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Upgrade gfx card or just get an xbox?

ives

ives

ives

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1 Nov 2002
Posts
257
Hi, For gaming, is a PC better than an Xbox?
The reason I ask is that I've got an old rig I just use for the occasional game. It's a bit old and doesn't play games too well.
I could either upgrade the gfx card, cpu and m/board or just jump ship and invest in an xbox for £150.
I've seen xboxes in PC world on big HD screens and they look amazing. I've never used an xbox myself so I was just wondering what I should do.
Any advice appreciated.


thx
 
unless you give us the full spec of your system we cant really say what would be best value for you.
 
As good as PCs are, If i didn't already have a half decent PC that I can use or upgrade the graphics card etc later on, I don't think I would bother now. All I seem to play are console ports these days and it's a hell of a lot of money to spend from scratch just to play the same games with some added textures. Even then, it's not all plain sailing.

Edit: I meant if it's the case that your current PC turns out to be one thats isn't viable to upgrade
 
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ives said:
I've got one of the first core2duo's 1.6ghz, I think. A Geforce 7900gs card and 2gb of ram DDR2, i think.
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unless you can get that cpu to at least 2.6 you will be seriously bottlenecked but personally i would just go with the xbox.
 
depends what you mean by better. For me there are more games on the PS3 that interest me. there's pretty much everything I would/could play on the PC plus a lot more. But some people like different types of games.
 
mame said:
As good as PCs are, If i didn't already have a half decent PC that I can use or upgrade the graphics card etc later on, I don't think I would bother now. All I seem to play are console ports these days and it's a hell of a lot of money to spend from scratch just to play the same games with some added textures. Even then, it's not all plain sailing.

Edit: I meant if it's the case that your current PC turns out to be one thats isn't viable to upgrade
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Yeah you can play the games on a £200 console rather than spend about 2k on a PC to play em, afterall, they just the same games ported ower, theres to many games getting crappily ported over these days.
 
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I just transferred back from 360 to PC, after 2 years on the 360. I bought the 360 originally because I couldn't afford to upgrade my PC (it was a single core, with AGP, so needed to fully replace it due to PCI-E, multi-core, etc) and was dying to play Halo 3 :D

It really depends what kind of gamer you are. If you're looking to really sink your teeth into an FPS and join a clan, play competitively, the PC is definitely the way to go. This is simply because 9 out of 10 games on the 360 are hosted by a residential connection, so one player has 0 ping, and everyone else suffers with 1/2 second delay. That really ruined Gears 2 and Halo 3 for me; once you become better at the game, the gap in skill between you and your competitors closes, and thanks to auto-aim & massive crosshairs, it all becomes about the connection.

If you just wanna kick back, relax, make some friends, and play singleplayer / co-op online (Borderlands, Left 4 Dead/2, etc), go for the 360.

Visually, the 360 only renders at 1280x720, or sometimes lower (Modern Warfare 2 is rendered at some stupid res like 1066x600) due to the aging hardware. If you set it to 1080p on the dashboard, it adds 2-4xAA, depending on the title. There's a ginormous difference between playing GTA4, Unreal 3, Gears (1) on PC and 360. You get what you pay for.
 
Not a bad spec PC. Have you tried it on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare? I would imagine it would play OK.

As for an upgrade, is it an OEM PC (ie Dell, HP) or a custom build? I ask because the OEMs prevent overclocking. If its a custom build with a decent motherboard, you should be able to get a nice overclock out of that CPU - and something like a 5770 would give you a massive boost in performance and DirectX 11 support.
 
mame said:
depends what you mean by better. For me there are more games on the PS3 that interest me. there's pretty much everything I would/could play on the PC plus a lot more. But some people like different types of games.
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I just got a PS3 and I am very impressed with how good some games actually look.

MW2 on the PS3 is hardly a huge distance away from the PC version and this is why I thought right I've had enough and I've sold my 5870 and not going to bother anymore. Like loadsa said, most games now are just ported over it doesn't seem worth it anymore.
 
i play MW2 with a Dual Core Athlon 64 X2 at 2.6ghz, so you only need to get a Radeon HD 5750 or faster for games, it dosnt mater as most games are *crappy* console ports, the graphics on the PC simply beats the living daylights out of consoles

now that more games comes out on the PC that are DX11 aka 2 generations ahead of any console its stupid to buy a console now
 
my 2 cents, with pc its great but very very expensive, you kinda feel a need to upgrade all the time just to fix issues that you get when pc gaming, 1 graphics card upgrade usually equals a xbox elite with two wireless controllers and a few recent ish games, for me i have both and own need for speed shift, the messing about i did at first for pc was really annoying, am enjoying it now ive thrown loads of money on my system, but i really enjoy it on xbox since putting in the disk.
i think in the end it comes down to
a. if you can afford pc gaming.
b. if you have the time to trouble shoot, install drivers, mess with different setting, reinstall windows.

if you answer no to any of these, then get an xbox
p.s i spend more time looking for little fixes and trouble shooting, than i do playing games
 
Not a bad spec PC. Have you tried it on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare?
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I tried COD MW2 this weekend and it didn't look that good tbf. I have to turn all AA off and even this it's has a pretty choppy frame rate

i play MW2 with a Dual Core Athlon 64 X2 at 2.6ghz, so you only need to get a Radeon HD 5750 or faster for games, it dosnt mater as most games are *crappy* console ports, the graphics on the PC simply beats the living daylights out of consoles
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I was thinking of getting a Radeon HD 5750 but then I thought about the Xbox route.

There's a ginormous difference between playing GTA4, Unreal 3, Gears (1) on PC and 360. You get what you pay for.
16th Nov 2009 14:13
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So your saying the PC is better, right?


now that more games comes out on the PC that are DX11 aka 2 generations ahead of any console its stupid to buy a console now
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Does anyone know when the next gen of consoles are coming out?
 
Microsoft is trying to extend the life of the 360 at the moment with Project Natal, the controller-less eyetoy. That's due this time next year (imo will never catch on).

Nintendo denied rumours of a "Wii HD" in 2010, and Sony are sticking with a 10 year plan for the PS3. I'm unsure if they mean "10 years until the next one comes out", which would push the PS4 to 2016 or later, or "10 years until we drop support for it, and no more games will be made with it in mind".

I think new consoles are a long way off yet. This is good for PC gamers because it means that the minimum spec for a lot of future titles (ports) will be relatively low; in-keeping with the 360 and PS3, while devs like Crytek will still push out games that reward enthusiast system builders. If I had to guess, the next generation would come out around the same time as DX12, using DX11 hardware.
 
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Tom|Nbk said:
MW2 on the PS3 is hardly a huge distance away from the PC version.
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Chalk and cheese. MW2 on my pc at 1920 x 1200 on my 24" screen with 8xsuper aa and 16xaf and everything to max and still running at 80+ fps wipes the floor with mw3 on the ps3.

And I just can't play FPS on consoles without a keyboard and mouse. It just seems wrong.

But I will admit , if you have your pc just for gaming, it is a very expensive way of gaming.
 
Tom|Nbk said:
I just got a PS3 and I am very impressed with how good some games actually look.

MW2 on the PS3 is hardly a huge distance away from the PC version and this is why I thought right I've had enough and I've sold my 5870 and not going to bother anymore. Like loadsa said, most games now are just ported over it doesn't seem worth it anymore.
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Thats exactly how I feel about mine.
 
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