It's gotten to the point where nvidia doesn't even bother to report their gaming revenue anymore. It's a clear sign that we're back to the bad old days of pc gaming being a 'prosumer' hobby, but don't worry I'm sure nvidia and their ilk are salivating at the idea of making pc gaming into a streaming stadia like solution that you pay for monthly
I think I paid a total of around $5,500 for the current components of my PC. Hard to say for sure since my PC has been a Ship of Theseus for over 30 years and started as a 486. The link merely reflects its current state.
At one point, PCPartPicker was showing my PC as worth $11,000. It's now at $7,200 without including the RAM or PSU. That would put it at $9,000.
> It's a clear sign that we're back to the bad old days of pc gaming being a 'prosumer' hobby
Yup.
I think it's especially bad since the gap between budget-grade and mid-grade feels like it's gotten wide. If you wanna play the latest AAA games and not feel like you need to upgrade in 3 years, you can't settle for the budget grade unless you're still gaming at 1080p.
I wouldn't recommend spending under $3,000 for a gaming PC these days, and that's just an absurd price.
You can get a $200 to $300 microcenter cpu+motherboard+16GB DDR5 bundle [1], then $300-$400 GPU, and you'll be able to play nearly every game on the market just fine at 1080p.
I'm sure there are pre-builts using stockpiled RAM that are similar $1000 price range.
And if you buy used you can do even better. $300-400 might get you a 5060 or a 9060XT right now [2][3] but if you go used you can get something like a 3080 instead.
I play games at 1080p with a 1660 Ti and, outside of some newer UE5 games that heavily rely on frame gen for performance (Monster Hunter Wilds performance was too poor to play), everything I've thrown at it has been playable and some games even 100+ FPS.
[1] https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/bundle-and-save.asp...
[2] https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=594,593&sort...
[3] https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=596&sort=pri...
Hard disagree. Once I went 4K, I could never go back to 1080p.
Sure, in an action-packed scenes of close- to moderate-quarters combat, I don't really notice it.
But in long-distance combat? Having 4x the pixels per square inch is noticeable. In slower scenes and cut scenes it's definitely an appreciable improvement.
Yeah. 4K is nice for text, but doesn't seem like a great deal for gaming given the 4x hardware requirement and/or weirdo interpolation technologies that may or may not work on AMD + Linux anyway.
Alternative wording: You recommend to spend more than $3000? There are people out there who don't toss money around as if it's an endless commodity. I spent a friction of that for gaming computers in my entire life.
I think modern rendering techniques need more pixels. 1440p should be considered bare minimum, and 4K the norm. Unfortunately, the prices are what they are.
On the flipside, being a low-spec gamer is better than ever. Indies, oldies, mods... all in great shape.
Yes.
The most I've ever replaced all at once is the CPU/mobo/RAM trifecta. But even when I do that, I still kept the same storage, case, GPU, PSU, mouse/keyboard, etc.
But otherwise, upgrades are piecemeal. New storage when my current storage is full or I want to upgrade to a new technology. New GPU when I feel like my current one is holding me back. New mouse or keyboard when my current one starts failing. The CPU/mobo/RAM trifecta when the performance gains make it worthwhile, which at this point is about every 5 years.
I'm not sure why this is hard to believe.
As much as I hate to say it, the move at this point is GeForce Now, at least for the time being... I just subscribed to the 200 USD/year Ultimate plan with a free 007 game. My ping to the datacenter is a mere 5ms, with 5080, RTX, 4k@60Hz (which my projector can drive) I am getting way more performance and similar latency than I would if I were using my own, semi-affordable rig or even a PS5. It's mind-blowing, really, and I recommend anyone to at least give it a try.
If I take out the cost of that 007 game, that plan i 140 USD a year. If you consider the cost of the electricity, it alone would likely cover it. In the past one would typically include hardware depreciation cost in such calculations to drive the point home...but the 3-4k USD I am not spending spending on a similar rig alone can generate me some 100-150 USD in bank over a year – not to mention the inflation! So, all in all, it's basically free, comparatively speaking.
At home, I am still rocking a plain old GTX 1080 with an i7 6700k, it's still kicking ass a decade later and plays most of what I throw at it, and I have an M-Series MBP for work, though it's capable of running plenty modern titles on Ultra.
My Steam Deck absorbs the majority of my local gaming, however, even though I have to run games at lower spec. It's just an extremely convenient device and I dock it to my projector, which I run at 1080p@240Hz anyway because I prefer it over 4K@60Hz.
For things the deck can't handle though, GeForce Now rocks. If the Steam Machine doesn't become too expensive, I might snag one and a Steam Frame headset as well, and that will probably have me set through any impending breakdown in the supply chain for at least a decade. I'll probably be rocking this GTX 1080 until 2040, the way things are going.
Also, gaming does not equal computer ownership. Majority of gamers use consoles, anyway. Gaming PCs are niche nowadays.
But yeah, you need a fiber.
