PC Master Race – Why would you want a console?

 PC vs Console

Just exactly how much would it cost to build a PC with better performance and more features than a next-gen console?

We will use a standard set-up across all platforms, this is the console + one game + 12 month online membership.

Consoles

PS4 (500GB)

Console
PS4: £349.99

Online
PS Plus 12 months: £39.00

Game
Battlefield 4: £43.99

Total: £432.98
(Current price from Amazon.co.uk)

Xbox One (500GB)

Console
Xbox One: £429.99

Online
Xbox Live Gold 12 months: £34.99

Game
Battlefield 4: £47.00

Total: £511.98
(Current price from Amazon.co.uk)

PC

PC that performs better and has more features than next-gen consoles

Option 1

CPU
AMD Athlon X4 760K: £60.91

Motherboard
MSI A78M-E3: £42.94

Graphics Card
2GB Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WFORCE OC: £155.12

Power Supply Unit
430W Corsair Builder Series: £35.32

Hard Drive
1TB Seagate ST1000DM003: £45.11

Case
Silverstone Precision PS08B: £28.90

Memory
8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance: £66.96

Blu-ray Drive (OPTIONAL)
LiteOn DH-4O3S-04-B: £23.28

Online
Steam: FREE

Game
Battlefield 4: FREE (with graphics card)

OS
SteamOS: FREE
(Windows 8.1: £70.57)

Delivery: £10.98
Total: £446.24
(Current price from Scan.co.uk)

Note: to use this graphics card with this PSU you will need an additional PCI-E connector (click here)
**If you want the best compatibility with more room to upgrade in the future, use this PSU instead: click here (+£16.88)

Option 2 (best price to performance and lots of room to upgrade)

CPU
AMD FX 6300 Black Edition: £83.56

Motherboard
MSI 760GMA-P34: £40.51

Graphics Card
2GB Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X WFORCE OC: £155.12

Power Supply Unit
500W CXM Builder Series: £52.20

Hard Drive
1TB Seagate ST1000DM003: £45.11

Case
Silverstone Precision PS08B: £28.90

Memory
8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance: £66.96

Blu-ray Drive (OPTIONAL)
LiteOn DH-4O3S-04-B: £23.28

Online
Steam: FREE

Game
Battlefield 4: FREE (with graphics card)

OS
SteamOS: FREE
(Windows 8.1: £70.57)

Delivery: £10.98
Total: £483.34
(Current price from Scan.co.uk)

Option 2 is much better and will give you better performance and will last longer, it’s 100% worth the extra £37 over option 1.

Final Verdict

The PC’s fit right in between the consoles in terms of price but offer much greater performance, option 1 is if you are on a low budget and just want what works now. Option 2 is still less expensive than the Xbox One but offers much greater performance, upgradability options and will last much longer.

These PC’s can be upgraded and changed in many ways, for example you could increase storage, add an SSD, upgrade the graphics card, increase the RAM up-to 32GB.
With a console, you are locked in with what you have.

These are the prices of the platforms with just 1 year online and 1 game, if we were to add up the costs of each platform for an average lifecycle of 5-7 years, the cost of playing online on the consoles will be around £175 + 5 games in at around £40 = +£375 on top of the current price.

On PC, there is no cost for playing online so for 5-7 years that is £0, games also tend to be cheaper on PC especially when Steam run their sales so the average cost of 5 games is around £90. This makes it +£90 to the price of whichever PC option from the list you choose.

Consoles have their advantages where they are simple to use and as each system is the same, the games are more well optimised for the platforms. The consoles are sold at low prices on their own as they make most of their money from game sales, with a PC, the cost of the system is quite similar and you save a lot of money on the games.

With AMD’s Mantle API being released soon this month for Battlefield 4 (currently Windows only) and soon thereafter with other games, this allows game developers similar low-level access to the hardware capabilities of modern graphics cards (GCN) as there is with consoles, this claims to offer up-to a 45% performance improvement over DirectX.

We must also remember that these are PC’s, they do not just play games. They can be used for any normal PC operations and can do much more than a games console can.

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