“I Can’t Afford a Gaming PC Anymore…”
Vex
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“I can’t afford a PC anymore…”
Something I’ve been hearing a lot. Games have exponentially become more demanding while the hardware we use has not adjusted alongside (if even at all at times). Has PC gaming got too expensive and out of reach for most people?
I broke down what it would cost to build reasonable budget PCs- new and used. These have to make some major compromises nowadays.
Jansn Benchmarks:
Daniel Owen:
0:00- An ALL too familiar story
2:15- What we could get in the past
2:40- What ULTRA BUDGET looks like now
4:25- Making it reasonable is tough
5:00- Buying a NEW Budget PC in 2023
6:50- The Harsh Compromises
9:00- “Future-proofing”
9:40- GPUs and Games have gotten Stupid
08.11.2023
Amd fan i see
One thing that I've noticed when people do PC builds is that they neglect to factor in the cost of the following: a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, a headset, a webcam, a desk, a chair, a surge protector, and operating system software. The cost of which will add at least $300 to the coat of your build and setup, and they're requirements for someone to even use their PC. Even if you do a budget build with used parts for $400, you're still spending $700 in total. The only good news is that most of that equipment will carry over to your upgraded build if you do upgrade. However, with all that in mind, you're better finding and buying a gaming laptop for a cheaper price. It'll have all the functionality you need; plus, it has a battery which works like having a uninterruptible power supply (UPS) would for a PC (yet most people don't include a UPS in their PC build budgets). Aldo, you can find gaming laptops both new and use for $700 and under. Why not give that a try?
Games need to stop trying to push their graphics. Because of it gaming is becoming way too expensive. Most games look incredible nowadays anyway, I don't see why they keep needing to boost the graphics to try to make people happy. Graphics aren't everything, personally I refuse to play a game on lower FPS (lower than 30 is the lowest I'll go) because it's not a nice experience. I'll happily sacrifice graphics for FPS but even then, with gaming standards nowadays you still need a decent PC to run that on newer games. Hell, even older games don't even look that bad. Some of them even hold up ok to new-ish games too.
Driver level frame generation for the win, downloaded the fluid motion frames beta driver, solves all the problems. Just need a 6000-7000 series AMD GPU(still works best on a 7000 series).
thats why i only have steam deck+ps5
It's just unoptimized…
You can't expect the pc you build to run all the latest games forever eventually you won't be able to play new games on an old system complaining about a game not being able to run on an old computer is like a mobile player complaining because a game can't run on his/her piece of e-waste
If we can't manage 60fps on med/low for current games on a $500-700… This is only an enthusiast hobby now.
You can run ASA now I have a few people playing on it it was rough in the 1st week or so but if you have something as fast as a GTX 1650 laptop GPU and i5 laptop cpu you will be fine Shure at ultra you can't but back when ark survival evolved came out the titan x could not run it at good fps so what has changed I'm on a Ryzen 5950x and a Rx 6900xt and play at ultra at around 30 fps on PvE I like everyone else who plays the game have coulds and fog disabled in the console commands it gets you close to 30/50% more fps while also giving you the best visibility if you're playing PvP then it doesn't matter as you are playing at minimum graphics anyway happy gaming
this game need a pc from next year for 6gs
I make money with my pc, so the money spend is worth it.
My 11900k+3090 have been working great for more than 2 years and I believe they will serve me for another 2 years (at least).
Incoming games can still run pretty much max out at 1440p.
Think about it : a 2080ti will outlive a 3070 due to VRAM. If you go low end now, you will need to upgrade more often than if you go high end.
From what I know A GTX 1080Ti can keep up with Rx 6600 XT. More and more gimmicks just to be able to play a game…. Every single time I hear some new tech being developed and tested, I always ask myself. Are they making this tech to improve performance and be more accessible for older hardware or to worsen performance for some slightly better looking pixels….
The requirements are insane because they don't bother optimizing anything, it's a symptom of game studios churning out truly horrible games, these AAA games are college tries that don't even bother to have quality control. Just skip these games. if they're good after two years of patches, the hardware will have already come down in price. just boycott these – it's not like they're as good as GTA V or Half Life games that you're actually missing out on fun if you don't get in early.
His first mistake is getting into ark
This is nothing new, there are always titles which will unfortunately make older equipments obsolete, especially when there's a new 3d engine coming out, that doesn't mean you can't game anymore, but you're going to have to sacrifice fps and graphics quality and deal with it or well upgrade.
Honestly… Everyone I have built PC's for/with in the last few years have been happy. I originally put them on AM4 platforms and 6000 series GPU's and you know the ones I did that with have been happily gaming ever since. A few of them upgraded to 5800X3D CPU's when those were on sale and sold thier old CPU's and got a huge boost for very little. And… 6700XT 6800XT users have been playing the hell out of the UE5 titles. Not sure why but UE5 works great on AMD. Don't even have to use FSR either. Just res scale 80% at 1440P and visually you cannot tell the difference and get nearly FSR 2.2 Quality mode fps. Seriously…. Anyone I know who went the other way… Intel i5 + 3060ti or 3070 are sad AF and these games are stuttering and stammering all over the place. WTF.
BTW… 1440P is not entry level PC gaming by any stretch. That would be 1080P. I would argue 1440P is still very demaning on GPU's and the crux of the matter is this. Console users come to PC thinking 4k is normal because they used a 4K TV with their console. This is because TV's skipped 1440P. 4K can bring the 4090 to it's knees all day. Budget PC's have almost no business at 1440P. 1440P 27" high refresh IPS is only NOW becoming mainstream. That is a mid to high end PC requirement for that monitor. People need to work backwards from the screen they are using/buying. If thier budget it under $1000 USD with a monitor, keyboard and mouse included? You are a 1080P gamer bud. Nothing wrong with that either.
Time to get a second job i guess
Here I am in 2023 after buying a mid range PC in late 2019 with a i5-9600k and a GTX 1060 6gb. I was waiting years for upgrading my GPU because the graphics card marked was fucked. I just bought a RX 7800 XT but I think i will return it. I realised that everything I bought in 2019 is already outdated and i have to spend on another motherboard, CPU and RAM. For how much I game these days I rather stick with my Series X and let the PC collect dust in the corner instead of wasting close to 1k just for the system to be outdated in 3 more years. PC gaming sucks in 2023.
a 1080ti is still a lot better than a 4060, and a 4060 is way better than way over 90% of gamers have.
I am just going to ignore all these games that wont even run at 1080p on a 5090ti, its stupid. they have to fix whatever their issues are.
im on an alienware aurora r9 with a rtx 2070, i7 9700, with all my games installed on a 2 tb portable ssd, i just uninstall stuff i don't play often to make space.
Honestly I build a new pc last year for 4k gaming 144hz, and im already back down to 1080p, and it is barely able to do that in some games I tried. Now granted, not a single one of those games is actually good, not good looking, starfield looks terrible, alan wake 2 looks terrible, that new ark game no doubt also looks terrible and they are all super boring. But I am afraid more devs are gonna have these ugly looking games were a 4090ti isnt even enough for 1080p 60 fps with dlss. and yeah this just sucks. But I will not be buying these trash games. at most buy them to see how bad they are and then refund, like I did with fm2023. That game looks far worse than fm7, yet doesnt even run well on a 4090 at 1080p, you wont even get 60 fps with that card while the game looks worse in every way then the previous one.
Lmaoo. Cuties skylines 2 you need like a 4090 for 30fps
I saved up and went with the intro AM5 Build that I will be able to upgrade for many years to come:
My AM5 Build = $736
$6 3-4 splitter plugs
$17 5pcs case fans
$48 Glass RGB Case
$82 Mobo MSI A-620m e2
$200 CPU Ryzen 5 7600 65w
$155 GPU Sapphire RX 5700 XT OC
$70 PSU Tough power Gold 80
$40 1Tb Nvme
$50 AIO
$55 ram 32gb DDR5 5800
$5 Nvme Heatsink
$8 RGB controller w remote
I had the coupon for the CPU at Microcenter and it came with starfield free. All prices include my local taxes, GPU was used from eBay, everything else was ordered from Amazon.
Just stop with the FOMO and the need to have the ultimate equipment. If you are happy to have a PC that has tech from a couple of years ago and play games after they have been optimised and drivers have settled, then you can cut your costs by 75% and still have a good gaming experience.
This 'problem' is all of your own making, like complaining of a headache when you hit yourself in the head with a hammer. Just stop.
id reccomend the aourus b550 elitye ax v2 awsome starter mb really cheap and kick ass mb got a super good vrm pretty much best bourd in its prise range with high upradeability
I've been PC gaming for 30+ years. It's always expensive. You are rarely ahead of the performance curve. Something like Doom, Quake,HL2, Crysis, Bioshock, Cyberpunk and now Starfield always comes along and wrecks everything. The only thing that saved PC gaming was consoles since they kept hardware requirements realistic. Which begs the question, how can Ark and Alan Wake play on a PS5 or Xbox series S with their weaker hardware. We are talking Radeon 7 5600 with RX 6700 (non XT) with 16 GB of TOTAL memory.
Also Vex you are a terrible friend. First your friend's hardware is only good for 1080p gaming. (what was he playing at 1440p – Minecraft). Second all your friend needs to do is upgrade his video card. A GTX 1080 is pretty much low end. A RX 6700 XT (~$250) is a good investment. He probably get playable framerates at 1080p.
My GPU & CPU both are used.Both were terribly overpriced because here in Ukraine people are greedy AF.Some guys are trying to sell used parts 10-20% cheaper than new(cheapest used 3060 is about 250$ here).I got my 2070 for about 180$ and 8700K for 150$.Now I need for find a decent Z370/Z390 to replace my crappy H310
Im building a new AM4 platform pc 7800XT 5800x3D 16gb of ddr4 not a fan of the prices but my current one is getting out of date, which surprised me, has a 1070ti. (Forget the cpu) but it should have lasted a little longer
I built my pc for work. I render and edit photos heavily and also game heavily as well. My machine cost me $1400 and still on AM4. Were struggling out here
from your 'Your CPU-Size Doesn't Matter, bro, just stop' video,i have a question, what if i want to play and stream the game from the same pc. In that case more core will be usefull? and which cpu will you recommend me which can play games at 1440p and stream at 1080p at the range of 13600k budget.
It's even worse if you get used to 4k 144fps, and then you have to play at lower framerate or reduce settings/resolution. I'm surprised that optimizing games by game developers is forgotten art these days.
you know what? everyone being hyped about UE5 but as for me? i literally avoid that bloody unoptimized engine
I have that asrock mb. Paired with a ryzen 3600. Rtx 2060. 16 gb ddr4 3600. Currently playing Ark Ascended. I have to play low setting. And then turn if bloom and the rest. Just to get 30 fps. So i switched to 1080. And i get 48 fps. Sucks.
Im going to go out a whim here, high res gaming, is going to die because of the frame loss. The only saving grace is the fact that developers will make it so that if you do want to game in high res, the devs will actually make it useful and make it so that if you are doing that, the game will also boost the texture resolution up and the cache as well, that way you do get use out of running the game in a higher resolution like in 4k.
A graphics dev went onto the Moores law is dead podcast a few months back and talked about it, and said that this was one of* (with an asterisk) the reason why vram goes up when you run a new game on a higher res, the games textures will also run at that resolution so you arent just running that resolution to meet your monitors resolution, you are running the ingame resolution at a higher res too.
1080p with ultra textures means you are getting the max out of your games resolution for your monitor… BUT you can upscale the ingame textures to a higher res at 1080p, which sounds a little bit like using an upscaler but in reality it kind of isn't because you are quite literally just raising the textures resolution ingame, you arent also upscaling your entire reolutition of the game you are playing.
What does this all mean? It means 1440p and 4k might not be as great of a resolution to even consider anymore, because you are losing frames and you cant exactly control the ingame res like you can in some games like Cod, where in newer cods you can downscale the texture resolution from below 100 percent and above 100 percent resolution, some games dont allow for that. Also 1080p resolution isn't as bad as people make it out to be, its not like its 720p or even 480p which is what people were starting to make it out to be a few years back before people were realizing that 1080p gaming is still really useful and good, plus you get all the frames you want in almost any game nowadays even ones that arent as optimized as some others and even pros who want to compete still use 1080p, until developers optimize for over 144-244 fps/hz again for 1440p for every game they make, that is when 1440p might be considered for pros to use if they want a higher resolution for gaming and streaming.
Right now, 1440p is close to being dead unless you want to compromise for 20-50 or even 60 fps that carries all the way down to 10 fps in some games and tbh, I will be sticking with 1080p, I dont see any use for any higher resolution, granted 1440p and even some 4k monitors have gone down in price, but that might be because people arent even looking for higher Res monitors anymore, they want as many frames as possible, so that means 1080p will be here to stay for maybe the next 10 to even (maybe) 20 years from now, and thanks to DLSS 3.5, the games will look even better while getting even more frames at 1080p, while you might say (well doesn't this make 1440p still useful) well it kinda doesn't, because that just means nvidia gpus at 40 series will pretty much benefit from 1440p, but this kinda requires you to use dlss, and not all games have that, even FSR… that would be the equivalent of putting sauce on something that needs sauce to be good.
Ever hear the phrase… "(A good steak doesn't need sauce to be good)". You ever hear that? Well that applies to the 1440p and 4k needs DLSS to work now. This is why Moores Law is Dead is touting the fact that if it cant rasterize well in 1440p and get more than maybe 70-90 fps in most games then you shouldn't buy it because (TLDR, it needs DLSS or FSR as a sauce for it to run)
if you buy a 14700K it will last easely 5 years what do you need an upgrade for lol, what are you talking
I been playing console since ps3 like I just never saw pc gaming that worth it because it be costing a kidney just for a pc that would last a couple years like you might get 120 fps but In like 3 years that 120 fps turn into like 80 for newer games
Inflation is a real b*tch, 500$ back then is 650$ now. Getting a capable PC for 500 bucks is wishful thinking nowadays, especially if you expect it to last multiple years :/
At this point I just ignore 4k + benchmarks.
Im buying an xbox 360
Game developers are using tech that's 2 generations ahead of the majority of the player base, and with all the new techs been involved they are leaving more and more of the players base behind. maybe a influence of the gamer generations that were pushed back by the crypto scalping period and the manufacturers adopting advanced technologies that are then first adopted by the games studios are also way ahead , now meaning to stay or keep up you have to spend on high end way quicker now almost every 2 years nealy yearly which for a high percentage of the gamer population is not financially viable due to all other economic pressures. Just a sign of the times.
even soldier of fortune from 1998 looks better than this ARK survival game.
PC gaming is legit dead. gonna have to switch to mobile phone in an year or 2 xD
bought recently an asus z790 a with 14700k and I kinda regret it
buncha drama queens. its the developers fault, the game itself is not optimized. not your hardware. read the thing again 10600k is the recommended cpu not minimum ffs
and why tf are you showing 6600 in native settings for cyberpunk or starfield neither games run well on most midrange cards. as an advocate for the used market you sure do miss a lot and end up just spreading toxicity and misinformation. the games themselves and the prices on hardware are the problems. USA is only 4.3% of the world population. stfu generalizing shi with your 1st world problems.
Well, a PS5 + the ps+ subscription to be able to play online + price of console games without being able to upgrade in the future kinda gets in line with a budget PC which has much more value imo
Just wait until Battlemage comes out and then get it on black friday or from any other discount sell.
Yeah, it's new and will have some bugs but if you are patient and wait till like 2024 christmas, the bugs most likely are fixed and you get a decent card that doesn't require you to sell your kidney.
I hope the rumors are true and there will be over 30+ VRAM versio.
Another good video, im the oppsite ive had a 4090 for ages right at day one launch (yeah i paid stupid money) and i never friggin use it! i use my 3070 laptop more as i can use it lazily in bed on a tray table haha
What are you doing then?