'Luxury' gaming PCs: When a solid-gold PS3 isn't enough
by Zack Stern 
{ Dec 6th 2006 at 8:25PM }
The Associated Press writes about high-end, "luxury" gaming PCs easily overpowering the consoles. The computers cited from Alienware and Falcon Northwest cost $5,400 and $9,600 respectively. (The Falcon PC includes a 30-inch display at that price.)Our first reaction was, "So what, of course PCs are faster." Then, we moved to, "How much again!?" There seems to be a sense of pride in enthusiasts spending a lot of money on their PC. At a recent Nvidia event, audience members in the front rows were thanked for being such strong supporters of the company; they'd each spent about $1,000 for SLI setups on their current gaming machines. Yes, that's just for video cards.
Is the ability to appreciate gaming rigs for their price just a gene we're missing? Are we getting old and cranky? Where's our pudding?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pikachelsea @ Dec 6th 2006 8:47PM
I honestly believe that a good portion of PC gamers want to dump buckets of money into their gaming rigs because they think the speed of their computer is directly proportional to the size of their e-Penis. In PC gaming culture, he with the biggest wallet buys himself the bragging rights, proudly displaying his PC specs in his forum sig, etched into his forehead and anywhere else that people might possibly pay attention. It's one big stupid game that nobody wins.... except for Alienware and the other companies making piles of cash off what amounts to a virtual p*ssing contest.
How fast does your computer need to be? Really. For $9600 it better sense my presence when I enter the room, turn itself on, boot up in -10 seconds and allow me to learn kung fu by jacking into the Matrix.
It's just so absurd. It's a GAMING PC, people, not the effing secret of life. It's their money and they can spend it how they want, but there's something called the law of diminishing returns which suggests to me that, again, they are not paying for any incremental or even noticeable improvements in their gaming experience. They are paying for e-Penis enlargement. Period.
Tull @ Dec 7th 2006 4:28PM
More bank usually means a better everything, but bragging because you've got a faster computer based on how much money you spent? Pretty lame. Plus these aren't even homebuilt, ewwww.
Uh_Oh @ Dec 6th 2006 8:54PM
My latest system cost 1/3 of that and I play all the latest and greatest games just fine. Those are ridiculous prices and send the wrong message to newcomers.
Nushio @ Dec 6th 2006 9:04PM
I stopped playing PC games a loooong time ago, limiting myself to UT(And UT2K4) and Starcraft, along with the casual minesweeper and solitare.
Now on the DS, Gamecube and PS2.... Thats where the gaming is at. No need for troublesome video driver updates, and buying a new video card or reinstalling Windoze.
Yousef @ Dec 6th 2006 9:12PM
Is there still any need to get a PC for games as opposed to consoles? Are they still better? The article mentioned WoW. I can't believe somebody would drop 10 grand for a PC just to play an online game.
Are there types of games to which PCs will always be better suited than consoles?
Pikachelsea @ Dec 6th 2006 9:45PM
lol.. after I made my comment, I went and looked at Falcon's website for the Mach V. One of the configuration options is actually called "bragging rights".
http://www.falcon-nw.com/config/machv.asp
How very frank.
Chris @ Dec 6th 2006 9:36PM
Apparently the engines in PC games are a lot better. My roommate is a hard core PC gamer, and is constantly complaining about how consoles are so obsolete. I guess in PC games you'll be walking through a bunch of trees, and each leaf has it's own dedicated memory, so they all go different paths each time. (Please don't yell at me if I'm wrong. I really don't care, but again, my roommate has explained this to me, and I believe that's what he said.)
jcmschwa @ Dec 6th 2006 10:07PM
that's a real shame...i could have sworn that you used to be able to buy a gold plated or gold coated rig from voodoopc.com but now i can't find it.
ZS @ Dec 6th 2006 10:11PM
It's no different than people who dump a lot of money into cars, they certainly aren't the majority of car owners, just like people who spend $8,000 on a PC aren't the norm. Most of the people who spend huge amounts of money on their car are usually only getting an end result of a few seconds faster here, or a few more horsepower there, especially at the top end of the spectrum. It's also important to keep in mind these are boutqiue dealers that only sell to a very small percentage of the "enthusiast" community. Most enthusiast PC gamers buy and build their own machines, cutting the cost in upwards of 50%.
My point is that this isn't some phenomenom exclusive to PC gamers, it can be found in pretty much any hobby with an active enthusiast community. Even the console community has a similar, quickly growing, population that spends hundreds of dollars modding, painting, and otherwise customizing their boxes. Bashing the practice and the people involved in it and trying to make some convoluted point that consoles are better gaming platforms just to make yourself feel better is pretty pointless.
Lorben @ Dec 6th 2006 10:26PM
“Are there types of games to which PCs will always be better suited than consoles?”
Technically a PC would be better for any game. A cutting edge gaming PC has more power than a PS3, better load times than any console, a hard drive big enough for any amount of downloadable content, and you can choose a joystick, gamepad, or mouse suited to your playing style.
But the majority of gamers, myself included, haven’t switched to gaming on consoles because it’s better. It’s because it’s because console gaming is cheaper and easier.
Thain @ Dec 6th 2006 10:33PM
I work tech support for one of the lesser known high-end gaming PC companies (I won't say which to protect myself), and it really seems as if these things are marketed to two groups:
1. Morons who have never touched a PC before in their life
2. Idiots who really are trying to show off their "e-Penis" (or lack thereof)
It strikes me that no self-respecting geek/gamer would actually buy one of these things, because it's faster, easier, MUCH cheaper, and, honestly, more reliable to build the damn thing yourself.
So let the penis enhancers of the world buy these wastes of silicon while real PC gamers continue to build and tweak their own systems to hell and back!
Me @ Dec 6th 2006 11:07PM
Alot of people still don't understand, so allow me to inform yall. PC's are only more powerful in the sense that you can have more ram, a huge ass hdd, and new video cards come out all the time. The PS3 still has every gaming pc thats out on the market begging for processing power like it has. Yup....it's true....the cell broadband engine is wwwaaaayyyy more powerful than the latest and greatest pc processors (for home and gaming use). This thought haunts me ever day when i go to turn on my $2000 desktop computer that will probably struggle to play crysis whenever it comes out (if it will at all)....ohhh and btw...my pc is built for gaming, but i have had it for a year now. It's kinda sad to think that good gaming computers can easily cost $5000, but Sony is only charging $499 for their PS3 which is also for more than just games. Their also taking a big hit on every system they sale just so guys like you and me can afford one!!!!!!
The Truth @ Dec 6th 2006 11:23PM
@11. me
Sony called, that was too obvious, you're off the payroll.
Mark @ Dec 7th 2006 12:08AM
@10, Thain,
I feel your pain. All the PCs I've ever made - nay, touched - have all cost around $1000. My personal rig is good enough for me, and it only cost $900. I'm satisfied with my ePenis.
Cheezedog420 @ Dec 7th 2006 12:14AM
First off,
I compleatly disagree with the artical on there monitor chooses. You get a better and more rich range of color out out CRT over a LCD monitor. LCD's major sales point is they are bigger, and still easyer to take to LAN partys.
Secound as someone that owns a fairly nice hoped up system, I like to point out I don't own it to play video games... (Or argue with my fellow blogging community.) I have one because Im into 3d animation.
3d animation has a tendacy to really streach video resources to its limmits. For one, I have found the only effective way to paint textures for 3d models is to have 3d studio Max, and photoshop on at the same time. I litterly am switch from photoshop to paint on the texture, to Studio Max to look at the texture on the model. (Thats why its handy to have two monitors with vary rich color ranges)
It literaly would be impossible for me to make textures for 3d models without the graphic firepower need to run these two programs at the same time. But while I can have photoshop, and 3d Studio Max running at the same time.... God help me should I open up After Effects too. I don't care how much you spent on your computer, it won't save your file from corruption then.
So of course you must ask, because Im learning to play with 3d rendering, and paint with a fairly memory expensive tools, my computer is naturaly set up for high end video games, right?
The answer is Dua... (I did not get into 3d art to say, "Oh, I hate video games... Lets talk Frazetta, and Alphonse Mucha instead.") Doom 3, Oblivian, Quake 4, they all run vary nicely at there higher settings on this thing. And the minnute I can afford the rest of the SLI for my system, You can bet Im going to be droping it in, because I should just be in time for the generation of games that probably won't play on the Xbox360 or the PS3. (Atleast not without some graphical down grading.)
PLus!!! I will have a vary nice computer that I can do things like video edit, animation, texture painting, and web brousing... (Its amazing how much of that I do...) So I really don't per say need a console. (I need to buy a TV anyways...)
Finaly, there is also the extream sadisfaction of building your own computer... Not to many Console players you meet you there...
Anyway, here is my current most computer stats... a computer with these components should be fairly reasonable... You could probably do it for 1650 on Newegg.com not including the monitors, Scanner, Wacom Tablet, and a new case...
Asus CrossFire motherboard, (It has its own built in bling lights. I kid you not.)
Athlon 64 X2 Duel core. (The slowest, and oldest portion of my computer... I'll fix it when I finaly find something that really slows down my computer.)
(2 x 1GB) Corsair XMS2 DDR2 Ram, (Two more sticks of this stuff, and I just may be able to leave photoshop running with after affects... Naaaaa.)
JUST one SLI compatable E-Geforce 7900GTX, with 512 MB of built in ram. (Its not like I urgently need the secound card just yet....with one having just as much ram on it as the avrage Xbox 360 does...)
WDR Serial ATA hard drive, 150GB 10,000 RPM (Already Full of car pictures, kittens doing silly things, and Morgan Webb naked.)
Energymax Liberty power Supply, 620 W (I'll probably have to upgrade that too if I get the secound video card.)
Intuios 3 Wacom Tablet, 6x8. (Im not cheap... Im just out of desk space! Keep reading....)
2 24 inch CRT monitors, (that will eventually collapes the desk they are sitting on, and sink to the center of the earth.)
Hewlett Packard ScanJet C4 scanner.
Lian Li PC600 Case... Left over from a upgrade along with my current prosessor.
And a Zalman 9500 heatsink fan with Green LED Light. (It's Cool, It's quiet, And It's blingriffic! Maybe I should consider getting a case with a window finaly...)
Autocrawler @ Dec 7th 2006 12:26AM
Real gamers build their own gaming rigs. You get more performance for much cheaper this way.
Deadpool @ Dec 7th 2006 12:32AM
Cheezedog420
It's not really worth it, having the fancy case lighting is exciting for about 15 minutes and then any blinking lights are just distracting. I have my window facing my wifes desk now, was a waste of money.
Nice setup, I would think that with some shopping around someone could do something similar for about 1200. I spent about CDN990 upgrading every but my case to pretty much what you have. I went with the X1900 XTX 512 card. A bit ghetto compared to yours, but it was less than $300 six months ago, wheras I couldnt find a 7900 512 for less than 600.
7.
I think I remember seeing that one a couple months ago, I remember I priced one out that came to about 25K all told from Voodoo pc. It would have been nice I guess, but the problem with a computer like that is that it comes with divorce papers :)
Deadpool
HyperHacker @ Dec 7th 2006 2:41AM
Lol, #11. Sony's losing money on PS3s to get Blu-ray players into peoples' homes in hopes it'll prompt them to buy BD movies, and because $600 is ridiculous already.
Anyway you can generally throw together a computer by buying individual parts for about a third of the price of a similar premade system, and you don't have to deal with crappy components, idiot tech support, and the loads upon loads of junkware that comes preinstalled.
Mephistopheles @ Dec 7th 2006 3:51AM
This is news? They've been doing this for years and every industry has something like this. Yes, yes, you wouldn't spend the money but apparently other people are.
By the way, not everyone is poor. Believe it or not but some people could throw away ten-thousand dollars and not care much like how you could throw a penny away and not care.
Cheezedog420 @ Dec 7th 2006 2:32AM
Deadpool. Yea, the preatty lights do get annoying. Even in a standard case, (with no window,) my computer lights up the room with every nook and crany available to it at night. (WTF, why do I keep dreaming about UFOs?!) It makes it a little harder to sleep, (and the Harddrive that thinks its a coffee maker does not help either...)
But as anoying, and expensive it is to have all that extra lighting, its vary hard to resist the urge to buy more preatty lights whenever the top comes off. (And it does come off, Im damn proud of my E-penis you know! ) All those ohh's and Ahhs as friends and famialy ask what everything does just makes those little light worth it. (My Molex connects not only power my harddrives, and DVD burner... They make preatty blue lights and eat a extra watt of power too. )
As for the Video card choose, I must of got lucky when I purchased that. I went looking for anouther after thinking, "My E-penis could be just a little bit bigger... If Only I SLI.." SO I go looking on NewEgg, for a matching Evga 7900 GTX, and its disappeared off the instock menu.... I just bought that in september for about $400 dollars.
But If your rich, now you can buy a GeForce 8800GTX, 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card with 1/2" Fittings. Holy Sh!Tnuggets batman... That was not out in September... and that bad boy is water cooled.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143078
In any case, as you can see, this new development had already caused me to start budgeting out my next build. So much for getting married, and having kids. I'll be lucky if I have retirement money.
SuperChuck @ Dec 7th 2006 3:31AM
I used to be a PC gamer, but the constant upgrades got me into console gaming. I was looking at a $300 video card and I decided I could spend that money to get an entire PS2 or I could get one part of a gaming PC. I got the PS2.
Moogle @ Dec 7th 2006 7:38AM
Me's post made me laugh so hard.
But it does bring up a point I think is worth making - The processor industry is fairly tight-knit, and the things that make the biggest difference are process (ways of creating smaller transistors), not architecture (ways transistors are put together), and generally no processor company has a monopoly on the big process innovations. Hell, IBM makes Cells, you think they wouldn't use any great development learned elsewhere?
In addition, free market generally pushes down prices of old tech, so in a general sense, you will always get pretty much what you pay for (in processors, not silly overpriced computers).
As a result, no one, not even Sony, MS, whoever, will ever have a generational leap in power without being exponentially more expensive and power-hungry.
Moogle @ Dec 7th 2006 8:50AM
Oh, right, on topic. $3000+ is too much to spend on a computer. You can build the best realistic rig available for less. We'll consider the monitor separate (30" might be worth $1500 to some).
Yay! An excuse to indulge in one of my hobbies - spec'ing PC hardware! Everything is from newegg:
Core 2 Duo E6600 == $309.99 (best high end price/perf)
ASUS P5B Deluxe == $209.99 (good onboard audio, wifi)
2 gb OCZ plat. ram == $234.99 (newegg suggestion, lazy)
Radeon X1950XTX 512mb == $399.99
Radeon X1950XTX 512mb == $399.99 (CrossFire ft$$$)
Seagate 320gb sata HDD == $94.99 (it's perpendicular!)
Case w/ 600W power supply == $56.99 (is it enough?)
LiteON DVD+-R == $29.99 (almost forgot)
WinXPproX64 == $139.99 (eh, why not)
Total = $1976.91
Equivalent AlienWare is over $4000 (no monitor). Pthhhhbt.
(That comp should be able to drive a 30" screen with the newest shiny FPS at 2560x1600 with everything turned on, probably at 50+ frames per sec. If that isn't good enough, you're kidding yourself)
JPRacer @ Dec 7th 2006 9:05AM
Cheezedog420, if you're serious about 3d a gamer video card is a good choice, but a nVidia Quadro type of card is much better. Also, since you use 3ds max for modelling and PS for texturing you should try Cebas GhostPainter. It's a plugin that allows you to use PS directly inside max.
steve @ Dec 7th 2006 9:34AM
Moogle, you could save a couple hundred bucks in video by going with a single 8800GTX, which is faster than those two X1950s and supports DX10.
It's funny to read a few comments about this being some sort of dick contest, which another bunch of people say, "I got sick of the constant upgrades." Why did you feel the need to upgrade? You haven't needed anything faster than a 2GHz CPU in the last 2-3 years, and you don't need the fastest videocard unless you have a ginormous LCD and you want to run everything in its native resolution.
The only reason people feel this compulsion to upgrade is because they get caught up in the dick contest, so don't act like you're above it. And it's no different on the console side, where the constant debates over the quality of graphics of the 360 vs PS3, or 720p vs. 1080p, blah blah blah. (And for all of the people talking about going to inexpensive consoles, what about those new HDTVs? Yes, it's useful for other things; so is your PC.)
Most of the criticisms of PC gaming are exaggerated. It's not that expensive to keep a machine around that will play every game on the market. If you get upset you can't max out every detail on every game, well... there's your problem right there. Many PC games are scalable, designed for the machines of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And every couple of years, $200-$300 will keep you up to speed. (And for those balking at that outlay, consider that PC games are $10-$20 cheaper than current-gen console games.)
Yes, Crysis will probably bring your machine to its knees. FarCry did back in the day too. But FarCry also ran on a GeForce 3 card, and looked fine. Crysis will probably work fine on a 2GHz machine with a 6600GT, which is basically a $400 PC nowadays. And it might be able to do it at console resolutions (1280x720), though more people will probably run it at a more "normal" PC resolution like 1280x1024.
Equiz @ Dec 7th 2006 10:31AM
I don't know why people think they need $2000 PCs + $500 graphic cards to play games... My guess is this whole tendency of playing games at ridiculossly high resolutions: I could understand it if you use a big LCD display with fixed resolutions, but I own a 20" CRT and I really can't see any difference from 1024x768 on.
Call me blind, but I really don't see it, just like I don't see the point in 8xAA and 16xAF either: I can't see much of a difference from 4xAA and 8xAF, often even less.
Just for fun, I surfed to newegg and did a very rough build of gaming rig for around $500:
AMD Athlon64 3200+ Venice $61
eVGA 131-K8-NF44 $55
CORSAIR Value DDR400 2x512 $106
Seagate Barracuda SATA 80Gb x2 $88
eVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB $130
LITE-On Combo Drive SOHC-5236V-61 $26
Antec Solution SLK1650 $60
I could have used different options, like socket M2 instead of 939, one bigger harddrive instead of two in RAID 0, look for better prices/deals elsewhere, wait for next year so prices on graphic cards surely drop more... point is, I managed to build a $526 which has good upgrade capabilities to make it last a couple of years + overclocking if you feel like. OK, no mouse, keyboard or gamepad, throw other $40-50 in if you feel like buying some generic ones + a Logitech Rumblepad or a MS x360 pad.
Should be enough for anyone who isn't that picky about huge resolutions and filters like me.
@#34
Most of the Quadro share the same chip as the GeForce line, for example the Quadro FX5500 shares the same chip as the Geforce 7900Gxx line, clocks are higher on the Quadro but you can overlcock the 7900 up to that level without problems.
It used to be posible to do some hacking to unlock the features of Quadro on the GeForces, probably its still posible, which means you'd rather go for the GeForce and not pay any extra $ for the Quadro.
Equiz @ Dec 7th 2006 10:42AM
Well, steve was faster than me and said it much better than I could
zer06ame @ Dec 7th 2006 12:39PM
Cheezedog420: Why are you using a PC for 3d modeling...? A Mac Pro would be a much better choice if your main focus is on any type of actual work. I myself, don't own a Mac, but I've used them for film editing before and they are MUCH more reliable than PC's (the other editing room had PC's).
Tirisfal @ Dec 7th 2006 1:29PM
Going along with what everybody's been saying, you don't need to constantly upgrade. I usually go for a nice balance and if I can play everything at least on medium, I'm happy. I have a 4 or 5 year old card (9600 pro) and I can play Oblivion fine in the medium graphics range. And if you space your upgrades out, it really isn't all that bad. And even video cards, you can get spectacular performance without getting the latest card, so you're probably only looking at 200 or so for a new one.
For games being played on the PC, no console has yet been able to reproduce playing an RTS on a PC. So for that, consoles don't really compare. FPS's too are better suited for playing on the PC, since you can flick aim, and all that good stuff. However, the mouse/keyboard is really not suited for fighting or 3rd person games, so you get a trade off. In addition, games generally look better on the PC than they do on consoles. Since you're locked into settings with consoles you don't really have the flexibility and power you do on the PC. If the developers want you to have certain graphics, you're stuck, whereas the pc will usually allow you to push your machine past where the developer would recommend.
The real reason I will continue to be a PC gamer, is that I can play most any game from 93 or so on without worrying about having to get an older system. As long as its on a cd, I can play it without having to worry about backwards compatibility issues that plague the consoles. Granted it's become harder to play old games due to processor and OS issues, but it can still be done with very little trouble.
Cheezedog420 @ Dec 7th 2006 4:39PM
"23. Cheezedog420, if you're serious about 3d a gamer video card is a good choice, but a nVidia Quadro type of card is much better. Also, since you use 3ds max for modelling and PS for texturing you should try Cebas GhostPainter. It's a plugin that allows you to use PS directly inside max." by JPRacer
I would love to be using a full SLI system, (There are settings on Oblivian I have yet optimize for no good reason then to say I have Oblivian running at its highest setting on my E-penis...) but 3Ds Max does not take advantage of more then one video card at a time. Thats why I ended up going with one big & expensive 7900GTX video card. Because I could not take advantage of quantity, I had to spend on qualitiy.
The 7900 GTX was a great solution to my needs. I don't run into situations yet where I try to spin a model around to look at its back side, (and have to wait a hour for the computer finnish calculating what a million poly model looks being spun 30 degrees up the Y axis, and 190 degrees on the X axis.) Plus, I can always keep a eye out for a secound 7900 GTX Unit... (Untill Im ready to build a new rig.)
As for the painting program, I might try it... but Im still trying to figure out if I can afford Muddbox, and softimage's Cat... Besides, Im much better at photo manipulation so Photoshop CS2, and digital camera serves me quite well here.
"Cheezedog420: Why are you using a PC for 3d modeling...? A Mac Pro would be a much better choice if your main focus is on any type of actual work. I myself, don't own a Mac, but I've used them for film editing before and they are MUCH more reliable than PC's (the other editing room had PC's)." by zer06ame
First off, there is not a lot of Mac users in 3D modeling. Im not sure why there is not more Mac use for modeling since I heared good things about Mac Stablity... but Its just not done outside of a school normaly, and I don't want to try and reinvent the wheel just for a Mac's stablity...
Its a good question. I asked it when I first started animation, and building a animation rig too. I was able to ask quite a few people in the area that do 3d model for video game companys, what is the typical rig. Most of the other vetern video game artists, and programers I talked to, build there own PCs from high end parts, and customize as they feel nessary. Others will buy a Dell PC for exsample. In general, these guys that do 3d modeling, and texture art just use PCs because most of the better programs are only on PCs. I think solfimage is a good exsample. (Solftimage is a Great company for plug in programs for modeling and animating 3d faces.)
http://www.softimage.com/
Then of course, at work, they are typicaly given really high end work station of one sort or anouther. It does not matter if they are doing textures, high poly models, level design, or charicter art. They all get the biggist baddes machines the company can afford. Thats because after hours, the machines all get linked together, and become a render farm. It also makes the lunch hour quake 4's rocket arena more fun... (They are a video game company... It's in there company contract to do so.)
So far... I found only one guy that uses a Mac for anything in video game area.... But he mainly uses it for compositing, and playing Hello Kitty Adventure Island at home...