LOL, all that power in a little console does 1080p....:p

Its to do with the fact that its up scaled to 1080p not true 1080p which requires far more power. Most 1080p TVs still only accept 720p and upscale which is why those hyper expensive "true" HD or "ultra" HD TVs exist. PCs however generate the content at the specified resolution and do not upscale it to the resolution the monitor / graphics is set to.

I'll agree with jonisginger.

It is also worth considering that PCs go to higher resolutions with much faster refresh rates than consoles generally do. Also note that a high percentage of console games do not go higher than 720p.

But yeah, we have a particularly bloated and inefficient general use operating system designed to handle an exceptionally large variety of hardware sitting between the hardware and the games. That really does reduce the potential of our hardware significantly as compared to consoles which can optimize for a very small subset of hardware and a very limited number of roles.

600P (1024x600) like COD4 is very common. 600p with 2xaa is hardly comparable to a PC running native 19x12 with 4xaa/16xaf.

consoles lack AA.. ohh those jaggies.

This reminds me of when I was in highschool and some kid was telling me the PS2 had superior graphics compared to the xbox...

Have you ever heard of texture streaming? Hell, GTA IV uses a lighting engine that is more advanced than pretty much everything on the market aside from Crysis, and it's not even on the PC yet. Also what games have you played on the Xbox360 or PS3 that replacing everything in the distance with a giant image? I don't know if you realize it, but EVERY GAME OUT uses methods to improve performance such as limiting the view scale / distance scale where objects begin to load. Hell, even if you play Crysis on Very High you can see objects load into the game from the distance when driving cars or moving on foot quickly and looking into the distance. Only an idiot would argue that the PC isn't the most powerful of hte platforms, but that doesn't mean that the other platforms aren't capable of having decent looking games.

this is way more complicated/fanboyish then its needs to be. ...Yes devolopers are excellant at squeezing every available system resource out of a console and have much practice over its life in doing so. Games do get better graphicsover a consoles lifetime; however, PC gamer/enthusist have more upgrade ability then consoles and are more technically/visually advanced then console ported game counter parts.

Ultimately IMO both platforms have their strength's and weekenesses. Short but sweet...consoles get a LOT bang for a buck... gaming PCs cost a lot of bucks for a bigger bang...Its not cost effective but it is the god's honest truth. Sorry PS3/xbox360 won't hold a candle to the technical prowess of a modern quadcore rig with sli'd/CF'd and a few gigs of ram. That said your never gonna build a PC "on the cheap" that can keep up with one of those consoles for less money then you can purchase them for.

In the end we are the marketing model. lets face it the latest consoles have more "PC" parts with each new generation. Most of the cosole hardware is made by the same guys making PC hardware. in a sense PC gamers are the alpha testers of the next gen console hardware (7800gtx is to PS3 as x1950 xt is xbox360). Nvidia/ati let their architecture mature and what ever their latest and greatest is when mircosoft/sony/nintendo starts devolopment of a new generation gets some small customizations to increase the chips true potential.

fair first off a PS3 (the 80 giger) and 360 can be had for seventy less dollars on newegg in contrast to your build and in the case of the PS3...it also has a blue ray player (moot point but still).

No denying PC gaming can be done cheapish...and still keep up. Again we are the market model...Some game on consoles do to ease of use and it lacks the maintence of a modern PC all at a fair price. Some have PC's and are closet geeks upgrading thier rig just for fun...and the extra frame rates and eye candy are just that, extra. Console are enough graphix for the masses...enthusists do it cause we enjoy the "build" and "upgrade" processes. Depending on what you make depends how much you can spend...its no wonder nvidia/amd/intel have such good PR people to sell 4 versions of the same silicon at differant price brackets. Why do you think "overclocking" was looked down at for so long. It screwed up their scheme...now they have open arms and CPU's specially boxed for it. Given time to adapt...the market did.

Anyone in here that has done a few builds know how horribly they can go wrong and it can be months sometimes, especially if your bleeding edge, to get bios and software fixes for said hardware... (personally went through that with the whole 790i fiasco with the 1600fsb n ram sync setting...lame for the record) Point being is gaming on PC is a bit more envolved and that is where all the heaven and heart ache collide. Hell on a bad PC day after a few hundred BSOD...i enjoy turning on my 360 and not having to screw with it. I'll be the first to say i play both sides of the gaming fence.

Thanks, thanks and thanks trackman....

It is funny to think how close all this hardware is related and how vastely differant it can cost. Personally i hate this hardware/software market model...I like the idea of having a Console/ PC standard gaming spec for software devolopers (similar to XNA but mulitplatform)...buy one disc and have it work no mater what your hardware is. Wouldn't it be nice if everything just scaled accurately to your machine's true power? makes one ponder why microsoft really entered the console race....

ok anywho back on planet earth where chaos reigns supreme...

Who wants to play a little NES Ninja Gaiden? It still rocks!

Yeah, $20 cheaper on the CPU and $40 cheaper on the GPU:
9600GSO for $50 shipped AR.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130356

Interesting that everyone here talks about price, while the original poster asked about size and power consumption.

Out of 23 posts before your own, only 7 were related to price discussion, three of which were mine. The cost debate always comes up in a PC vs. console discussion, so it's only natural to find it here.
The OP didn't ask anything, he only made an incorrect statement, and most of the posts here were in reply to that (including the thread's title). His comments regarding card sizes and power consumption are useless to reply to since they're obviously blown out of proportion, exaggerated and/or mistaken to make his point. There is no card the size of console itself, and most cards (excluding dual-GPU solutions) do not consume 150W or more.

take also for the fact that the level of detail on a pc is unmatched by any console.

i mean come on, Grid on the 360 is like medium/2xAA on a PC, for hardcore PC gamers, that's vomit.

Typical is $50, but you rarely have to spend $50 for a PC version. Someone typically has them for $40 at/ near release. Retail chains like BB or CC will occasionally spring nice $30 sales soon after a release. Plus even the good ones drop dirt cheap a lot sooner.

Looking at CC ad for this week as an example: Crysis Warhead $25 instead of $30 at launch. Gears of War $15. Age of Conan $35. COD4 $30.

Also, I've never had to subscribe to xbox live or the ps3 equivalent to play multi-player first person shooters on my pc! My son bought the xbox live 12 months for like 60.00! and also paid some 30.00 to buy points to dounload stuff....Plus it's hard to find true pc developed games (short of WoW, or Flight Sim X) most are average quality port-overs others are crappy at best!