What type of PC spec is as good as a 360?

Dark_Angel · 5 Jan 2007 at 15:33

First and foremost, this isnt a "PC is better" or "360 is better" thread, PLEASE don't make posts like that. If this gets turned in to a flame thread, please close straight away mods.

I am just curious, if now that the 8800 series is released, and with Conroes clockable to 3GHZ + are we starting to see the 360 equaled in terms of what it can do?

Obviously a PC has far more overheads than a console, surely though a PC with 2Gigs of ram would make up for the overheads somewhat?

As said, this isnt a "whats better for games" or even a "PC is better cause it is better graphics" I am just curious to if PC's (in peoples oppions) have caught up to consoles yet, and if not, how long.

Final note, I own a 360 (as you can see from my sig) and love it, and I also (obviously) own a PC and plan to upgrade it no matter what, so nothing said in this thread is going to make me say "wow, I didnt know that, time to sell my 360"

*EDIT* feel free to also compare to a PS3 also, I just said 360 cause the most is known about it.

locutus12 · 5 Jan 2007 at 15:36

so far as far as i can see the only game with better looks is gears of war, and apparently its game play was pants. plus its built using the unreal 3 code anyway so PC`s are more than capable of matching it, its just been a slow year for PC gaming due mainly to DX10/Vista transitions.

VeNT · 5 Jan 2007 at 15:40

you have to look at what the processing power is on the 360, what its chips are capable of
isn't the graphics just the same as the new ATI ones on the way?

MNuTz · 5 Jan 2007 at 15:41

Dark_Angel said:
I am just curious to if PC's (in peoples oppions) have caught up to consoles yet, and if not, how long.
.

When did consoles overtake PCs?

PCs are constanly evolving and then a console leapjumps up the specification ladder, it uses current or future PC based hardware so it never really overtakes the PC because by the time that console is released the 'future' hardware is out for the PC anyway. Sure, a 360 or PS3 may have a better spec than many PCs out there but then i bet there is a hell of a lot of PCs with a better spec as well.

Its not so much the spec that seperates the two, but the software it runs. Consoles have one setup, making it a hell of a lot easier to write software for and to perfect the software. As PCs are constanly evolving the software companies are constanlty having to write software differently, they naver get that chance to perfect it.

Adam Senior · 5 Jan 2007 at 15:49

spot on...If every pc ownder had a quad core 8800gtx system them no doubt...Hands down pc game swould make the 360 look silly. But...Thats not the case. developers have to create games that can run on all systems (within reason) were as console developers have one Table to work on...And they usualy fill the thing full of stuff. Examples of this are imense...Look at Halo1 and the leap in gfx 2 halo2......Nuf Said. But i dont think you can say what pc is as good as a 360 or vice versa....

LoadsaMoney · 5 Jan 2007 at 16:00

Well the 360's GPU is slightly better than the x1800 XT, but not as good as the x1900 XT, so between em.

Darkwave · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:07

Adam Senior said:
Look at Halo1 and the leap in gfx 2 halo2......Nuf Said.

Yeah because the way all the texture level of detail snapped in as you walked around was just beautiful. :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, but Halo 2 looked like crap because of this, and I think Halo looked much better because the graphics were consistent (instead of being more than the console could keep up with with like Halo 2, where daft LOD shortcuts had to be made.)

eekfek · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:14

Dark_Angel said:
First and foremost, this isnt a "PC is better" or "360 is better" thread, PLEASE don't make posts like that. If this gets turned in to a flame thread, please close straight away mods.

As said, this isnt a "whats better for games" or even a "PC is better cause it is better graphics" I am just curious to if PC's (in peoples oppions) have caught up to consoles yet, and if not, how long.

how naive, to think it wont turn into a 'PC > console' threa, when you ask whether the PC has caught up with the inferior consoles

you sir are just asking for it,

Dark_Angel · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:16

eekfek said:
how naive, to think it wont turn into a 'PC > console' threa, when you ask whether the PC has caught up with the inferior consoles

you sir are just asking for it,

I don't consider it "naive" I consider that there most be a few unbiased people in the whole board who can discuss things without saying something like:

"PC's? 8800 GTS? PAH My Master System can pwn's it with its sprite scaling powers!"

Hence why I asked as soon as anything remotely flamey starts, it becomes locked.

Slogan · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:23

eekfek said:
how naive, to think it wont turn into a 'PC > console' threa, when you ask whether the PC has caught up with the inferior consoles

It probably would have, in fairness.

eekfek · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:27

Dark_Angel said:
I don't consider it "naive" I consider that there most be a few unbiased people in the whole board who can discuss things without saying something like:

"PC's? 8800 GTS? PAH My Master System can pwn's it with its sprite scaling powers!"

Hence why I asked as soon as anything remotely flamey starts, it becomes locked.

hence i didnt flame/troll , im a PC 100% user, and think the 360 gfx looks stunning but its a pointless debate that always falls into the above downwards spiral of comments ...

my personal view ? who cares im more bothered with gameplay over graphics , once gfx start to influence my purchases then ill consider it over

i had a 360 for 3weeks and sold it, there wasnt a single game on it that could match Tribes,Battlefield or MMORPG and the obvious reason ?

GAMEPLAY > ASTHETICS

Dark_Angel · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:31

eekfek said:
hence i didnt flame/troll , im a PC 100% user, and think the 360 gfx looks stunning but its a pointless debate that always falls into the above downwards spiral of comments ...

my personal view ? who cares im more bothered with gameplay over graphics , once gfx start to influence my purchases then ill consider it over

i had a 360 for 3weeks and sold it, there wasnt a single game on it that could match Tribes,Battlefield or MMORPG and the obvious reason ?

GAMEPLAY > ASTHETICS

I agree with you 100 percent, BUT this isnt what the thread is about.

Around a year ago, so many were saying "wow, Kameo looks Amazing, much better than my 7800 GT (or whatever) can do"!

I was curious to if people still felt like that at all, and more to the point of the thread, how have PC's progressed in comparsion to the console.

eekfek · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:43

Dark_Angel said:
I was curious to if people still felt like that at all, and more to the point of the thread, how have PC's progressed in comparsion to the console.

Kaizen, thats what PC technology is, always evolving slowly over time with constant improvement
a nightmare for developers of PC software/games but stops it becomming stagnant

A console has the benefit of limitations, albeit in a good way, as developers can get on with their jobs in a safer environment

Supercow · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:49

LoadsaMoney said:
Well the 360's GPU is slightly better than the x1800 XT, but not as good as the x1900 XT, so between em.

There ya go, there's the OP's answer.
Why are people actually even mentioning the 8800?

Orison · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:52

MNuTz said:
Consoles have one setup, making it a hell of a lot easier to write software for and to perfect the software. As PCs are constanly evolving the software companies are constanlty having to write software differently, they naver get that chance to perfect it.

Microsoft are addressing this issue by making the proprietry standards for Vista and DirectX10 much more specific than they have in the past. Essentially, in the future pc hardware will be much more standardised, meaning games and software developers will be able to optimise their code far more effectively. No more complaints from gamedevs about struggling to optimise for both nVidia and ATI GFX cards, and faster and more reliable performance for the end user.

Such is the theory, anyway.

titaniumx3 · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:55

If a PC had an operating system tailored specifically solely for games and this was the only type of PC that games could run on then I'd guess the following would be equivalent to a an xbox 360:

Triple Core Athlon 64 @ 2ghz
512mb Ram
ATi X1950 Pro

Orison · 5 Jan 2007 at 17:57

LoadsaMoney said:
Well the 360's GPU is slightly better than the x1800 XT, but not as good as the x1900 XT, so between em.

Loadsamoney answered your question right there

As for PS3, its GPU is basically an 8800GTS, so already there is superior hardware available for very top-end pcs. Purely in terms of matching hardware capability, the pc already has. The question is of uptake - how long will it be before the typical pc contains something better than an 8800GTX? While the great majority of pcs will have inferior hardware to "those with quad core processors and SLI 8800GTXes," we might consider that not all pc users are pc gamers, and pc gamers tend to have pcs in the top 5% performance range.

Darkwave · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:06

Orison said:
As for PS3, its GPU is basically an 8800GTS.

Surely you mean a 7800GTX.

The PS3 has an amazing CPU but its GPU is inferior to that of the Xbox 360, sorry.

Deception · 5 Jan 2007 at 18:06

Googled around abit and seen this concerning the specs of an Xbox 360.. Dunno if its true or not, I guess you can be the judge of that.

http://xbox.about.com/od/xbox2/a/xbox360specs.htm

aztechnology · 5 Jan 2007 at 21:07

Drop your resolutions to TV (or HDTV) numbers and then see what a modern PC can throw around.

Personally I don't think that the current generation of hardware and software is pretty equal and that there is some headroom in both. Long term, I wonder about the viability of the PC as a gaming platform, with it's power being attacked by the likes of 360 and PS3, and the totally new arena's being explore by Wii, I think discussions like this are going to be shortlived.