PS4 vs. $500 PC (NEED HELP)

Go with the ps4 becuase that pc will need a new gpu/cpu and motherboard in about 2-3 years since its entry level and will only get by a few years. Thats the problem with budget pc's becuase everyone thinks low end hardware is so much faster than a ps4. That may be but pc hardware gets "fotgotten about" like my brothers 7800gt after about 2 years it was completly obsolute. Thats a 2007 card and it cant even run 2010 games. Im not trying to start a console war here but value wise the console will be able to buy used games and trade, plus every time you put it in it will work, the pc may be backwards compatible, but games from 2005 dont work on my pc even from 2008 like fallout 3 dont work on my pc.

And im assuming with 500 dollars you will get an operating system for "free"? don't pirate becuase you won't be able to get updates and its illegal. So you probally want windows 7 oem for your pc right? windows 8 doesnt work with most older games even with modification. so add about 100 to that list. might as well have a nice gamng keyboard and mouse too +100 nice 1080p monitor +200. see where im going? sure budget stuff works like wallmart keyboards, but i couldn't stand mine after a few weeks. So with the pc you will likely spend all your money on peripherals just to be able to be comfortable, and no money on the games. I switched to consoles many times from pc's and this will be my last. I have a 1200 dollar pc with a 660ti, so don't say my pc sucks. I did have issues with ym computer when i first made it most games stuttered (like pausing and hitching) ive seen videos where very high end pc's sturttered. Most people don't care or notice, but i do and it annoying. I eneded up spending an additional 300 dollars on new ram/motherboard/ ssd and that fixed the stutters. Something to think about

Plus even though i bought 300 dollars in periperals (g19, razer orbwaever, desturcter 2 mouse mat) i had to buy a BUNCH before that. i bought 3 keyboards before that and the g19 still isnt perfectly comforting, so i bought the orbweaver. than i needed a new mouse mat and mouse. i didnt like my 30 dollar goloathus and 70dollar g700 and went with 12 dollar hp wired mouse . Money won't guarentee it will be good, but its a good start I had to build a pc, then rebuild it with about 1500 dollars in the system alone just to be able to get stutter free gameplay at 60fps. Alot of bs with pc gaming, and what annoys em the most is:

Pc players are hypocrits. They say "oh its soooo easy to build a system" when it is indeed easy to insert parts together, but its trial and error, it turned out my motherboard didn't support the timing of my ram, yet youtube video part lists from tek syndicat, ect. said it was a "great combination" and its alot of hit and miss. Now its my monitor(s) that annoy me. I had these asus 144hz ones and they have weird color so i bought a VA panel and overclocked it a little, but now what annoys me is that the color is still a bit off. My asus would also rotate and looked crookid. And that made me have BADDD ocd i wont begin to get on that one.

The bottom line is, when you play on pc, you sign up for a BIG commitement, even with a 500 dollar pc, becuase you get the false hope of "perfection" or a "better expeireince" to really enjoy pc go with a crappy and cheap one and have little expectation and get other hobbys, or other consoles. That made me ejnoy pc. ANyways yea pc sucks still

?

agreed. If you getting a gaming PC you have to go $1000 plus to be a good investment you have to remember consoles get the low level optimization treatment so a $500 PC will have worse graphics/performance than a PS4 almost always.

1000+? I have 800 into mine AFTER a 300 dollar upgrade and it maxes out anything I throw at it.
When it only had 500 put in it ran everything on high-ultra settings at 1080p. For 400 or under, console, 500+ pc.
You dont need to spend that much, or even close, to beat consoles or for it to be a good investment.

I would really have to say if you have about 800+ go with the pc becuase factor in essentials like monitor, keyboard mouse. Why use the regular stuff (espically cheap monitors why get an expensive gpu only to be "bottlenecked" but crap color? but really i would say when you build a cheap pc you probally will rebuild it within a few months becuyase everyone online will be playing with more fps and better settings most likely the good players. I need a 660ti to be on low for 120+fps to keep up. So id say just upgrade your pc with a 7750 to see if you even want to play on the pc.

Save up your money and get an upper budget level build.

a 500 PC is good enough for decent gaming use.

you just go into it knowing its a 2-3 years max investment

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G46 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($79.97 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 650 1GB Video Card ($101.74 @ Amazon)
Case: Cougar Solution (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Microcenter)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $504.66
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-05 09:43 EST-0500)

I never said anything about a 120hz monitor. Typial monitors cost around 200 dollars. whatever waste your money and rebuild your pc becuase you weren't satisfied with it. Ill be playing on my "pesant console" lol with better graphics

Why so hostile? He didn't say anything either about a 120hz monitor. He just said that the monitor is not included in the price. Also he doesn't need 120+ fps like you do, he needs ~60.

IF he needs a monitor and a OS all for 500$. YEah... Go with a ps4.

Yes, but he just said that the monitor will be bought seperately from a different budget. It's NOT required to fit in this budget. If he needs an OS though, yeah the PS4.

lets keep it civil here people...

@op your choice if you want pc or ps4 however the graphics on pc are going to be far superior for similar money spent. alot of games for console are still rendered at 720p and just upscaled. gameplay is also at a lower fps rating so its not as smooth as pc. just a few things to keep in mind.

if you did want to go the pc route... then...

budget of somewhere around $500. assuming windows is included in the price (since not stated otherwise). assuming peripherals are seperate since the op stated the monitor was seperate. assuming the op just wants 50-60fps at whatever the best settings $500 will buy based on the responses given.


[PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wEjV) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wEjV/by_merchant/) / [Benchmarks](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wEjV/benchmarks/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/amd-cpu-fd6300wmhkbox) | $109.99 @ TigerDirect
**Motherboard** | [Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-m5a78lmusb3) | $54.99 @ Microcenter
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f314900cl9d8gbxl) | $68.00 @ Newegg
**Storage** | [Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st500dm002) | $49.99 @ NCIX US
**Video Card** | [Asus GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB Video Card](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-gtx650tioc2gd5) | $134.99 @ Microcenter
**Case** | [Cougar Spike MicroATX Mini Tower Case](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/cougar-case-spike) | $34.99 @ Newegg
**Power Supply** | [Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-cx430) | $19.99 @ Microcenter
**Optical Drive** | [Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer](http://pcpartpicker.com/part/lite-on-optical-drive-ihas124-04) | $14.99 @ Newegg
**Other**| Windows 7 64bit @ ebay| $79.99
| | **Total**
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available. | $567.92
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-06 12:39 EST-0500 |


now... i did go over the budget of $500 by $67 however adding an os definitely takes a major hit on performance if it is included in the price. you could lower this to about $513 by dropping down to a 7770ghz or low end 650 but then you take a performance hit as well. i would definitely go for the 650ti 2gb if you can manage to push your budget just a bit. if not... then drop down.

for a few dollars more the 1866 ram is a great deal at $68 so is silly to not go with.

you will note many similarities between this build and screwysqrl's as this is likely the best route to go for both the ability to upgrade in the future and for performance. it is definitely possible to go with older hardware and get a boost on performance that way but you throw upgradeability out the window by doing so.

@sleepy

you do realize that you can just turn down the graphics levels when newer games come out right?
you do realize that even by doing this you are STILL getting better graphics and better performance than a ps4 or xbo right?
you do realize that a pc will look far far better in the graphics department (basically the games are dumbed down for console if they were a port from pc and consoles will not get the same frames per second numbers.

i have a ps2&ps3 but they definitely have their place and a pc has its own place.

the only reason you dont have to upgrade a console is because everything gets lowered to the same level so it will run. this is also why some games lag since they are pushing the limits it can handle.

not trying to push you away from ps4 (i do love my ps3) just letting you know what to realistically expect.

well thats not exactly true..

first of all read this

http://wccftech.com/battlefield-4-nextgen-consoles-comparable-medium-settings-pc-upscaled-720p/

consoles are generally much weaker than gaming computers even at similar price levels. to get those "60fps" which looks to repeated all over that article its a well known fact that certain settings like AA, shadows, etcetera are tweaked or lowered. you also need to keep in mind that it is only rendering at 1280x720 (720p) and then upconverting it like it would dvds.

so you cannot really compare a gaming pc rendering at a native 1080p with the ps4 rendering at 720p with fancy upconverting. if anything i would compare to 900p on pc (due to upscaling from ps4). a 650ti plays at 55/60 on medium mode but if you want to compare to a ps3 then run on 1600x900 (900p) and likely you can use the high preset if you lower AA a bit.

bench
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2013/11/27/battlefield-4-performance-analysis/3

there is no way that a console is more powerful than even budget level gaming computers so there is no way that it could be higher quality graphics.

again. not trying to change your decision, just trying to set the facts straight here so there isnt any confusion here.

What is a pc build thats on the same lvl as a ps4 or x1? Im curious

You're getting your resolutions wrong though. It's not 960x720 but 1280x720, and it's not 1440x900 but 1600x900 since they are all the standard 16:9 aspect ratio. Upscaling incorrect aspect ratio resolutions would result in stretched visuals. Other than that, yeah maybe at 720p or 900p a $500 PC (just the tower, no peripherals) would perform similarly, but it will never be able to run future games at the same medium quality whereas the PS4 and Xbox One will because of optimization.

it doesnt matter. the op picked a ps4.

i was just trying to clear the misconception that consoles are going to look better and perform better in the long run as that is false.

in any case i'm done here.