Is the PC dying as a gaming platform??? - Page 2

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by power requirements increasing, you will notice that during the days when the 5200 was considered s high end card you could get away with a 250watt psu and run everything fine, try doing that with a modern pc with 8800

while power efficiency doesnt bother me too much as unlike card, with a gaming pc, we have need for all of the speed and more.

over the years, cars have become more and more efficient but all of that added efficiency is lost because the makers just use it to add more horse power and show their cars moving super fast on their tv ads while in reality we are only able to use 30% of that speed and power before we get a ticket (with the efficiency of cars now, if they were to make the engine 90 horsepower instead of 300, the car would probably do 100 miles to a gallon or more and still be able to exceed the speed limits on the highway

(a 1000 horsepower car gets around 5-6 miles to a gallon)

PS the last pc I built had 2 8800 GT's in SLI

the powersupply was a 750 watt by corsair

when idle everest showed 12.17 V on the 12V rail
then when i launched the fog in a box demo by nvidia and prime 95

the 12V readings will hover between 11.95 and 12.02V

and the powersupply has very good reviews (this has 100% no effect on stability but it is annoying to see that 11.95V)

the pc was using the onboard sound and 1 500GB sata drive and 2 dvd burners and 1 floppy drive

No one has yet mentioned MMO's as a potential cause of PC gaming slumps. World of Warcraft is a behemoth in the PC gaming industry. That game has probably reduced other PC game sales by at least 10% alone. Not because 10 million people play it today, but because probably 50 million have *at some time* played it for a good long time.

Personally I found it took at least a few years (after I quit wow) to get back into PC gaming because its such an all encompassing game that nothing else was attractive on the platform. RPG are mostly dull and shallow by comparison and no other game genre has that 'addiction quota' that WoW tends to induce. This isn't a commercial for WoW though, just the opposite, DON'T play that game, it will ruin you!

People playing an MMO wont buy other games because they generally want to play the MMO at every moment of the day. This means they wont go out and buy other games. In fact they wont even LOOK for other games. Plus they're spending money (however little it might be) and so there is the niggling feeling at the back of their brains that tells them they have to get the most 'value' out of the game that they can.

I think ignoring WoW as an ingredient in the downward slump of PC games sales is like ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room.

PC games are more stunning and much more complex than gaming consoles. Specially in command and conquer type of games where gaming consoles are not good.

You're not looking in the right places :

http://www.pro-star.com/index.cfm? [...] model=9194

You want ....

One 8800 GTX in or two of them in SLI ?
Core 2 or Core 2 Extreme ?
RAID 0, 7200 rpm HD's or maybe RAID 5 ?
1920 x 1200 resolution ?
How about dual bootWindows Vista Ultimate 64 bits and XP Professional 32 bits ?

LOL!
When was the 5200 ever considered high end?!

Again, just because you are using a 750W PSU for that setup doesn't mean you actually need it.
Your setup can easily run on a good 500W-550W PSU (such as the Corsair 550VX), with NO problems whatsoever.
The voltage drop on the +12V rail is normal for most PSUs as long it is within spec, and it does not necessarily mean the rail is overloaded. Heck, mine drops a bit even when I only have the CPU on load, and it's not even consuming 10A on the rail.


Anyway, check this out... as it might give you a little perspective:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1452/

This guy ran an 8800GTX with an overclocked E6600 on a 380W Earthwatts PSU that did not use more than 84% of its capacity.
Your 2 8800GTs only consume ~50W more than a single 8800GTX at load, so do the math.

Strange to say, I am 99% with you on this. I thought I was the only one. (1% disagreement on WoW destroys people and people should stay away from the game to save the industry)

I was used to buy and play 2 PC games a month on average. Ever since I started playing WoW couple of years ago, I seldom buy any other games and I too find other games dull and shallow and non-fulfilling. I don't spend that much time with WoW these days. Still, I am not playing other PC game titles the same rate as I was before.

Very strange.