @ £42.95 inc VAT
While an SSD is now considered the norm in PC Gaming, many users still use mechanical hard drives as the price to storage benefits can not yet be matched by an SSD. Sure the SSD is faster and yes it provides a noticeable benefit, but given the aim of this build is to match if not beat the technical specifications of the game consoles – which rely on hard drives themselves, then the choice for a larger storage solution becomes instantly clear. As the nature of PC Gaming provides upgradability & expandability, users may choose to do so at a later date – adding more storage and faster storage without depending on console manufacturers to integrate this into their next consoles.
Mouse & Keyboard
Cougar 200M Optical Gaming Mouse - Black @ £14.99 inc VAT
MARS Gaming Hades MKHA0 Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout @ £12.95 inc VAT
Gaming peripherals will always be subjective & while there are more expensive options to choose from, the aim of this intended build is to deliver a technical performance spec equal or greater than consoles, leaving this choice of peripherals to be adequate – not fantastic. Should users choose to use a gamepad then the choices greatly exceed those offered by a console. Xbox gamepads natively support the PC platform, & PlayStation 4 Dualshock controllers are starting to receive support. In the case that users decide to use a gamepad that's not officially supported then there is software available to provide the much needed support.
Total Price - Overclockers UK
£454. (Current cost at the time of writing, prices will change & update accordingly while still remaining of a similar price)
While this price may exceed that of a game console, it's based upon build price, not the selling price. Game console manufacturers sell at a loss, this build is open to upgradability – rivalling the initial build price of a game console. But what about the display? Consoles don't come with a display, why should your PC? PCs can plug into just about everything. Got a TV? There's your display. PCs don't need a monitor. Are they better for image quality, response times & size selection? Yes. Use a monitor, use a TV – PC has no restrictions. A common question that is asked for PC builds that aim to match consoles is why the operating system isn't included within the price. This is down to user preference. Should users choose to go with Windows 10 which is the most sensible choice then the price will indeed exceed, roughly £550. When looking at the console game pricing model which can be twice as much as the same PC version of that game & online-multiplayer fees, then the initial console entry-price can be higher & will continue to increase over the long run.
Initial PC Setup
In order to make the ease-of-use go a lot more efficiently, the following is recommended. Download Steam – The ultimate game distribution store. With game prices being much less than a console for the exact same game and occasional sales taking game prices down as much as 95%, the reasoning for cheaper games is down to the open platform of the PC. Consoles have a game taxing fee in order to sell on the platform, the PC does not. Not only does the PC provide cheaper games which can be played at higher resolutions, increased graphical fidelity & higher framerates, the PC doesn't face backwards-compatibility issues which console gamers face when making the transition from one platform to the next. Once the game is installed it will always work. There is no backwards-compatibility because compatibility will always remain. Once signed up with Steam, users can enable Big Picture Mode which allows the PC to boot directly into Steam's console-esque user-interface – navigational with a gamepad. Highly recommended in order for users to maximise their performance & be free from Windows 10 notifications would be to disable all updates, reminders & sleep mode. As well as uninstalling the default applications shipped with Windows 10 – Translator, Get Started, Feedback Hub, Get Office, 3D Builder, Paid WiFi & Mobile, & Skype Preview.
For those who do not wish to build their own Gaming PC but would still like to join the team, there are pre-built configurations available – at variable price points & performance.
Overclockers UK provide such solutions. Visit the store page for more information: Overclockers UK
Looking to step into the realm of PC Gaming?
Need assistance in component choice?
Don't want to break the budget but break the console limitations?
"Oh, you think consoles are your ally, you merely adopted poor framerates. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see 60 frames-per-second until I was already a man; by then it was nothing to me but blinding! The High-Definition textures betray you, because they belong to me." (Guess my movie influence here)
This guide is intended to help those looking to get into PC Gaming, coming from the restricted world of consoles. This guide will dispel the myths of the PC platform such as price, performance & console advantages – providing a list of components adequate for building a Gaming PC equal if not greater than a game console, at a similar price.
(Noob Friendly)
History: Consoles Vs Gaming PCs
Since the release of Sony's PlayStation 4 & Microsoft's Xbox One game consoles, there's been a great deal of the gaming audience making a switch to the PC platform. While the benefits are clear & everybody knows the pros & cons, many still remain unconvinced – uneducated, that the PC is more expensive, more troubling & less convenient than a game console.
Around 3 years ago, roughly around the time of the console's launch dates, PCPerspective (Technology News Coverage Website For PC Enthusiasts)wrote an interesting article detailing the cost, technical make-up & the shortfalls of the latest game consoles. Noted in the article was the common misconception that gaming PCs can't be built for the same price of an equivalently spec'd game console. The article goes on to detail that the entry price that gamers have is in-fact cheaper. But when taking into account the online-gaming fees and higher game prices, which then translate to a visual sacrifice & less than optimal performance that the machines have to offer, not only are the consoles more expensive in the long run, but they also provide a limited experience.
Written within the article is a subject on pricing:"You cannot build an equivalent gaming PC for what I can get a console for." My response has been, "Correct and neither can Sony or Microsoft; they are bleeding to gouge you later. Add up those license fees and PC gaming is often cheaper."
3 years later & that fact still remains true. The primary benefits of prior gaming consoles have always been a lower entry price, graphical fidelity on-par if not better than an equivalently spec'd gaming PC, & ease-of-use configuration. Simply plug the console in & put in the disc. In the modern age however, these things no longer apply. Prior consoles had the advantage of custom hardware, powerful hardware & an easy to program system architecture – due to software & hardware accessibility being much deeper than a PC operating system. To put it simply – they were designed to play games. As a result, games continued to look visually better over the years as developers learned more about the hardware & what it was capable of.
The Shift
With modern consoles now equipped with standard, off-the-shelf PC hardware, that's been designed & programmed to run games on the same X86 architecture that PC's have been using for the past 20+ years – when combined with hardware that's not cutting-edge – but rather on-par to an entry-level gaming PC, the results become clear as to what kind of experience these systems can provide when stacked up against an equivalently priced PC that provides the same technical performance.
That software & hardware advantage, that's gone. Developers learning the ins & outs for what these machines are capable of – they're just PC's, that's gone too. That low-entry price that seems friendly at first yet makes no sense in the long run, that's gone. The ease-of-use for games being playable on the day of their release, unlike prior PC games which required troubleshooting due to the large variety of PC configurations that the game has to be able run on – that's gone. Patches, sub-par performance, less-visual fidelity. Modern-day game consoles have effectively become what gaming PCs were 7 years ago.
PC gaming has gone the opposite route – becoming more trouble-free, user-friendly, & more technically streamlined towards gaming. And this is down to graphics card manufacturers such as AMD & Nvidia creating extremely powerful GPUs, paired with exceptional driver support – forcing game developers to wake up & take note of the power that's offered by the PC platform. Are there still problems on the PC? Yes. The difference between console problems & PC problems are down to the solutions being applied to fix them. Console gamers are held hostage to the will of platform holders & game developers releasing patches. PC gamers face the same issue too but they also have a stronger & more vocal community who are willing to put in the time & fix the games themselves – pushing the developers to speed up the process.
Where console games often face the unfortunate fate of their games never being efficiently fixed, PC gamers can still rely on their community, fix the games themselves, and last but not least – scale the graphical settings of their games in order to accommodate their hardware & the development problems the game has been throguh. Situations which come to mind include: Assassin's Creed: Unity, The Witcher 3, Homefront: Revolution, Just Cause 3, Watchdogs, Batman: Arkham Knight, & Dying Light – all of which suffer from severe performance issues running below 30 frames-per-second at a visual quality that should be no problem whatsoever for not only high-end hardware, but those less than capable. PC games do face the same problems but stated as previously, PC gamers are more vocal, meaning these issues stand out more, while console gamers just accept it.
Proving difficult to build a PC that's equivalent to a game console is an obvious one. Taking into account that console manufacturers place orders for their hardware in bulk – often leading to discounts with a build price that's initially higher for them at the start but recuperated through the profits of higher game sales, then the argument for building a PC that can rival it falls flat on its face.
With PC graphics cards falling in price every year yet doubling in performance then it's easy to see why consoles will never hold a performance advantage ever again. – As clearly predicted by game studio Crytek's boss –Cevat Yerli, during an interview with Eurogamer back in 2013. "We used Moore's Law," he said. "If you predict how hardware evolves at the current speed of evolution, and then take consumer pricing evolution, already two years ago you could see, whatever launches in 2013 or 2014 or 2015, will never beat a PC again.
The Competition
Sony's PlayStation 4 successor is said to arrive by the end of 2016, the PS4 Pro. It's been designed to co-exist alongside the current PlayStation 4 model while delivering higher resolution variants & improved performance of current games – thanks to it's improved graphics chip & overclocked processor. PS$ Pr, Roughly on par with AMD's RX 470 which retails for around £200, the current PS4 model falls short of AMD's R9 270 & even gets beat in some instances by Nvidia's lower spec'd GTX 750TI. The new console is said to retail for £349 - identical to the launch price of the PlayStation 4.
The question still remains. Can you build an equivalently priced gaming PC that delivers the same technical performance of a console?
The answer is yes. Taking into account the "build cost" rather than "purchase cost" then it is indeed possible. Console manufacturers pay more for the build cost than the consumer's buying cost. Taking a look to the specifications of each current-generation console, the Xbox One & the PS4 both use 8-Core AMD Jaguar APUs designed for laptops. This means their power requirement is much lower and as a result so to is there performance. With a CPU speed rating of 1.6GHZ & 1.7Ghz respectively, and a GPU spec rating that equals the AMD Radeon 7790 & the 7850, building a PC rival isn't do difficult. But how about the PS4 Pro? Is this the specification that console gamers should be targeting when looking to a build an equivalently priced PC? Can it be done?
Using a £400 starting price point, something close to the likely build price of the console, this build guide will rival if not perform better than the upcoming PlayStation 4 Pro – giving those who wish to get into the world of PC gaming a great starting point, also proving that PC gaming doesn't have to have an expensive entry price, while dismissing some of the myths of the platform.
The Build
CPU
AMD Athlon X4 880K Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket FM2+) Kaveri Quad Core Processor (AD880KXBJCSBX) @ £81.95 inc VAT
Providing 4-Cores with a speed rating of 4.00Ghz, while the core count may be lower than the 8-Core processor in consoles, this is a desktop part - not a low-power mobile component. This means the improved clock speed and power requirement outpaces those in game consoles. This allows the CPU to perform instructions at a much greater speed, giving the GPU all that it needs to perform more efficiently & deliver higher frame rates. – PS4 Pro may have improved clock speeds from its predecessor – 1.6Ghz to 2.00Ghz, but the console still remains bottlenecked, meaning it's not quite fast enough to feed its improved GPU.
GPU
HIS Radeon RX 470 X2 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card @ £179.99 inc VAT
Providing 2048 processing cores clocked at 1216MHz, a memory speed rating of 7000Mhz, & 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM, the RX 470 rivals the GPU said to be featured in the upcoming console while improving on clock speed and its TeraFlop rating. – Think of TeraFlops as a general rating for performance. PS4 Pro : 4.2 TFLOPs. RX 470: 4.9 TFLOPs.
RAM
Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Channel Kit (HX313C9F/8) @ £44.99 inc VAT
8GB of RAM is commonly accepted as the standard for gaming PCs, with the PS4 Pro containing 8GB of GDDR5 RAM which is shared between the the GPU and the CPU, the benefits of shared RAM are clear. While this RAM provides faster access between the two components which are already combined onto one chip (APU), general bandwidth becomes restrained. PS4 PRO may have access to 8GB of VRAM but it doesn't have anywhere near the raw horse power of its GPU to take advantage of it all. The RX 470 has more than enough VRAM required by modern games at the desired visual settings & performance that the PC will deliver. The 8GB of system RAM the PC has proves more than adequate for transporting data – free from bottlenecks.
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-F2A68HM-HD2 AMD A68 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard @ £44.99 inc VAT
All gamers need to know about the motherboard is the form-factor & the socket type. This motherboard has a M-ATX form-factor, meaning it's physical size is only suited for PC cases that support M-ATX. The motherboard is spec'd as a FM2+ socket, the processor is a FM2+ socket, this means instant compatibility. While there are advance features on motherboards for users to choose from, as far as gaming goes and support for the required components -RAM, graphics cards & processors, the socket type is what gamers should be looking at.
Power Supply
Kolink KL-500 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply @ £32.99 inc VAT
Delivering 500W of 80 Plus Bronze efficient rating, this PSU provides more than enough power for the system components. All gamers need to know when choosing a PSU is the physical size – ATX in the case of this PSU, the amount of wattage it can provide – 500W, & to make sure it holds an "80 Plus" rating. This rating means it has been approved to perform efficiently and is safe for use. As the system uses nowhere near the 500 watts the PSU can provide, those wish to upgrade to an additional graphics card in the future may do so. When shopping for a power supply it's best to make sure that it contains a 6+2 pin connector. This connector is what the graphics card requires for power & with most graphics cards requiring two connectors, & the majority of power supplies already providing two connectors – compatibility is already a guarantee.
PC Chassis
Kolink Satellite Micro-ATX Cube Case - Black @ £26.99 inc VAT
Instant support for M-ATX motherboards, 2 expansion slots for graphics card compatibility, and an ATX form-factor PSU support. While cooling options and storage quantity are also to be considered, the basics retain to motherboard support and clearance for the length of graphics card – which this case provides.
Storage Solutions
Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache HDD - OEM (DT01ACA100) @ £42.95 inc VAT
While an SSD is now considered the norm in PC Gaming, many users still use mechanical hard drives as the price to storage benefits can not yet be matched by an SSD. Sure the SSD is faster and yes it provides a noticeable benefit, but given the aim of this build is to match if not beat the technical specifications of the game consoles – which rely on hard drives themselves, then the choice for a larger storage solution becomes instantly clear. As the nature of PC Gaming provides upgradability & expandability, users may choose to do so at a later date – adding more storage and faster storage without depending on console manufacturers to integrate this into their next consoles.
Mouse & Keyboard
Cougar 200M Optical Gaming Mouse - Black @ £14.99 inc VAT
MARS Gaming Hades MKHA0 Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout @ £12.95 inc VAT
Gaming peripherals will always be subjective & while there are more expensive options to choose from, the aim of this intended build is to deliver a technical performance spec equal or greater than consoles, leaving this choice of peripherals to be adequate – not fantastic. Should users choose to use a gamepad then the choices greatly exceed those offered by a console. Xbox gamepads natively support the PC platform, & PlayStation 4 Dualshock controllers are starting to receive support. In the case that users decide to use a gamepad that's not officially supported then there is software available to provide the much needed support.
Total Price - Overclockers UK
£454. (Current cost at the time of writing, prices will change & update accordingly while still remaining of a similar price)
While this price may exceed that of a game console, it's based upon build price, not the selling price. Game console manufacturers sell at a loss, this build is open to upgradability – rivalling the initial build price of a game console. But what about the display? Consoles don't come with a display, why should your PC? PCs can plug into just about everything. Got a TV? There's your display. PCs don't need a monitor. Are they better for image quality, response times & size selection? Yes. Use a monitor, use a TV – PC has no restrictions. A common question that is asked for PC builds that aim to match consoles is why the operating system isn't included within the price. This is down to user preference. Should users choose to go with Windows 10 which is the most sensible choice then the price will indeed exceed, roughly £550. When looking at the console game pricing model which can be twice as much as the same PC version of that game & online-multiplayer fees, then the initial console entry-price can be higher & will continue to increase over the long run.
Initial PC Setup
In order to make the ease-of-use go a lot more efficiently, the following is recommended. Download Steam – The ultimate game distribution store. With game prices being much less than a console for the exact same game and occasional sales taking game prices down as much as 95%, the reasoning for cheaper games is down to the open platform of the PC. Consoles have a game taxing fee in order to sell on the platform, the PC does not. Not only does the PC provide cheaper games which can be played at higher resolutions, increased graphical fidelity & higher framerates, the PC doesn't face backwards-compatibility issues which console gamers face when making the transition from one platform to the next. Once the game is installed it will always work. There is no backwards-compatibility because compatibility will always remain. Once signed up with Steam, users can enable Big Picture Mode which allows the PC to boot directly into Steam's console-esque user-interface – navigational with a gamepad. Highly recommended in order for users to maximise their performance & be free from Windows 10 notifications would be to disable all updates, reminders & sleep mode. As well as uninstalling the default applications shipped with Windows 10 – Translator, Get Started, Feedback Hub, Get Office, 3D Builder, Paid WiFi & Mobile, & Skype Preview.
For those who do not wish to build their own Gaming PC but would still like to join the team, there are pre-built configurations available – at variable price points & performance.
Overclockers UK provide such solutions. Visit the store page for more information: Overclockers UK
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