Change of heart - Should I get a console instead of a new PC?

[tongue_of_colicab]

I've always been gaming on PC on with the new consoles launching I figured its time to buy something new because my i7 4770 isn't really cutting it anymore. I found this out after buying a 2070 super a couple of months ago...

But the more I think about it, the less buying a new PC makes sense. I've been thinking about getting a AMD 5900x, 32GB ram and a Samsung 980 pci-e 4 NVME. I also need a PSU and case because the idea was to convert my current rig to a server to replace my Intel NUC. Total cost: around $1500.

I would put the PC in the living room so I can use it with my LG oled which is far better than my old 24" monitor or 42" TV that I got upstairs. I used game streaming to my TV for a while and though I think it works reasonably well, it is a bit of a hassle and stuff like gysnc/vrr doesn't work at all and HDR is hit or miss (it worked on RE2 remake, and then it didn't).

Thinking about it, that is a lot of money for a system that if I think about it, won't be using that much. I love the extra performance PC gives you, the cheaper games etc. but at the same time, over the past three years I've been gaming on my Switch a lot more than on my PC and I equally love how I can just start playing right away on my Switch. Even the 30fps games don't really bother me anymore if I'm honest.

My console of choice would probably be the series X even though the Playstation exclusives appeal to me more and living in Japan buying an Xbox might not be the greatest choices when it comes to getting used games. But I like the design much better (not that the PS5 is ugly, but its design IMHO just doesn't fit in a living room. Its massive size doesn't help either), the prefer the xbox controller and maybe more importantly I kind of feel MS has a better plan for things like BC and forward compatibility.

 

[AlNom]

If it were me, I'd be looking to do a PC upgrade in maybe 2 years time instead once Direct Storage has gained wider support along with cheaper higher capacity storage, and once DDR5 is in the market. It's still early days for RDNA2 as well, and we don't know how 6800/6900 series scale beyond next-gen consoles i.e. are they adequate to get 60-120fps ultra quality versions of console games at 4K (or whatever resolution you use).

Just my 2 cents.

You do also get enhanced AF for Xbox BC besides the usual enchantments/boost. There's also game pass if you're interested in that sort of thing for a broader exposure to games for a modest price (IMO) - depends on your preferences. Don't forget EA Play is coming to Game Pass Ultimate soon, so that increases the # of games, even if they're not the latest/day1.

My plan is to wait for PS5 Short before jumping on board for their exclusives, and some of the games should be cheaper by that time, though I'm definitely not in a rush.

 

[orangpelupa]

Can you OC that i7?

Btw won't having an Xbox Series X in Japan would make multi-player experience worse as you'll meet people from other country, higher latency. Not to mention there would be close to no JP community.

Aside from that, yeah the series x seems to be a good choice. Especially because it have instant resume, it become faster than switch to jump into games quickly

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

@TheAlSpark Yeah that was my initial plan and reason for buying the 2070 super. Thinking it last me 1 ~ 2 years allowing me the finish the "old" games I still have on backlog. Then I tried playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it just doesn't run stable 60fps while streaming it to my TV so that plan went out of the window hehe.

Game pass looks interesting though to be honest most games don't really interest me. But if you can still do the trick to get it cheap for 3 years then its well worth it. Star Wars: Fallen order, Gears 5 and Ori and the will of the whisp are games I still want to play and those three alone would more or less cover the cost of game pass. For most games I don't mind waiting, most games on PC I buy after they get discounted anyway but it doesn't seem game pass has many AAA 3rd party games.

@orangpelupa Nope, got the non K because I wanted some of the virtualization features.

I don't care about online play. Apart from Mario Kart I don't play online. I suck and don't like losing hehe. Single player is the most fun for me.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Change of heart - Should I get a console instead of a new PC?

NO!

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

My bank account is open for donations to prevent it from happening

 

[eastmen]

The pc will do everything better than the consoles except perhaps load times.

I have a 1700x with 32 gigs of ram and multiple types of ssd. I plan on upgrading my vega 56 to a 6800xt which will wipe the floor with both next gen consoles in terms of performance. I will upgrade my cpu/mobo/ram with AM5 in late 2021 or 2022.

To me with XBOX now being a platform on both pc and xbox I get all the great xbox 1st/2nd party games and with game pass i get a ton of third party games and growing. Then I have steam which gets every 3rd party game. Also VR lives on PC . Sure there is a psvr but its always frozen in time. Its been 4 years and nothing new was announced yet.


But its up to you , an xbox series x or ps5 would play a lot of games and could have a smaller foot print and there is less work involved

 

[Arwin]

And the PS5 game has that controller which even if you could use it on PC, will probably rarely make use of all the cool features.

It’s a grossly underestimated factor. Just to verify my claims, I went back to GT Sport and instead of using my wheel setup I used the motion steering, and among others I went back to the licence S where I had 15 silvers (the rest was already gold). In a few attempts and sometimes just one I got all of them on gold - the motion steering just translates that well in terms of motor skills, and now with the new DualSense you will have fantastic motion feedback too, right there on the controller. And guaranteed quiet now, which can still be tricky (or pricy) on PC.

Of course the PC also has many advantages, for me notably in VR support (though for now I just stick to Quest 2 native games and PSVR) and in the options to keep up scaling your hardware (can get expensive though) and have cheaper software so much depends on your needs.

But right now consoles are a pretty good deal ... if you can get them. In a year or so PCs may overtake again. I am very disappointed with how expensive desktop PCs are right now. The one I would like to have is around 1700 euro. I could get a great new TV and a console for that money.

 

[orangpelupa]

The pc will do everything better than the consoles except perhaps load times.

I have a 1700x with 32 gigs of ram and multiple types of ssd. I plan on upgrading my vega 56 to a 6800xt which will wipe the floor with both next gen consoles in terms of performance. I will upgrade my cpu/mobo/ram with AM5 in late 2021 or 2022.

To me with XBOX now being a platform on both pc and xbox I get all the great xbox 1st/2nd party games and with game pass i get a ton of third party games and growing. Then I have steam which gets every 3rd party game. Also VR lives on PC . Sure there is a psvr but its always frozen in time. Its been 4 years and nothing new was announced yet.


But its up to you , an xbox series x or ps5 would play a lot of games and could have a smaller foot print and there is less work involved

yes PC will perform better than console, but also at way higher price

 

[eastmen]

And the PS5 game has that controller which even if you could use it on PC, will probably rarely make use of all the cool features.

It’s a grossly underestimated factor. Just to verify my claims, I went back to GT Sport and instead of using my wheel setup I used the motion steering, and among others I went back to the licence S where I had 15 silvers (the rest was already gold). In a few attempts and sometimes just one I got all of them on gold - the motion steering just translates that well in terms of motor skills, and now with the new DualSense you will have fantastic motion feedback too, right there on the controller. And guaranteed quiet now, which can still be tricky (or pricy) on PC.

Of course the PC also has many advantages, for me notably in VR support (though for now I just stick to Quest 2 native games and PSVR) and in the options to keep up scaling your hardware (can get expensive though) and have cheaper software so much depends on your needs.

But right now consoles are a pretty good deal ... if you can get them. In a year or so PCs may overtake again. I am very disappointed with how expensive desktop PCs are right now. The one I would like to have is around 1700 euro. I could get a great new TV and a console for that money.

I mean thats great but i'd just use wheels and peddles if i wanted a car experience and at the end of the day mouse and keyboard is the best input method for games

To me a pc is a rolling cost which minimizes how much i spend in a given year. Its more expensive but I by and far have a better experience at almost all times of the generation of consoles. I put in a new cpu/mobo/ ram and vega 56 3 years ago and it was more than the xbox one x but i only paid $700-$800 for the parts they all went into my case with ssds and power supplies and liquid coolers. My system has out performed the xbox one x and ps4 pro that whole time. This year I will put in a 6800xt as i said and i expect it will largely out perform the series x and ps5 in all but perhaps load times.

yes PC will perform better than console, but also at way higher price

Like i said its a rolling cost to me. I'm much happier to have had my current pc vs a ps4 pro or xbox one x. I am sure I will be much happier with a 6800xt over a ps5 or xsx in the long term also.

If you want a low cost easy to set up solution then a console is for you. But your stuck in time on all fronts. On the pc side since psvr i've had a rift and now an index and the experiance increase between the two is years apart. Comparing oculus touch to ps movie is light years apart and the room scale options i had and have on pc were non existent in psvr. Who knows what tech a psvr 2 will come with. However what if its on the wrong side of major innovations ? Will it be 4, 5, 6 years between updates again ?

I dunno I like the flexibility of the pc and all the options

 

[manux]

Console at launch is no brainer. It will stay valid gaming device for 6-10years. Console cost gets amortized over many years. You can always get better pc next year cheaper. PS5 now, pc 1-2 years from now on. No point buying both xbox and pc as they overlap much more than ps5+pc combo. PS5 especially with the ps4 game bundle coming with ps+ subscription is a good deal if one hasn't yet played those ps4 games. PC side is going to move to ddr5 ram and new cpu sockets. Whatever cpu/mobo you buy today is kind of at the end of road. It's also unknown if directstorage would just work great or would it require something new from hw to be optimal.

 

[digitalwanderer]

To me a pc is a rolling cost which minimizes how much i spend in a given year. Its more expensive but I by and far have a better experience at almost all times of the generation of consoles.

Well said and I agree. I've had the same computer for over 20 years now, it's just been upgraded over time. Also there's 3 other PCs in the house built basically from my old bits so when I upgrade it goes through a trickle-down affect and everyone gets an upgrade. (My son's rig not included, f-er has a bloody 2060 super while I got an RX 580)

 

[eastmen]

Well said and I agree. I've had the same computer for over 20 years now, it's just been upgraded over time. Also there's 3 other PCs in the house built basically from my old bits so when I upgrade it goes through a trickle-down affect and everyone gets an upgrade. (My son's rig not included, f-er has a bloody 2060 super while I got an RX 580)

yea my wife gets my old stuff and sometimes friends will get some parts or buy me lunch for a few parts. My friend took me to one of my fav spots in jersey for lunch because i gave him an old 256gig ssd

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Its not that I disagree with anything being said here, I've always been gaming on PC and the only consoles I owned were from Nintendo. But its just not making a lot of sense, at least not right now. I got a LG C9 that I want to game on because its vastly better than my monitor or old TV. If I buy a PC I'd have to put it in the living room and at that point it starts making very little sense because then I'd be spending at least 3x that of a console just to do exactly what a console can albeit maybe with a bit worse performance. Recently I've been playing the Mario 3d collection and IMHO even Mario Sunshine was fine to play at 30'ish FPS with fairly blurry graphics. Mario Galaxy still looks surprisingly good. This kind of made me realize that these days I probably care more about something that I can just turn on and play on right away.

 

[Arwin]

I used to be like you Eastman, but these days I still have my PC from i7 third gen days (2013?), and it is the only non laptop in the house. My son has a laptop for school, I have one for work, and none of my work laptops so far have outperformed my desktop PC or even come close really. So I have no rolling cost advantage at all, with the regular stuff like browsing banking streaming etc all moving to phone, iPad and smart TV.

So a $399 digital PS5 is a no-brainer for me really, especially with all the games I already own. And even for VR, I need the PC in my office where I have no space, so I have to setup a really good WiFi network etc where the PSVR has had a great experience and really fantastic games for a very good price. I only just got a Quest 2 and haven’t felt the desire to hook it up to the PC yet as the native games are just so easy and quick - put it on, start gaming, done.

 

[eastmen]

I used to be like you Eastman, but these days I still have my PC from i7 third gen days (2013?), and it is the only non laptop in the house. My son has a laptop for school, I have one for work, and none of my work laptops so far have outperformed my desktop PC or even come close really. So I have no rolling cost advantage at all, with the regular stuff like browsing banking streaming etc all moving to phone, iPad and smart TV.

So a $399 digital PS5 is a no-brainer for me really, especially with all the games I already own. And even for VR, I need the PC in my office where I have no space, so I have to setup a really good WiFi network etc where the PSVR has had a great experience and really fantastic games for a very good price. I only just got a Quest 2 and haven’t felt the desire to hook it up to the PC yet as the native games are just so easy and quick - put it on, start gaming, done.

Its all good , this is the first generation of consoles i will not have a console at launch.

I have a nice tv to game on but i enjoy gaming at my computer a bit more and i don't have to kick my wife off the tv when she is watching stuff

 

[Cyan]

My bank account is open for donations to prevent it from happening

no need to break the bank.

First of all, you have a superb graphics card. I say this 'cos none of the new cards is worth buying RIGHT now.

I have a decent PC now that cost me 740€, no GPU included, it's the only thing I am missing as of now.

Currently, in saving mode, I have 80€ for a new GPU and adding money every month. 'Cos I'm not in a hurry to get a new one.

In a few months you will have new AMD cards with 14 teraflops at 250€ or less, imnho. More than consoles.....

Also new and improved cards from nVidia after a disastrous launch.

 

[tuna]

I mean thats great but i'd just use wheels and peddles if i wanted a car experience and at the end of the day mouse and keyboard is the best input method for games

How do you play FIFA with mouse AND keyboard?

(My work buddy plays FIFA with keyboard only, he claims it is the best way to play.)

 

[Davros]

How do you play FIFA with mouse AND keyboard?

Very easily

 

[tuna]

Very easily

What do you use the mouse for?