Unpopular opinion(?) - People spend too much on gaming PCs

[Aereldor]

I see all these gaming PC part lists well in excess of $2,000 and I honestly don't understand it. Sure, if you need it for work, then that's justified, but for games? The difference in experience between a $400 PC and a $2,000 PC comes down to details that I don't think are worth spending 5 times as much...

Graphics settings aren't what they used to be, you have to really look to spot the difference between medium and ultra (excellent video essay on that). Refresh rates - the cheapest $90 freesync monitors will do 75hz and that's plenty smooth for basically everyone. Resolution IMO only matters relative to display size, I see no point in getting anything more than 1080p on a 21 inch monitor. Or even a 24" monitor.

A higher resolution/bigger display is a slightly larger screen which is slightly sharper. 144hz vs 75 is slightly smoother gameplay. Ultra settings vs adjusted low/medium is just very slightly prettier graphics. If it can run the game. The bulk of the enjoyment comes from the gameplay, not these subtle but expensive frills.

Performance per dollar peaks at around double that (~800, Ryzen 3300x and a 5700xt) and honestly I'd still build the $400 PC (i3 9100F + RX 570) because the experience won't be remarkably different for twice the price. 

My opinion's probably pretty skewed, I built a Core i3 4160 + GTX 960 system for $450 in 2015 and it still handles damn near everything at 1080p, which is why I'm refraining from making the argument for longevity. I do have friends who are still running shit on an i5 2500k and a GTX 480, but those were $200 and $400 respectively soon after launch. Their modern-day successors are $300 and $700.

And I think the performance you can get today for $400 with the aforementioned combo is frankly astounding, makes a very compelling case.

[Sakkura]

A $400 PC is kinda crap. I could understand if you were talking $800 or $1000. But the difference compared to a $400 system will be extremely obvious.

[Arika]

i agree to an extent, but looking ultimately what people do with their own money doesn't really concern me. there are worse and more expensive hobbies out there. 

 

on to your point about price to performance, Consoles will always beat PC in that regard, plus you dont have to worry about pairing the correct hardware, gfx settings, and you get to avoid the infinitely toxic PCMR people

[Sakkura]

5 minutes ago, Arika S said:

on to your point about price to performance, Consoles will always beat PC in that regard, plus you dont have to worry about pairing the correct hardware, gfx settings, and you get to avoid the infinitely toxic PCMR people

Consoles have toxic people too. And PCs are generally better price/performance if you base it on TCO.

[Arika]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

Consoles have toxic people too. And PCs are generally better price/performance if you base it on TCO.

of course consoles do, every online community does, but the PCMR people (and i mean those that take the "master race" part WAAAAAY to seriously, hell there's some that have pop up in this forum) are worse than anything you find on console.

 

as for TCO, well yeah, that's a given since a PC "can" last longer due to a higher overall performance, but in the context of this thread, the kind of people that are spending way too much on a gaming PC are also the kind of people that upgrade every generation or two to try and stay on top so their TCO will continuously climb as they upgrade and swap parts in and out. most people would find a console to have a better price to performance ratio compared to a PC if they are just gaming at a reasonable level.

 

I've only just recently gotten a new GPU for my pc, before that i had not touched any hardware (except adding more storage) in 4 years, i probably didn't "need" to upgrade the GPU, but there was a few hickups i was getting in some of my favorite games and want to continue using this PC for another few years since my CPU is still fine for gaming

[Haro]

37 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

And I think the performance you can get today for $400 with the aforementioned combo is frankly astounding, makes a very compelling case.

Different use cases exist 

Even for gaming. At the end of the day, it's not your money or mine. And people can spend their own money on what they want.

[DJ46]

tl;dr: A budget gaming PC is enough for some, but if you're into the hobby and have specific needs then higher end parts can be not only nice to have, but necessary.

 

A cheap, noisy PC with "only" good 1080p performance can actually make me physically sick - sitting next to a noisy PC gives me a migraine within an hour and I have a cheap VR headset - framerate dips in VR are genuinely vomit inducing.

 

And I'm still on a tight budget - I don't care about looks (some people want the PC to be an art piece that shows off their hobby and I respect that) and I take risks by buying used hardware to get more performance for my money.

 

The write up that ended up being a novel:

Spoiler

I got into the hobby with an overpriced prebuilt PC with a different PSU and a gaming GPU. This was the setup an IT guy recommended to my dad and I was just glad to have something better than a netbook.

What I love about PCs is the customisability. I was young and I wanted LED strips and a side panel window, so I changed the case. I'm very sensitive to noise and I live in a very quiet area so I ended up changing the CPU cooler and buying a HDD cooling box to make the PC quieter.

 

I was fascinated by SFF builds and wanted one for myself (I also often carried my PC downstairs to play music and games when my friends came over and a big 20kg tower was getting annoying very fast). Back then, the recommendation was always that a gaming PC should have an i5 and 8GB of RAM and for years I didn't see a single game utilize that.

So when I built my PC I went with an i3 and 4GB of RAM.

Of course, a few months after that GTA V came out. Suddenly I had stutters because I didn't have enough RAM so I added a random 2GB stick that I later swapped for a cheap 8GB one for 12GB of RAM total.

I found a good deal for an i5, but I wanted as many NPCs in GTA as possible and it wasn't quite cutting it so I swapped it for an i7 I also found for a great price.

 

When the RX480 came out I bought one for literally no reason other than I had some cash lying around and it seemed like a more balanced pairing to the i7 than my old GPU.

It felt like a waste because I ended up only playing indie games for years after that, and I was regretting it a bit.

 

During that time I was also drooling over the HTC Vive. I watched gameplay videos for 2 years, always aware of the fact that the experience doesn't translate to a 2D screen at all.

After 2 years I found a used one for less than half the MSRP.

Suddenly the RX480 was just barely enough to let me enjoy that experience. I've been craving a better GPU for months now, can't wait to save up for one.

VR may seem like a very high-end use case but there are more affordable headsets out there and it really is not comparable to traditional gaming at all.

It also gives us enthusiasts a great excuse to upgrade our PCs. I have a 1080p monitor and don't really need a better GPU - I don't play modern AAA titles.

Also, having the headset gives me an opportunity to show others what gaming can be like. Nothing beats transporting family members that don't care about tech into a completely different universe to show them what's possible nowadays.

But if I pick up a sniper rifle in H3VR and set the scope to a magnification beyond 6x then I'll puke within an hour because framerate dips in VR actually physically hurt.

 

My ears pick up a lot of high frequency noise, too. So I have an overkill PSU as it was gigh quality enough to not whine as much as cheaper ones. The GPU still whines like crazy, which is why I'm now getting into watercooling with an external radiator to get as much heat out of the case as possible and seal the noise inside.

 

If you made it here, thanks for bothering to read this.

 

[Aereldor]

42 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

A $400 PC is kinda crap. I could understand if you were talking $800 or $1000. But the difference compared to a $400 system will be extremely obvious.

An i3 9100f and an RX 570 runs shit extremely well at 1080p. Astoundingly well, compared to what a $400 PC would do in 2014 (g3258, 750 ti).
 

Just now, DJ46 said:

tl;dr: A budget gaming PC is enough for some, but if you're into the hobby and have specific needs then higher end parts can be not only nice to have, but necessary.

  Reveal hidden contents

I got into the hobby with an overpriced prebuilt PC with a different PSU and a gaming GPU. This was the setup an IT guy recommended to my dad and I was just glad to have something better than a netbook.

What I love about PCs is the customisability. I was young and I wanted LED strips and a side panel window, so I changed the case. I'm very sensitive to noise and I live in a very quiet area so I ended up changing the CPU cooler and buying a HDD cooling box to make the PC quieter.

 

I was fascinated by SFF builds and wanted one for myself (I also often carried my PC downstairs to play music and games when my friends came over and a big 20kg tower was getting annoying very fast). Back then, the recommendation was always that a gaming PC should have an i5 and 8GB of RAM and for years I didn't see a single game utilize that.

So when I built my PC I went with an i3 and 4GB of RAM.

Of course, a few months after that GTA V came out. Suddenly I had stutters because I didn't have enough RAM so I added a random 2GB stick that I later swapped for a cheap 8GB one for 12GB of RAM total.

I found a good deal for an i5, but I wanted as many pedestrians in GTA as possible and it wasn't quite cutting it so I swapped it for an I also found for a great price.

 

When the RX480 came out I bought one for literally no reason other than I had some cash lying around and it seemed like a more balanced pairing to the i7 than my old GPU.

It felt like a waste because I ended up only playing indie games for years after that, and I was regretting it a bit.

 

During that time I was also drooling over the HTC Vive. I watched gameplay videos for 2 years, always aware of the fact that the experience doesn't translate to a 2D screen at all.

After 2 years I found a used one for less than half the MSRP.

Suddenly the RX480 was just barely enough to let me enjoy that experience. I've been craving a better GPU for months now, can't wait to save up for one.

VR may seem like a very high-end use case but there are more affordable headsets out there and it really is not comparable to traditional gaming at all.

It also gives us enthusiasts a great excuse to upgrade our PCs. I have a 1080p monitor and don't really need a better GPU - I don't play modern AAA titles.

Also, having the headset gives me an opportunity to show others what gaming can be like. Nothing beats transporting family members that don't care about tech into a completely different universe to show them what's possible nowadays.

But if I pick up a sniper rifle in H3VR and set the scope to a magnification beyond 6x then I'll puke within an hour because framerate dips in VR actually physically hurt.

 

My ears pick up a lot of high frequency noise, too. So I have an overkill PSU as it was gigh quality enough to not whine as much as cheaper ones. The GPU still whines like crazy, which is why I'm now getting into watercooling with an external radiator to get as much heat out of the case as possible and seal the noise inside.

 

If you made it here, thanks for bothering to read this.

 

I'm a professional musician and had my cheapass PC in my studio not far from very sensitive ribbon mics for 4 years. Fan curves, soundproofing material in the case, rubber grommets, suspending the HDD with elastic. Basically any noise issues can be solved in 10 minutes flat with easy DIY.

Idk if a super smooth VR experience is in line with budget gaming at all, but if your PC is $400 I'm guessing you're looking at lower-spec WMR headsets, which an RX 570 is competely capable of pushing.

[Aereldor]

4 minutes ago, DJ46 said:

A cheap, noisy PC with "only" good 1080p performance can actually make me physically sick

Also lmao

[DJ46]

4 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I'm a professional musician and had my cheapass PC in my studio not far from very sensitive ribbon mics for 4 years. Fan curves, soundproofing material in the case, rubber grommets, suspending the HDD with elastic. Basically any noise issues can be solved in 10 minutes flat with easy DIY.

Nowadays I'm running only Noctua fans with zero spinning drives in my system. Since I game on my PC and want as much performance out of the GPUs I can afford I need enough cooling to push them to the limit.

Some people are fine with closed back headphones, but I like higher end audio and while I found great deals for used Sennheiser headphones, they are always open backed.

[Kilrah]

34 minutes ago, Arika S said:

as for TCO, well yeah, that's a given since a PC "can" last longer

TCO is more about price of games. You don't have $5 Steam sale games on consoles.

[Aereldor]

7 minutes ago, DJ46 said:

Nowadays I'm running only Noctua fans with zero spinning drives in my system. Since I game on my PC and want as much performance out of the GPUs I can afford I need enough cooling to push them to the limit.

Some people are fine with closed back headphones, but I like higher end audio and while I found great deals for Sennheiser headphones, they are always open backed.

Sennheiser headphones are not always open-back, but yes the HD 500 and higher are. My reference headphones for the longest time were a pair of Pan-Am inflight headphones from the 1980s that were indistinguishable from Grados. At some point I was given a pair of Superlux HD 681 EVOs, didn't sound nearly as good.

I've usually been able to undervolt hotter GPUs to run cooler and quieter, often above the rated boost clocks because out of the box tuning was abysmal. I mean some were impossible *ahem* R9 290 but most of them, good results. If you're really going for it, you can mount a CPU cooler to the GPU, makes a colossal difference, given the heatsink is now several times as massive.

[Aereldor]

54 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

A $400 PC is kinda crap. I could understand if you were talking $800 or $1000. But the difference compared to a $400 system will be extremely obvious.

I disagree. An i3 9100F + RX 570 is going to run the vast majority of stuff at 1080p 60fps at graphics settings that are indistinguishable from max. That's not 'crap' at all. 

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

TCO is more about price of games. You don't have $5 Steam sale games on consoles.

Yeah but also -
 

 

[DJ46]

19 minutes ago, DJ46 said:

A cheap, noisy PC with "only" good 1080p performance can actually make me physically sick - sitting next to a noisy PC gives me a migraine within an hour

 

 

12 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Also lmao

You can draw a square with low noise, performance, price and looks in the corners. Any PC can be placed within that. My PCs have always gone all around that square, nowadays trying to get as much performance and as little noise as I can afford, looks be damned.

 

7 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Sennheiser headphones are not always open-back, but yes the HD 500 and higher are. My reference headphones for the longest time were a pair of Pan-Am inflight headphones from the 1980s that were indistinguishable from Grados. At some point I was given a pair of Superlux HD 681 EVOs, didn't sound nearly as good.

I live in a small country where very few people are into higher end headphones. I buy anything that shows up for cheap.

Over the years I've acquired the HD555 headphones for 1/3 of the MSRP, a broken PC360 headset for 1/10 that I fixed and recently the rare AKG K240 Sextett for 1/5.

All of them are open backed, all of them were really cheap and they sound great. If something with a closed back that is as good shows up for that cheap, you best believe I'm picking it up.

[Kilrah]

31 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I disagree. An i3 9100F + RX 570 is going to run the vast majority of stuff at 1080p 60fps at graphics settings that are indistinguishable from max. That's not 'crap' at all. 

If that's all you care about OK, but most people are not happy with that. Every day we see multiple people here who aren't happy about their low end PC becasue they want to run 144Hz or such.

 

There are advantages to PC gaming such as this one and for that a low end machine doesn't cut it.

 

Plus most PC users do other things on their machine, and want it to be comfortable for that.

Plus many people on here are enthusiasts, and for them building a high end machine is a hobby, and the money they spend on that is part of the enjoyment that they're not spending on another hobby.

 

Also your $400 PC might become worthless in one year when whatever new game you want to buy just won't run decently on it. When you get a $2K machine you know it'll be good for many years... my current main PC is 6 years old, I just upgraded the GPU once and the storage for obviously non-gaming reasons and it's still high end now.

[Haro]

31 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

An i3 9100F + RX 570

400 dollars is a point of bad value 

Anything over that becomes bank for the buck 

You can't say "oh this is the cheapest thing you can get so it's decent" 

There's a point where your paying and losing and a point where your paying and getting a good price / performance. 

[Chris Pratt]

1 hour ago, Aereldor said:

I see all these gaming PC part lists well in excess of $2,000 and I honestly don't understand it. Sure, if you need it for work, then that's justified, but for games? The difference in experience between a $400 PC and a $2,000 PC comes down to details that I don't think are worth spending 5 times as much...

Graphics settings aren't what they used to be, you have to really look to spot the difference between medium and ultra (excellent video essay on that). Refresh rates - the cheapest $90 freesync monitors will do 75hz and that's plenty smooth for basically everyone. Resolution IMO only matters relative to display size, I see no point in getting anything more than 1080p on a 21 inch monitor. Or even a 24" monitor.

A higher resolution/bigger display is a slightly larger screen which is slightly sharper. 144hz vs 75 is slightly smoother gameplay. Ultra settings vs adjusted low/medium is just very slightly prettier graphics. If it can run the game. The bulk of the enjoyment comes from the gameplay, not these subtle but expensive frills.

Performance per dollar peaks at around double that (~800, Ryzen 3300x and a 5700xt) and honestly I'd still build the $400 PC (i3 9100F + RX 570) because the experience won't be remarkably different for twice the price. 

My opinion's probably pretty skewed, I built a Core i3 4160 + GTX 960 system for $450 in 2015 and it still handles damn near everything at 1080p, which is why I'm refraining from making the argument for longevity. I do have friends who are still running shit on an i5 2500k and a GTX 480, but those were $200 and $400 respectively soon after launch. Their modern-day successors are $300 and $700.

And I think the performance you can get today for $400 with the aforementioned combo is frankly astounding, makes a very compelling case.

Absolutes are always wrong (see what I did there?). Seriously, though, to say no one needs more than a $400 PC is frankly just dumb. If that works for you, great, but not everyone is you.

 

There are extremes, and I think some people do get caught up in getting the "best" performance, even if it isn't noticeable. I just came across someone on this forum the other day waiting for a 360Hz display, and wanting to know what GPU they should get to max it out. That's just insane. Unless you're a pro competitive gamer, you're never going to need that, and frankly I doubt you'd need that even then.

 

However, there is a clear difference between a 570 and even a more moderate modern card like a 5600XT. Your whole post screams of being cheap and just trying to validate being cheap. Again, if that's fine for you, great. But, trying to make people feel bad, or implying that they're stupid for actually investing in better hardware is just wrong and ignorant.

 

[Aereldor]

17 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

If that's all you care about OK, but most people are not happy with that. Every day we see multiple people here who aren't happy about their low end PC becasue they want to run 144Hz or such.

 

There are advantages to PC gaming such as this one and for that a low end machine doesn't cut it.

 

Plus most PC users do other things on their machine, and want it to be comfortable for that.

Plus many people on here are enthusiasts, and for them building a high end machine is a hobby, and the money they spend on that is part of the enjoyment that they're not spending on another hobby.

 

Also your $400 PC might become worthless in one year when whatever new game you want to buy just won't run decently on it. When you get a $2K machine you know it'll be good for many years... my current main PC is 6 years old, I just upgraded the GPU once and the storage for obviously non-gaming reasons and it's still high end now.

• 144hz is nice but for most people it isn't a groundbreaking, super obvious improvement from 75. Also, any games where 144hz provides a competitive advantage,the RX 570 will run at 144fps anyway. Esports titles.
• I said if it's just for gaming. That doesn't include enthusiasts. 
• I thought the same, but my $450 PC has honestly been pretty good for almost 6 years now too. i3 4160, GTX 960. Nothing is unplayable, it still runs RDR2 1080p 30fps low-medium, Jedi Fallen Order 45ish - sometimes locked at 60, AC Odyssey, all of which are fairly demanding titles. 

[Aereldor]

12 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

400 dollars is a point of bad value 

Anything over that becomes bank for the buck 

You can't say "oh this is the cheapest thing you can get so it's decent" 

There's a point where your paying and losing and a point where your paying and getting a good price / performance. 

I don't think it's bad value at all, the i3 9100F + RX 570 combo performs extremely well. There are cheaper options that I do not recommend, like APUs. 

I already stated that FPS per dollar peaks at $800ish with an RX 5700xt + 3300x combo or something similar, but the fact that it's not the absolute best value doesn't make it bad. A rig with an overclocked Core i5 10600k and an RTX 2080S will be almost four times the price, but it won't necessarily provide an experience that is four times as good.

I think the performance you get for $400 is astounding.

 

[Kilrah]

14 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Nothing is unplayable, it still runs RDR2 1080p 30fps low-medium

That IS unplayable in my book. Would not consider anything lower than consistent 60fps comfortable.

 

  

14 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

I said if it's just for gaming. That doesn't include enthusiasts. 

Then it mostly doesn't apply to visitors of this forum

[Haro]

6 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

A rig with an overclocked Core i5 10600k and an RTX 2080S will be almost four times the price, but it won't necessarily provide an experience that is four times as good.

In other cases 

Or heck in higher resolutions, it will.

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Well, if I wasn't a game dev major I'd still prefer my rig for the games I play at the resolutions I do.   Because an i3 and a 570 won't do it well, the frame drops will be there, and I can tell the difference which would annoy me.

In all the benchmarks I've seen, even 0.1% lows below 30fps are uncommon. Also, this is obviously intended for first-time builders who just want to game, and not enthusiasts. And yes, you'd prefer it. My argument is if you were young, not rich, and just wanted to put something together to play some games, $400 is actually a very good budget even buying new.
 

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

In other cases 

Or heck in higher resolutions, it will.

Did you read the post in its entirety?

[Marbo]

There are probably a lot of people who couldn't tell the difference between a $2000 pc and s $800 one in a blind test. But I'd bet that the people with $2000 gaming are in a minority. 

 

Most people wouldn't need a $1000 phone, a $200 one would do everything they need. But again I'd bet the phone companies shift a lot more $200 phones. 

 

You can put your argument to anything, cars, food, major league v minor league baseball tickets. 

 

It all comes down to how much you're willing or able to spend and how much you want something. 

 

The lower cost items will always sell much better because most people know they don't need the flagship item or have better things to spend money on. 

 

TLDR

People who buy the best are in a huge minority.