PS4 or Computer?

Nuruize · Jul 19, 2015

Hi. I am not sure if a PS4 would be better for me than a PC based on my budget and what I want it for.

My budget is £400 - £500 and that would include needing a Monitor, OS and Case.

All I would be playing on the computer is Final Fantasy XIV Realm Reborn Heavensward as I have been playing it on the PS3 but today I would like to either buy a PS4 or a computer to play it if I can get a computer that will play the game and beat the graphics/performance of the ps4 based on my budget?

theonerm2 · Jul 19, 2015

I think a PS4 would be better for you than a PC because you don't have much to spend.

Darkbreeze · Jul 19, 2015

This is about as close in price as you're going to get considering you need the OS and monitor, and will pretty well outperform any console out there, plus it's not locked to 30fps like most consoles. And, it's a lot more useful for OTHER activities than a console would be.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£52.00 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A58M-HD2 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£34.30 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Mushkin Silverline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.91 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£148.86 @ More Computers)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£32.65 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) (£75.09 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Hannspree HE247DPB 23.6" Monitor (£99.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £531.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-20 00:42 BST+0100

turbopiki · Jul 19, 2015

PC a bit over your budget, if you cant og over just change th GPU for r7 265

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (£52.00 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI A68HM-P33 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£32.02 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£38.12 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£32.40 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card (£109.81 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£35.04 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Monitor: ViewSonic VA2349S 60Hz 23.0" Monitor (£114.43 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £507.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-20 00:43 BST+0100

sora · Jul 19, 2015

Nuruize :

It depends... If you have more friends and games meant for a PS4 go for the PS4.

Nuruize · Jul 20, 2015

Will the 2 builds that have been listed here be able to run and play FFXIV better than the PS4 with better graphics too?

excella1221 · Jul 20, 2015

You are better off with a PS4. SE is going to support and optimize the game for it until well the end of its lifetime.

I'm on Siren server and like 8/10 of my friends and people I meet are on PS4.

EDIT: Also, with a low-end spec PC, you'll have to turn down settings a lot, and even then you will still lag and freeze especially in major server events like A- and S- rank hunts and Odin/Behemoth FATEs.

Nuruize · Jul 20, 2015

Ok what about if I leave the monitor out. I have managed to find one of my old monitors in my loft. I'll buy a new one next month or something. Can I now possible get a build that will outperform the PS4 in both graphics and performance on a £400-£500 budget not including the monitor, only the OS and Case?

excella1221 · Jul 20, 2015

Taken from ffxivinfo.com:

FXIV: ARR Recommended System Requirements

For the best performance you should aim to run the game on a system with at least these specifications.
Operating System: Windows® 7 64 bit
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5
Graphics: NVIDIA® Geforce® GTX 660 or higher, AMD Radeon™ HD 7950 or higher
Memory: 4GB of RAM.
Disk Space: 20GB.

It would be very hard to fit those under 500 pounds. An alternative if you really want to play on PC is to get a used(2nd hand) one from reputable sellers.

Nuruize · Jul 20, 2015

My issue with playing it on the PS4 is you're stuck at 30FPS arn't you and obviously you can't use any voice programs like teamspeak like you can with PC

excella1221 · Jul 20, 2015

Not sure where you got that info, but it's capped at 60fps according to this:
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/02/20/ps4-port-of-final-fantasy-xiv-has-unlocked-framerate-up-to-60-fps-at-1080p-limited-due-to-heat-issues/

I'm not trying to convince you to get a PS4 against your will here -- I'm just saying for your budget, the PS4 is the better option if 95% of the time it will only be for FFXIV. The game is optimized by Square Enix to run in PC-like max settings on the PS4. That might be a bit of a stretch, but everything including visuals is a major improvement over the PS3.

As for VoIP, my FCmates use the TS mobile app. I -THINK- some people utilize the bundled mic with the PS4 and they group chat over PSN. I'm not entirely sure how the latter works though.

turbopiki · Jul 20, 2015

PS4 can run games at 60 FPS but that doesnt mean all games run at 60 FPS, most of them are 30 FPS and some dont even run on 1080p

the build i gave you is already better than PS4, but if you can buy Monitor later the PC can get way better :

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£83.62 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£57.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£38.12 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£32.40 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£147.59 @ Aria PC)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£25.29 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£35.16 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 OEM (64-bit) (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £487.69
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-20 16:08 BST+0100

excella1221 · Jul 20, 2015

turbopiki :

Nuruize :

EDIT: That build can run the game, yes. But the CPU will most likely hold the 960 back in FFXIV. If OP has to turn down video settings just to be able to play the game, then it's already defeating the purpose of picking it over the PS4 which the game was pretty much made for.

sora · Jul 20, 2015

Nuruize :

It should play it with better graphics.

Darkbreeze · Jul 20, 2015

You're nuts. The majority of current consoles have low end AMD APUs in them that don't even match up with ANY of the builds on this page.

While most of them are 8 core, we already know that almost no games will take advantage of more than 4 anyhow. The few that do will be hampered by the fact that the base clock for the PS4’s processor is 1.6 GHz, while the Xbox One runs at a slightly quicker 1.75 GHz. That's about half the speed of almost any current gen CPU for the PC.

The on-paper power of the PlayStation 4 is only on par with the Radeon HD 7850, a competent but inexpensive card that usually sells for $140 to $160 and offers 1.76 TFLOPs.

The GTX 960 by way of comparison runs at 2.7TFLOPs. And that's not even a very high end card. The R9 280x is even higher for a slightly higher investment.

Just about any good current Gen card bests the graphics performance of those consoles. Easily. So I think you need to go do some research before you say that a console outperforms any specific PC build. Clearly you are misinformed. Plus, as mentioned, most console games are locked at a dismal 30fps, which almost every PC gamer would laugh at.

And if it's a CPU intensive game, that Jaguar core in the PS4 will shrink into a corner and quiver. It's a weak, watered down, power saving 8 core that doesn't have comparable IPC to even the wimpy Athlon X4 quad core chips.

There are pages and pages of data that show us that even two years ago the PS4 had a hard time competing with budget PC gaming rigs, much less now when a fairly decent budget PC gaming machine can be assembled for a very slightly larger investment. Actually, much less if you consider that consoles don't come with displays so if you take the display out of the PC budget, it's not even a competition. In most cases, if you really wanted to, you could use the same TV you're going to use with that console, with your gaming PC.

excella1221 · Jul 21, 2015

That wall of text completely misses the point of the topic at hand.

Nowhere did I imply or claim that the builds above are inferior as a whole to a PS4. If you only bothered to at least read everything said so far instead of simply seeing "PC vs PS4" then letting your elitist self go full throttle and blindly hurl insults at me, you would've realized we are talking solely about FINAL FANTASY XIV performance. A game marketed, OPTIMIZED and pretty much made with the PS4 in mind.

I would like to emphasize on "OPTIMIZED" for the PS4 in case someone misses it again. The builds suggested so far are superior in terms of general performance and pretty much everything else, but IF he is only using it to play FFXIV, I see little reason to pick a low budget build over a PS4. Also, just because most games are locked at 30 fps, doesn't mean it's the same for FFXIV, as stated in the article I gave.

OP, at the end of the day, it's still your choice. I'm not going to bother arguing with these PC-master-race people who don't even play the game and have not even bothered looking into how much the devs have put into -optimizing- the game for the PS4 just so it can be at the very least on par with high-end systems, visually speaking.

One last thing I'd like you to check out, if you still have doubts:
http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/02/17/final-fantasy-xiv-ps4-vs-pc-maximum-settings-direct-feed-screenshot-comparison-identical-twins/

Although I'm pretty sure that still won't convince the people above, it's your call.

Darkbreeze · Jul 21, 2015

So I think you need to go do some research before you say that a console outperforms any specific PC build. Clearly you are misinformed.

How, in any realm of believability, is that construed as "hurling insults"?

If you're that sensitive, perhaps you should not post in threads that are clearly going to generate discord among camps, with comments like:

You are better off with a PS4. SE is going to support and optimize the game for it until well the end of its lifetime.

I'm on Siren server and like 8/10 of my friends and people I meet are on PS4.

EDIT: Also, with a low-end spec PC, you'll have to turn down settings a lot, and even then you will still lag and freeze especially in major server events like A- and S- rank hunts and Odin/Behemoth FATEs.

I'd suggest you adopt a more mature attitude and understand that comments like that are likely to elicit "facts" being hurled at you, not insults.

excella1221 · Jul 21, 2015

How, in any realm of believability, is that construed as "hurling insults"?

I will admit I may have overreacted a bit in that regard. I don't claim to be an expert with the optimization of the game, but I have spent a lot of time with it, including the technical bits, and with people each with different systems, so when someone tells me I'm nuts and misinformed about it, my PMS kicks into full gear.

If you're that sensitive, perhaps you should not post in threads that are clearly going to generate discord among camps, with comments like:

You are better off with a PS4.

Again, the main key point of this topic is his first post that clearly says all he will be doing is play FFXIV, in which case the statement I gave is appropriate.

I'd suggest you adopt a more mature attitude and understand that comments like that are likely to elicit "facts" being hurled at you, not insults.

I would take this suggestion if you would practice it as well.

Darkbreeze · Jul 21, 2015

I have still not insulted you in any way, nor have I done anything aside from present the facts of the matter, which are, that the PS4 and consoles in general cannot compete with the majority of PC gaming systems, even budget versions. What is there to practice. Heh. If you think disagreeing with you is the same as insulting you I don't know what to tell you aside from, maybe you really are nuts. JK.

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