The console war haven never seemed so alive than in the recent months, and it’s not just limited to the PS4 or Xbox One. Nintendo is also in the mix, and PC gaming is being brought up quite often too. The main argument against PC gaming is the fact that it generally costs more than console gaming, and this is why a lot of people prefer to pick a PS4 or Xbox One off the shelves, and enjoy several years of care-free gaming while only spending $400-500. But playing games on a PC doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to spend $2000 on a decent setup. In fact, consider this: most users have a desktop PC or notebook laying around somewhere anyway. While this might not be a gaming rig, it’s still likely to cost several hundred bucks. You can’t really browse the internet on a 2002 PC anymore.
So, bottom-line is this: You have a $450 console (let’s take the average retail price between the Xbox One and PS4), and you have a $250 PC already that you can’t use for anything else than browsing or perhaps seeing a movie. That nets us with a $700 budget. We decided to go more extreme, and set a budget of $600 to see if we can get a decent gaming PC built from scratch. This rig has to handle current games at high settings at least as well as the PS4 and Xbox One currently do.
To provide alternatives, we decided to build two different rigs, one focusing on AMD components, and one build with an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU. Since we’re not promoting piracy, we also included the operating system costs to the mix. Because Windows 8 isn’t all that great, we went for the reliable Windows 7, which can be found for as little as $40 in an open-box state on Ebay or Amazon. You don’t need a brand new Windows to stay legit. To include shipping costs, taxes and varying prices, we set the OS costs to an average of $55, to stay on the safe side. We also included a mouse and keyboard that do the job well enough, but did not include a screen. After all, no console sells with a TV included in the price either.
[promo title=”Intel/Nvidia System”][/promo]
Most PC gamers prefer Nvidia and Intel today, because they are generally easier to manage, set up, and Nvidia card drivers tend to be more reliable. As such, we went with the more standard version first. When considering gaming PCs, the most important part is obviously the graphics card. That does the bulk of the work, and has to be up to the task. The Nvidia GTX 750 Ti is currently among the best you can get in terms of value. In fact, it’s among the most highly rated GPUs in terms of value. It’s on the cheap side of things, and yet runs surprisingly well. It’s also easy on power consumption, which allowed us to go for a modest (although reliable) power supply unit from Coolermaster, which came as a bundle with a solid case.
We chose an Ivy Bridge, 3rd generation i3 CPU. These aren’t the fastest CPUs on the market, but they do a good job, are relatively cheap and have some overclocking potential. This is limited by the modest motherboard that we’ve picked, but adding a few bucks to the motherboard would allow you to get surprising results from a 3rd generation i3. A reliable 1TB hard drive should give you plenty of room for games, and 8 GB of 1600 Mhz of RAM from Crucial also provide plenty of kick for the money. Worth noting is the fact that we opted for a dual-channel kit for the added performance, and we opted for CL9 RAM for better performance. Last, but not least, we included a basic keyboard and mouse kit from Gigabyte. These are basic, but the keyboard does a decent job and is spill-proof, while the mouse uses an 800 DPI optical sensor.
The total cost based on Newegg prices is $569, with almost all components including free shipping. Even with the extra shipping costs and taxes, we’d still be under the $600 budget, and with some digging around, you can pick up some of these components even less. Heck, if you really want to save some cash, you can opt for bulk or open-box versions to save considerably.
- CPU: Intel Core i3-3240 Ivy Bridge 3.4 GHz – $119.99
- Mother Board: ASRock H61MV-ITX LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard – $49.99
- Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-N75TOC-2GI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB 128-bit DDR5 – $139.99
- Hard Drive: Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache – $59.99
- Case & Power Supply: Cooler Master Elite 350 – Mid Tower Computer Case with 500W Power Supply – $59.99
- Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 – $69.99
- Mouse & Keyboard: GIGABYTE GK-KM3100 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard + Mouse Combo – $13.99
We tested the configuration through multiple games to see how it holds up. It’s a budget-friendly rig, so we were not expecting to see mind-blowing performances. That being said, well, we were pleasantly surprised. We first ran the configuration through Battlefield 4, with a resolution of 1920x1080p and High settings, 2x MSAA, reaching an average of 54 FPS. At Ultra settings, the GTX 750 Ti showed its limitations, dropping to an average of 29 FPS (with a minimum of 26). Still, that’s on-par with how some console games run, and it’s still completely playable, while looking visually superior. We’ve also tested the configuration in Elder Scrolls Online, where we got an impressive 48 FPS at the highest settings. High settings in Assassin’s Creed IV and Titanfall resulted in 43 FPS and 52 FPS, respectively, although AA was disabled in our initial Titanfall test. With AA activated, the configuration’s performance dropped to 39 FPS on average.
Titanfall ran surprisingly well on our Intel/Nvidia system, with 52 FPS at 1080p on High Settings, and 29 FPS on Ultra. That’s a lot better than the Xbox One’s performance. Our AMD setup did even better!To conclude, it’s clear that our Intel/Nvidia setup did a fine job. If it’s above your budget and want to trim it down, you can make due with 4 GB of RAM instead of 8, 500 GB of storage space instead of 1TB, can go for a 3rd Generation Intel G CPU (which will still have similar results) and opt for a cheaper case and a smaller PSU. For an i3 or G-series Pentium CPU, combined with the GTX 750 Ti, you don’t even need more than a 300W PSU to run things. If you really want to trim down things, you certainly can cut off at least another $100 while keeping about 80-90% of the performance. That would land our budget Nvidia/Intel gaming PC at a price of arounf $450-500, which is on-par with Microsoft’s Xbox One for instance.
If on the other hand, you want to go higher, for a few extra bucks you can grab an SSD, which would greatly boost performance. You could also opt for a slightly better motherboard, which, combined with a $20 cooler could allow you to get at least 20% more from your CPU.
[promo title=”AMD System”][/promo]
When talking about high-end gaming configurations, most gamers today opt for Nvidia and Intel. However, if we’re talking about gaming on a budget, AMD comes to mind instantly. We’ve seen that a perfectly viable gaming PC can be built using Intel and Nvidia under the hood, but can the same be said about an AMD-based system? The answer to that is a definite yes, and because AMD currently thrives with cost-effective solutions, in some games you can get even better performances for a lower cost. Because we have more budget-friendly options with AMD, we built 2 systems with a different GPU and CPU, one being more costly while the other being extremely cheap. We’ve kept the other components from the initial Nvidia/Intel build because they worked just fine. Thus, case, power supply, hard drive, RAM, mouse and keyboard remain unchanged.
With the first setup, we opted for the extremely value-friendly FX 6300 CPU from AMD. This CPU simply provides the most performance in the price-range, and while it’s inferior to the more expensive Intel i5 and i7 CPUs, it smokes most Intel i3 CPUs, even some Haswell ones. It has 6 cores, and for most games, it’s more than enough to get the job done, as it’s often bottle-necked by the GPU. A decent ASRock motherboard accompanies the CPU. With the Graphics Card, we poted for a R7 260X from Radeon, a real winner in terms of price and performance. It’s no Titan Black, but it certainly provides enough of a bang for the buck. Additionally, AMD has some great deals right now, and the R7 260X comes with a silver bundle that includes two free games from a wide selection.
For a total of $563 (including the OS), we get a decent enough gaming PC. How decent? Well, 73 FPS in Battlefield 4 with High Settings at 1920x1080p. Decent enough for you? Definitely is for us, especially given the price. As with Nvidia’s GPU from the earlier tests, on Ultra and with MSAA, our configuration took a massive blow, but still managed to run at an average of 39 FPS. These performances come as a result of AMD’s recent Mantle update, and as such, at least for Battlefield 4, an entry-level AMD GPU is more than enough. In Elder Scrolls Online, the system did worse than the Intel/Nvidia one, but managed to keep a steady 43 FPS with Ultra settings at 1080p. Assassin’s Creed IV made the system sweat a bit, running at an average of 38 FPS with Ultra settings and AA activated. High settings in Titanfall resulted in a steady 62 FPS, and Ultra with 8XMSAA caused it to take a significant hit again, but still ran at 41 FPS.
- CPU: AMD FX-6300 Vishera 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ – $119.99
- Mother Board: ASRock 880GM-LE FX AM3+ AMD 880G + SB710 Micro ATX – $53.99
- Graphics Card: MSI Radeon R7 260X 2GD5 OC 2GB 128-bit GDDR5 – $129.99
- Hard Drive: Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache – $59.99
- Case & Power Supply: Cooler Master Elite 350 – Mid Tower Computer Case with 500W Power Supply – $59.99
- Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 – $69.99
- Mouse & Keyboard: GIGABYTE GK-KM3100 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard + Mouse Combo – $13.99
For our second AMD-based PC, we went for an even cheaper CPU and GPU, trying to see just how cheap is cheap. We replaced the FX 6300 with a AMD Athlon X4 750K Trinity CPU, we swapped out the motherboard and went for an even cheaper GPU, mainly the R7 250X (aka the older HD 7770). But we didn’t stop here. We wanted to see just how low we can take things, and decided to tweak out some more components. A smaller and slightly slower hard drive, half the memory size (1 single DIMM) and a much cheaper case with a smaller PSU took over the previously used components.
The case was by far the most lackluster part of the entire setup, but it doesn’t have to be pretty to run games, right? And frankly, for what hardware lies within the case, the 400W power supply unit is enough, even without any sort of certification. The result? A $396 gaming PC, with OS included. Yes, we dug around to find some good deals, and yes, the case, mouse and hard drive are on the very cheap side of things. Despite that, the configuration is pretty high quality (especially the mother board and GPU), and runs smoothly.
- CPU: AMD Athlon X4 750K Trinity 3.4GHz Socket FM2 100W Desktop – $79.99
- Mother Board: ASRock FM2A55M-VG3+ FM2+ 95W / FM2 100W AMD A55 – $42.99
- Graphics Card: SAPPHIRE 100367L Radeon R7 250X 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 – $99.99
- Hard Drive: Seagate ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16GB Sata 6.0Gb/s (Open Box) – $38.99
- Case & Power Supply: TOPOWER TP-4107BB-400 Black SGCC 0.4mm ATX with 400W Power Supply – $29.99
- Memory: G.SKILL Value 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 1600 CL11 – $34.99
- Mouse & Keyboard: GIGABYTE GK-KM3100 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard + Mouse Combo – $13.99
What can you expect from a $396 PC? Not much would be the logical answer, despite that, this system pulled off an impressive 42 FPS in Titanfall with AA disabled, at 1920x1080p and with maxed out settings. With AA enabled, it fell down to an average of 26 FPS, which is playable, although some players would expect better. It did a fine job with Battlefield 4 however, getting 56 FPS with High Settings and AA enabled, and 33 with Ultra. Mantle at its best, as we can see. Elder Scrolls Online was perfectly playable too, running at 54 FPS with Medium-High Details. Maxing the details completely resulted in 28 FPS, which is playable, but barely. Then again, in all fairness, most Xbox One and some PS4 games run at 30 FPS constantly. Lastly, Assassin’s Creed IV was also playable. With everything maxed out, we got 28 FPS, but tune things down slightly and you’ll be looking at 35-40 easily, without compromising too much on the visual size.
[promo title=”Conclusion”][/promo]
To conclude, we’ve shown you several different setups. Obviously, the $396 system struggled a bit here and there, but still managed to provide around 30 FPS in most games, with details maxed out or towards the high-end of things, proving to be worthy competition to the Xbox One at least. As for the our main AMD and Intel/Nvidia systems, not only did these manage to run everything smoothly, they proved to run most games considerably better than an Xbox One or a PS4. All this for about the same price. Even if our example gaming PC’s are slightly more expensive than either consoles, they are also outperforming them, so the difference in price can be justified by the difference in performance.
Tweak a little bit here and there, hunt for some great deals and you can assemble a gaming PC to rival both the Xbox One and the PS4, for the same costs of a console. Add to that the functionality and benefits of a PC (let’s face it, you can do a lot more with a PC than you can with a console), and you’ll see clear proof that PC gaming is nowhere near being dead or reserved for the very rich. Also keep in mind that the Xbox One and PS4 don’t always run games at 1080p or at 60 FPS (rarely so in the case of the former), so for the titles that are not exclusive, the PC is definitely a safe and, as proven, relatively accessible option.
