Why do "gaming computers" under $600 from retailers even exist if they cant even play games?

[jeffscustomcomputers]

I build gaming computers to fuel my love of hardware and make some money doing it too. However I am constantly getting asked to lower my (what I consider) fair prices because someone saw a "gaming computer" at Best Buy for less but they only see the price and don't understand that the cheaper computer is actually less performance per dollar.

Here's an email I just wrote to a potential customer of mine.


--"No problem, only computer i have under $550 are these

http://nh.craigslist.org/sys/4509517678.html

http://nh.craigslist.org/sys/4500063731.html

They're not the best for gaming because its hard to build a computer that can play modern high end games well for $600 let alone $500, because the core components like power supply, case, motherboard ect. cost around $500 so the money past $500 goes for the actual stuff that is making the computer good for games like the high end graphics cards and a higher end cpu. I see a lot of budget computers from best buy and cyberpower that have all the fancy lights and bold aggressive looking cases but the graphics card is crap and cant actually play the games you want to play on the settings you want to play them at.

I'll prove it to you

Here is a $580 computer from best buy

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/cybertronpc-trooper-desktop-amd-athlon-ii-x3-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/1625383.p?id=1219058145096&skuId=1625383&st=pcmcat287600050002_categoryid$abcat0501000&cp=1&lp=12

Here is the graphics score for the graphics card in that system, the GT 620

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GT+620

Here is my $580 gaming computer

https://post.craigslist.org/manage/4499771628

Here is the graphics score to the HD 7790 graphics card in my computer

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7790

There's scores not even 500, mine is over 3000. These scores are relative too.

Here are the game benchmarks for the HD 7790 in my system

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/776"--



So the graphics card in my system is more than 6 times faster than Best Buy's PC. And the card in my system is able to play modern games on good (Medium-Ultra) settings with good frames rates (30-60 FPS). It's not even that high end of a card. Best Buys card is 6X slower so you can play games at either 5-10 FPS on the same settings, or turn the quality down and hope that the game scales well so that you might be able to get 30 FPS on the lowest settings. Either way its a crappy way to play games. These "gaming computers' from these big companies that are in the sub $600 market cant even run modern games. It's like building a mustang that has less than 100 horsepower, whats the point? It's just as fast as the entry level choice, but it looks cool.

I just feel like company's aren't building budget gaming computers that have actually been designed to be gamed on.

Let me know your thoughts and/or if you'd ever bought or considered one of these sub $600 gaming builds from retailers and your experience with them.

 

[badboyrog2]

you have two kind of buyer
1 = buyer who care about what they buying
2 = buyer who really do not care about what they buy
thats it

 

[Pondering]

Ever since Intel and AMD have been shipping out processors/mobos with integrated graphics, I have been purchasing pre built systems without a discrete graphics card and then adding one.

 

[jeffscustomcomputers]

you have two kind of buyer
1 = buyer who care about what they buying
2 = buyer who really do not care about what they buy
thats it

Most people care about what they buy, if they knew that something was a better choice for the same money they'd buy it. The problem is they don't care to research what the best choice is. People just don't know. Computer hardware is a complicated subject but there are so many tools and benchmarks on the internet that a quick Google search is all you need to know if something is a better choice or not, yet most people don't even do that.

 

[jeffscustomcomputers]

Ever since Intel and AMD have been shipping out processors/mobos with integrated graphics, I have been purchasing pre built systems without a discrete graphics card and then adding one.

That's a good way of going about things because you have what you need and you can easily expand. People just need to know that a bigger power supply is needed to power whatever card they might get in the future and if the cpu might bottleneck whatever graphics card they get. Other than that, what your doing is a pretty good idea.

I have been impressed with the performance of Intel's HD 4000 and 5000 graphics launches and AMD's APU's because you can actually play games on them. They're as powerful as a low end dedicated graphics card but have amazing energy efficiency. I've seen what an 11 inch macbook air with Intels high end integrated graphics can do and its impressive that those games can run on a 15 watt CPU with the GPU built in. It's only 3 times the power of a smartphone and it can run modern PC games. It's usually on the lowest settings though but its amazing what its coming from something so thin and small. My buddy plays a lot of steam games on his little macbook air. Games like mine-craft, left 4 dead, FEZ and he plays them with an xbox controller with a USB plug. It's like an ultra portable xbox 360 that is also a computer.