What makes a Gaming PC

[Ramke_99]

Hi everyone, 

 

So while prowling around Ebay and came across Gaming PC's for what reason I have no idea. I started looking at some, and something which peaked my interest was that a majority of the PC's which were being marketed as 'Gaming PC's ' would have had very limited gaming potential AT ALL, with the best piece of hardware being an i7 being bottlenecked by absolutely everything else, and having absolutly no GPU whatsoever. 

 

I would like to change that so that inexperienced buyers are not mislead and severly disappointed when they open their fancy looking PC to find that it barely runs minesweeper (maybe not true but you know what I'm getting at). 

 

So in your opinion, What makes a gaming PC, and the reason for it being called so?

 

Thanks everyone who submits something as I dont think it is fair that people are being mislead. 

[porina]

To keep it simple, I'd define one as "above average in GPU performance", which is setting the bar pretty low. We can't just say a PC that can game, as almost any modern PC could run some games. The bar is only raised to give some increased level of 3D capability, and there the definition could get more debated.

[Cookybiscuit]

Anything can be "gaming" so long as it is painted mostly black (can be matte or gloss it isn't important), has sharp edges and red LED's.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Cookybiscuit said:

Anything can be "gaming" so long as it is painted mostly black (can be matte or gloss it isn't important), has sharp edges and red LED's.

Its not about the aesthetics of a PC which gives its name as a "gaming PC", its about the raw performance, the RED leds are just for aesthetics

[Cookybiscuit]

1 minute ago, TheBeastPC said:

Its not about the aesthetics of a PC which gives its name as a "gaming PC", its about the raw performance, the RED leds are just for aesthetics

Nah, red LED's increase FPS, but also make components run quite a bit hotter. I went for orange LED's in my system as while they still add some FPS they don't add as much heat.

[Trulop]

Honestly the term "Gaming PC" can be just a gimmick. It all depends on the goal and what games you want to play. If you want to play pong, or galaga, or some other retro games, bottom of the barrel from 10 years ago could be considered as such. 

In terms of todays standards, id say at the minimum to be actually something that fits the title, is something that can handle todays most modern games at playable and stable FPS. So this year, it could be as low as a dual core CPU with maybe a a baseline GPU, where next year the requirements to play triple A titles might go up (just an example). If you can play the latest games at a stable 30FPS+ on at least low settings, then id say you could technically call it a "gaming PC", just not a very good one.

Basically, comes down to opinion lol as everyone has their own standards for what they think is the baseline/minimum, and theres no "definition" really behind the term, and this is as such (my opinion). If your shopping for a PC and you dont do any research prior to tell the difference between quality and lies, then you kinda get what you pay for unfortunately =/ That why google and forums like this exist is to help answer questions to get you on the right path

[Mooshi]

Quote

What makes a Gaming PC

If it can play games that you personally play at a smooth frame rate, it's a gaming PC.

[Trulop]

3 minutes ago, TheBeastPC said:

Its not about the aesthetics of a PC which gives its name as a "gaming PC", its about the raw performance, the RED leds are just for aesthetics

i uh.. think his joke went over your head a bit 0,o

its all about RGB, duh! If it causes epilepsy in less than 10 seconds, best gaming PC ever

[Ramke_99]

13 minutes ago, porina said:

"above average in GPU performance"

so basically any graphics card more than $150 AUS or like a gtx 1030

[Ramke_99]

3 minutes ago, Trulop said:

If your shopping for a PC and you dont do any research prior to tell the difference between quality and lies, then you kinda get what you pay for unfortunately =/ That why google and forums like this exist is to help answer questions to get you on the right path

I know that but not everyone does research, or is able to understand why a certain component is better 

 

5 minutes ago, Trulop said:

In terms of todays standards, id say at the minimum to be actually something that fits the title, is something that can handle todays most modern games at playable and stable FPS. So this year, it could be as low as a dual core CPU with maybe a a baseline GPU,

And this is what I'm trying to work out so I actually have a point to make 

[Trulop]

3 minutes ago, Ramke_99 said:

I know that but not everyone does research, or is able to understand why a certain component is better 

 

And this is what I'm trying to work out so I actually have a point to make 

Again, the tools are at peoples fingertips (literally) if they choose to look for the answers. For those who do not attempt to do so, buying a pc and becoming unhappy with the outcome is completely on them. There is no way to stop people from falling into the trap that is false advertising as curing ignorance is sort of impossible =(

The only guidance i can offer, is if your going to get into something that is as complex as knowing what parts do what and at what levels, strive to look find out at least a few answers before jumping into something they know absolutely nothing about. 

 

 

[michaelocarroll007]

1 hour ago, Ramke_99 said:

Hi everyone, 

 

So while prowling around Ebay and came across Gaming PC's for what reason I have no idea. I started looking at some, and something which peaked my interest was that a majority of the PC's which were being marketed as 'Gaming PC's ' would have had very limited gaming potential AT ALL, with the best piece of hardware being an i7 being bottlenecked by absolutely everything else, and having absolutly no GPU whatsoever. 

 

I would like to change that so that inexperienced buyers are not mislead and severly disappointed when they open their fancy looking PC to find that it barely runs minesweeper (maybe not true but you know what I'm getting at). 

 

So in your opinion, What makes a gaming PC, and the reason for it being called so?

 

Thanks everyone who submits something as I dont think it is fair that people are being mislead. 

if were talking new.  Id say anything with a 1050 or equivalent with an okay CPU to match it.  and not above $650 

 For the 850-1000 mark a i5 or ryzen 5 and a 1060-1070 

 

It needs to have a Okay CPU and Okay GPU which makes it able to hit 1080p Low  40fps in 99% of games.  as my bottom requirement to be called "Gaming" so in a sense it needs to play games lol not only LOL on intergrated GPU

[linustouchtips]

its kind of like vr ready in most cases its a marketing thing something that they believe sells better

[D13H4RD]

Quite honestly, a gaming PC in marketing terms can be described as a computer that has components more than capable enough to run demanding games at medium details at least with a very playable framerate (more than 30 is usually the minimum, with 60 being the benchmark).

 

Sure, if you game on some laptop with a 2310M Core i3 processor and Intel HD3000 graphics, you can “somewhat” call it a gaming PC in the literal sense, but it’s technically not a gaming PC as it wasn’t designed to do so.

[Sauron]

The problem is that the term is pretty meaningless, all it indicates is that the computer will be primarily used for games. Vendors take advantage of ths ambiguity to market their garbage to inexperienced customers. They want you to believe it means the pc will perform well in games because it is in some way "designed for it" without actually saying it, which could get them in trouble for false advertisement. To make it a more useful metric for the consumer, it could be defined to mean "it meets the minimum specs for every game on the market", the only problem being that some games deliberately exaggerate their minimum specs for various reasons - at least it could take most recent blockbuster games into account.

 

How do you plan on changing it though?

[Ramke_99]

On 10/11/2017 at 1:56 AM, Sauron said:

How do you plan on changing it though?

I would like to have Ebay ammend their description policy and include a way to report false advertising 

 

( the following is from Ebay's Item description policy)

 

Information in a listing helps buyers decide whether to buy an item and what to expect when they receive the item.

Not allowed

• Including conflicting product information in a listing.

This policy is in place to help buyers know what they will receive, and the terms of sale around an item.

 

As marketing the PC as Gaming is misleading and is as started by the description policy not what the customer "excpects when they recieve the item" as they are expecting 

On 10/11/2017 at 1:48 AM, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

a computer that has components more than capable enough to run demanding games

and such marketing a computer as Gaming as 

On 10/11/2017 at 1:38 AM, linustouchtips said:

a marketing thing

 

is basically the equivilent of describing a sports car but the car which they actually purchase is the same or worse than they currently have 

 

 

On 10/11/2017 at 1:20 AM, michaelocarroll007 said:

 

[asand1]

I would think a "Gaming PC" should play AAA games at 1080p 60hz minimum. If it can't even do that it is not "gaming."

[SeraphicWings]

R G B

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, Ramke_99 said:

I would like to have Ebay ammend their description policy and include a way to report false advertising 

 

( the following is from Ebay's Item description policy)

 

Information in a listing helps buyers decide whether to buy an item and what to expect when they receive the item.

Not allowed

• Including conflicting product information in a listing.

This policy is in place to help buyers know what they will receive, and the terms of sale around an item.

 

As marketing the PC as Gaming is misleading and is as started by the description policy not what the customer "excpects when they recieve the item" as they are expecting 

and such marketing a computer as Gaming as 

The thing is, if the customer reads the spec sheet and doesn't know what any of it means you can't blame the vendor for not meeting their expectations. As long as they don't lie or omit important information in the spec sheet, they are covered. Since there is no proper definition for what a "gaming pc" is you can't really prevent them from using it on any pc. It's as if they wrote the product is "beautifully designed" - you can't really prove them wrong.

[geo3]

What makes something a "gaming" product is whether on not the target consumer is a gamer and thus the marketing department decides to write "gaming" on the box. 

[dhwarner97]

The real question is, can it run Minesweeper? 

 

If so, you have yourself a gaming PC.

[Froody129]

If you are using it to play games it’s a gaming PC. A 2002 beast gaming machine can’t run anything today but I mean it’s still a gaming PC.

 

it is a shame the stuff people get away with selling PCs to people who don’t know better 

[Cool Guy]

This is subject has a lot of grey, not a lot of black and white.  Unfortunately, that means marketing can be very loose with what they define as "gaming"  products. In my opinion, a gaming PC is just a PC that is designed, or targeted toward gamers who will be primarily using the system to play demanding PC games.  

 

I don't necessarily believe that calling a PC a "gaming" PC is strictly limited to high-end hardware but I believe AT THE LEAST to label a PC as gaming it must meet some basic criteria: 

1. It must have a dedicated GPU, capable of handling basic computer games. 
2. It should have 500GB+ storage for games
3. PC cooling should be adequate to handle high computer load for extended durations.

I don't believe there is a law, but I do believe that most "gaming" PCs on the market meet this criteria, and that's why I listed them.  Because we can define something by the majority (the majority of PCs labelled as gaming PCs meet this criteria and so you can use that to actually define what a gaming PC is).  

[ErykYT3]

On 09/11/2017 at 3:18 PM, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Quite honestly, a gaming PC in marketing terms can be described as a computer that has components more than capable enough to run demanding games at medium details at least with a very playable framerate (more than 30 is usually the minimum, with 60 being the benchmark).

 

Sure, if you game on some laptop with a 2310M Core i3 processor and Intel HD3000 graphics, you can “somewhat” call it a gaming PC in the literal sense, but it’s technically not a gaming PC as it wasn’t designed to do so.

Agreeing with this post, I would say that a gaming pc is a pc that was built for a certain purpose which in this case be gaming. This definition would apply to all gaming pc's no matter how old as a pc from 10 years ago would be built to game and even though it would most likely not be able to play games from this year, it would still be considered a gaming pc as that is what it was meant for. 

This can potentially be very debatable as many of us think of gaming pc's in different ways.

[ErykYT3]

On 11/11/2017 at 5:44 AM, asand1 said:

I would think a "Gaming PC" should play AAA games at 1080p 60hz minimum. If it can't even do that it is not "gaming."

But then you get lower end Pc's for more affordable budgets that can play AAA games at 1080p 59hz let's say, Is it at that point, not a gaming pc?

That's something to think about.