Why Building a Gaming PC Right Now Might Be a Good Idea!

[Steve]

There's been some negativity towards new PC gaming hardware as of late, but instead of focusing on the bad, let's see why building a new gaming PC right now could be a good idea, particularly for those in need of a fresh setup.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2706-building-gaming-pc-good/

 

[KIAg1978]

Although all you say might be true they are not ideal when it comes to upgrade a pc and all is to blame gpu prices ,it costs more than half of someone's budget ,doesn't cut it when it comes to longevity of the rig ,in my opinion you build a pc with 5 to seven years in mind until the next upgrade that you only need when gaming and that is the GPU !!

 

[Achaios]

I was thinking abt that the other day.

The truth of the matter is that upgrading is dirt cheap: Ryzen 5600=120 EUR new - AM4 motherboard=150 EUR new - DDR4 RAM=80 EUR

Total: 350 EUR

I spend that much per week on groceries & other expenses.

But well the bottom line is that I really do NOT need to upgrade as my 4770K is sufficient for my needs so there will be no upgrade for the foreseeable future.

 

[redgarl]

This is RIDICULOUS! You guys are just b****ing about the prices of GPUs, which cost almost half the price of the PCs, and you are recommending to BUY a new PCs ATM...

WOW... that's kind of illogical. Yeah, the prices of components are lower than what they were, but still, a gaming PC will cost you at least 1000$.

Not to mention the price of motherboards are still as ridiculous as they were.

 

[redgarl]

You know what, if you can't afford a 7900XT, AT LEAST... then just buy a PS5 and move on. That should be your recommendation...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

You know what, if you can't afford a 7900XT, AT LEAST... then just buy a PS5 and move on. That should be your recommendation...

Consoles are not comparable to PCs. In user experience, backwards compatibility, broad capability, ece.

 

[DSirius]

From my experience as a hardware and computers vendor, July and August months are the best for buying computer hardware, at least in my region, because you can get the lowest price among the entire year. November and December are the best months to sell computer hardware.
So have a happy hardware shopping.

 

[takaozo]

I've just seen the video and for the GPU part:

"That leaves the graphics cards. The obvious choice here is the GeForce RTX 4090, priced at $1,600, they're impressive, so just get one of those, job done. We're joking, of course."

LMAO I was about to fell of the chair....bwahahahah nice one.

 

[mcnabney]

The article does a fair job of communicating that there is great value right now in almost all PC components. Of course the low-value component is the GPU and we all know that.

I think we have also come to terms with the sad fact that this is just going to be the way it is. Intel is not providing any disruption and both AMD and Nvidia are fabless so they care far far more about margin than volume. Complicating this is the reality that there aren't really any breakthroughs in graphics rendering. The game designers want more and more detail which requires more processing. That means bigger and denser chips drawing ever more power. Wafers aren't getting any cheaper and the newest processes have eye-popping fabrication costs. The lack of competition will ensure that consumers never see the type of oversupply that NAND and RAM are seeing right now.

So the market provides a distinct choice - pay a lot more and get the best, pay more and get decent, or pay a lot less and get a console which also provides decent. The market will sort it out in the end.

 

[godrilla]

If you look at the right places you can get a great deal on hardware like for eg. the 6950XT fell to $579.99 @ newegg by Asrock and includes the Starfield game code. This brings this closer to a $500ish card if you were planning on playing starfied anyway. People are definitely buying up the low bearing fruit. From what I see the great deals seen a few weeks ago dried up on the mid tier graphics cards. So if you see a great deal and you need a gpu don't hesitate to buy it.

 

[waclark]

You know what, if you can't afford a 7900XT, AT LEAST... then just buy a PS5 and move on. That should be your recommendation...

That's a bad recommendation since I cannot run all PC games on a PS5. While I think a 7900XT or even a 4070Ti is probably the minimum GPU I would buy new, I think the used market is probably a better option if you're spending $700+. You can get a decent GPU that will get you a couple years down the road and maybe by then we will have better price points for GPUs.

 

[waclark]

From my experience as a hardware and computers vendor, July and August months are the best for buying computer hardware, at least in my region, because you can get the lowest price among the entire year. November and December are the best months to sell computer hardware.
So have a happy hardware shopping.

Not sure where you are at, but in November, Black Friday and Cyber Monday can have some good deals, at least here in the US.

 

[Lew Zealand]

You know what, if you can't afford a 7900XT, AT LEAST... then just buy a PS5 and move on. That should be your recommendation...

So my PS5 experience will be:

medium settings
upscaled 900p on demanding games
30fps if I want 1440p or 4K
limited game selection

Those are crappy features. I build gaming PCs to avoid that, looking forward to another one this weekend.

 

[DSirius]

Not sure where you are at, but in November, Black Friday and Cyber Monday can have some good deals, at least here in the US.

Indeed but I checked many times, the prices of components in July and August are sometimes lower or the same as the best deals from BlackFriday or Cyber Monday, and in July and August you do not have to rush to place an order like in November and wait weeks for delivery.

 

[pencea]

So my PS5 experience will be:

medium settings
upscaled 900p on demanding games
30fps if I want 1440p or 4K
limited game selection

Those are crappy features. I build gaming PCs to avoid that, looking forward to another one this weekend.

Not entirely true. With the expcetion of some games the majority of games on PS5 runs at 60fps at 1440p/4k checkerboard that is a mix of medium to high when compared to PC settings.

Titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank, Gran Turismo, Demon Souls, God of War Ragnarok all graphically looks and runs well at 60fps.

 

[waclark]

Indeed but I checked many times, the prices of components in July and August are sometimes lower or the same as the best deals from BlackFriday or Cyber Monday, and in July and August you do not have to rush to place an order like in November and wait weeks for delivery.

I think if you're a diligent shopper you can find deals at different times of year. The problem is most of us want to buy all our components at once, unless it's just an upgrade. I saw a 4080 FE a month or so ago that was under $1000. Not a great deal, but $200 off list. They went fast.

 

[Julnor]

Eh, outside of GPU there are some great deals, especially that 5600X3D bundle deal if you have a Microcenter near you, but you still need a GPU and pure cost considerations there's just no beating consoles right now. Add to that the fact that OLED HDTVs are cheaper and better than monitors, and most people are better off with a console. Seems like PS5 is the go to but you can literally buy all 3 major consoles for less than the price of a good budget gaming PC build.

And also doing builds, unless it's your hobby, isn't fun to most people. It's a novelty the first couple of times and then the vast majority of people would rather just not deal with it. I just did a new build in the past couple of days, and I know I'm good for another 6 years at least and by then who knows what the landscape and my own life looks like. Simple swaps like GPU are fine, maybe a new SSD, but motherboard and CPU, and getting that first post, wiring everything up, eeeeeh. There's usually some issue too. It makes sense to me that demand is dropping, a lot of people first got into doing a build in the last several years, now they're good and who knows if they come back.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Eh, outside of GPU there are some great deals, especially that 5600X3D bundle deal if you have a Microcenter near you, but you still need a GPU and pure cost considerations there's just no beating consoles right now. Add to that the fact that OLED HDTVs are cheaper and better than monitors, and most people are better off with a console. Seems like PS5 is the go to but you can literally buy all 3 major consoles for less than the price of a good budget gaming PC build.

No.

You can build a PC for ~$600 which is better than both PS5s and XBsS, but might come up short of the XBsX if you use a 6600XT instead of a 6700XT. The 6700XT will beat them all for $60 more.

That's far less than the $1000 total for the cheap/slow versions of those consoles plus the Switch. And notably cheaper than $700 for just the low-end XB and PS.

And also doing builds, unless it's your hobby, isn't fun to most people. It's a novelty the first couple of times and then the vast majority of people would rather just not deal with it.

This right here. The vast majority of people not only don't care but would rather do just about anything else than build a PC. Consoles are easy.

 

[Dr Roboto]

I just built a new PC because I did think it was the right time.

• RAM (64GB) and SSDs (2TB 990 pro) are super cheap right now.
• CPUs are very affordable (7700X) for the performance you get.
• AMD motherboards are not a great deal overall, but you can find a deal here or there from time to time (x670 for around $225).
• Believe it or not PSUs are quite expense compared to the low prices you see on them around Black Friday. It was the one part of my build that I was the least happy with in terms of price/performance deal.
• The GPU is the obvious major price issue right now. I chose to go used because I got a good deal on a minimally used RTX 3070 Ti.

Total price with a Lian Li case $1,686 (tax included). It is the most I have ever spent on a computer in my 30+ years of building them, but it is hands down the fastest computer I have ever used.

 

[pencea]

No.

You can build a PC for ~$600 which is better than both PS5s and XBsS, but might come up short of the XBsX if you use a 6600XT instead of a 6700XT. The 6700XT will beat them all for $60 more.

That's far less than the $1000 total for the cheap/slow versions of those consoles plus the Switch. And notably cheaper than $700 for just the low-end XB and PS.



This right here. The vast majority of people not only don't care but would rather do just about anything else than build a PC. Consoles are easy.

Not in Australia for $600. A comparable or better GPU alone is 60% priced of the PS5 itself, not to mentioned tower, cpu cooler, monitor, keyboard, headphones or speakers, mouse, motherboard, power supply, cpu, ram & a similar spec SSD no way you can build and get all of that for just $600 while being better at the same time.

Consoles will always have it's place regardless, but I degress.

 

[dangh]

You know what, if you can't afford a 7900XT, AT LEAST... then just buy a PS5 and move on. That should be your recommendation...

That's stupid. This article is about buying a PC, which is meant for many different use cases. The 'productivity' argument is used there as well. And PC will give better options and graphics quality (most of the time) even with 6800xt. Not to mention cheaper games, better modding modding option, much wider games choice, including retro games and emulation.
I'm sure all for PS5, their exclusive games are excellent and if someone likes those type of games then it is must-buy, but overall PC is a better gaming system. That's why I have gaming PC, Steam Deck and PS5 - I'm not loosing anything I find interesting

 

[STbob]

The real reason PC gaming has be terrible is Bit Coin mining. What good is a new cpu when you cant buy a GPU. Took me 4 years to get a a 3070, oops buy the time it was available the 4070 was out, then I had to wait months to get a FE 4070 finally had to buy it off NVIDIA site as Best Buy (They are getting bad) refuses to take money to reserve for people preferring people to fight bots online.

For sure now is better than past three years. After Covid many people are BROKE so even with cheaper cards many might have to pick between FOOD or playing games. I get you work in PC so you have to push the "Now is the time" narrative.
Anyway sorry for reality but no sense living in fantasy land.

That Said I did score the Micro Center 5600x3d for 178.00 + MB + DDR4 3200 for 329.00. The new DDR5 MBs are less stable, some burned up (Asus, MSI) on the newer x3d and they cost $200.00 more for the same gaming performance. So I opted for stability of the AMD4 5600x3d and fewer bugs. DDR5 just not that big of a WOW and do not care for the all the bugs and issues.

 

[STbob]

I just built a new PC because I did think it was the right time.
[*]The GPU is the obvious major price issue right now. I chose to go used because I got a good deal on a minimally used RTX 3070 Ti.
[/LIST][/INDENT]

Haha "Minimally used (Mined 24/7 for years) 3070ti. hahaha

Thats what all the ex miners tell the people they sell their overworked gpus to.

 

[STbob]

Consoles are not comparable to PCs. In user experience, backwards compatibility, broad capability, ece.

Does not matter I know plenty of people that go consoles because they are less money and less online cheating. I'm a PC gamer mouse keyboarder but to say people don't buy a console over a PC is not realistic I know plenty that do. A PC + Steam Games is a better deal in the long run for sure. Consoles they suck you in like buying a cheap printer and they cash in on the Toner (Games) at high prices.

 

[STbob]

That's a bad recommendation since I cannot run all PC games on a PS5. While I think a 7900XT or even a 4070Ti is probably the minimum GPU I would buy new, I think the used market is probably a better option if you're spending $700+. You can get a decent GPU that will get you a couple years down the road and maybe by then we will have better price points for GPUs.

Sorry can't buy used mining GPUs show some backbone don't support the people the ruined the GPU market. Buy NEW only only way to be sure.