Now that's an interesting take on things. We always hear the opposite

Right now for $210 you can purchase an AMD R9-280x @ newegg. It does 4.1 tflops at stock speeds. Overclock it a bit and i'm certain you can hit close to 5.0

http://www.newegg.com/Produ...

CongoKyle- Not at all. While the debate can become fierce between AMD and nVidia owners, they hardly ever get close to the kind of behavior commonly seen out of rabid console fanboys.

As a console and PC gamer I think it averages out about the same over time. Or at least close enough for it to not matter much

PC games have gone up in price, and many are now comparable to console games at launch (mainly EA games from what I've seen) - the difference is that PC games tend to drop in price faster, and game key sites can have bargains. I also tend to spend a lot on Steam sales, so buy comparatively more games :)

I don't agree with you that 'no way to repair' is a point to PC gaming. If my GPU fails I am likely to have to replace it - I tend to spend around £200-300 on a new GPU. If my CPU fails I may be able to replace it depending on the availability of replacements for the chipset / socket it was based on - if that chipset is now obsolete CPU's can get very expensive, and so it becomes a toss up between paying over the odds for an older CPU, or replacing the mobo and CPU, and maybe cooler too, and if really unlucky, maybe RAM as well (although unlikely).

Expensive accessories... Most PC gamers like decent accessories too. I spent a lot on a mechanical keyboard, a good mouse, and a HOTAS, and Logitech wheel etc. My mouse cost a bit more than a new XB1 or PS4 controller. My Corsair K70 cost about the same as three new console controllers. I've bought enough cheap end PC peripherals that needed replacing to know it's better to pay a bit more for quality.

Also you can't just do a hardware versus hardware comparison of consoles to PC's. A 200USD GPU may run rings around a console's GPU on paper - but factor in less bloat from the OS / drivers and the efficiency gains of having a single stable platform for consoles - and it's not as clear cut as many PC elitists think. You only have to look at the Uncharted 4 game play to be impressed by what a laptop CPU and a low/med end GPU can do when you can code so close to bare metal.

BC is a nice feature of PC's - especially going back to some really old classics, but most people I know keep their old console when they buy the new one - so it is kinda a moot point. But PC wins in terms of convenience, as I don't have to drag out the old console.

Mods - yep, PC blows consoles out of the water in that respect, but PC games are not immune to DLC. It's not like we got TitanFall DLC for free or anything; or The Sims 4 isn't a total rip off!

Also, whilst the recurring online costs are true, again, it's not as clear cut as you make out. A copy of Windows costs more than a years worth of online services. Even an OEM version can be pricey - and for me, I'll have to upgrade to Windows 10 if I want full DirectX 12 features in future. Sure it's still a lot cheaper in the long run - but software is a 'forgotten cost' that PC gamers rarely mention.

The speed that PC hardware moves on is also a factor, and PC enthusiasts tend to upgrade more frequently than console gamers. I have bought one 1080p TV for my house to play consoles on and watch TV / movies, and that has me covered over the last and current gen consoles - in that time I have bought a 1080p monitor, and recently upgraded to a 1440p. The 1440p I bought was pretty decent and cost more than an XB1 on its own. I also recently replaced my main HDD with an SSD.

By bloatware I didn't mean all the crap that pre-built PC's ship with.

It's the bloat caused by having a general purpose kernel and OS, and GPU drivers etc that have to cater for multiple hardware set ups and configs. Versus having an OS and kernel that is tailored to get the best from coding games on consoles because it's static hardware.

Any PC gamer who isn't impressed by what the PS4 can throw out using a laptop CPU and a low/med GPU is lying. What the PS4 is doing is made possible by having an efficient pipeline, drivers and OS tailored for game creation.

Or to put it another way... if you have 100 hours to create and test a game, how much more actual coding and optimising could you do if you only have to test on one unified configuration of hardware and software (console), versus different brands of CPU, GPU, driver versions, OS versions, API's and so on (PC)

I wasn't suggesting that buying Windows is more expensive than a recurring yearly cost of PSN or XBL Gold - just that it IS a cost that PC gamers conveniently forget, and it is not a one off purchase if you want to get the best from your hardware - not all the features of DX12 in Windows 8 and onwards are getting patched in to DX11.3 for Windows 7.

I see so many arguments that a GPU costing X will beat a console... Yeah maybe, but it still needs a mobo, RAM, CPU, HDD/SSD's, PSU to make it work, and they are rarely free components!

Ok, you can have the BC argument. Sure, if you want to rip games and run emulators, then fine - I was only thinking of PC BC, where even playing DOS games is possible.

My comments were not to undermine PC's. I have built my gaming rigs for years; but to provide counter arguments to this continued bullshit that PC's are somehow massively cheaper than consoles in the long run - when all my experience and outlay proves otherwise.

And if you mean by 'THAT' route, ripping the OS, it's not something I agree with so will always factor in to my costs.

NVIDIA vs AMD rivalry is crazy but the "fanbois" just behave better, thats probably why it doesn't feel like a big issue sometime.