The true advance of the next gen doesn't come from GPU muscle -- it comes from having 8 GB of RAM.
Ironically, its the CPU that really needs the extra memory to make GAMEPLAY shine. Huge,open worlds. Minimal loading times. Brilliant AI. This is all in the CPU domain, and all aided by the large amounts of available memory.
You're just not gonna see CGI-grade graphics on anything less than a multi-high-end GPU setup, and even then, probably not outs...
A $700-$900 rig probably will be on par with the PS4/XB1, though.
Why would you want to spend that extra $400?
Also, if you are an average chump, isn't taking your rig into Staples, or sending it back to Dell, or whatever, a big pain whenever you need to do something like "update your graphics drivers", which you have no idea WTH that is?
Sadly, you forgot some qualifiers.
High-end $1200-$5000 gaming rigs are in their own class.
The average gaming PC is not much better than the HD 4000, in terms of GPU performance, and the HD 4000 is weaker than the X360's Xenos GPU.
Even modern Haswell-based rigs don't compete with the consoles, because they either ship with an internal HD 4600 or HD 5200 (which only just stacks up to a 360), or they ship with an entry level GPU like ...
Why are they comparing Source engine framerates, when Valve is known to favor OpenGL/Linux over DX11/Windows, for their own internal Steam BigPicture & SteamOS purposes? Hardly unbiased or scientific at all...
$550 will not get you a comparable Steambox. That is pure, and very poor, speculation.
PC equivalent of the PS4:
Cheap motherboard (~$70)
high-end i5 (~$220)
HD 7850 with GDDR5 (~$170, and 2 GB might be limiting, compared to the PS4's available memory)
500 GB HDD (~$60)
BD drive (~$50)
8GB well-overclockable DDR3 RAM (~$50)
~650W PSU (~$50)
Well-ventilated case (~$50 + $25 for some fans)
Operating sy...
"get your facts straight you desperate, desperate xbot"
If you had been on this site at all over the past 7 years, you would realize that I have been one of Sony's biggest supporters, and the PS3, in particular's, biggest fans. The fact that I see a lot of Sony's new posturing, with regards to the PS4, as BS, should be pretty informative.
They gloss over the problems, and highlight the positives -- classic marketing, which is almost a d...
I agree.
You cannot build an equivalent PC for $400, and have it run the game even close to as well.
PC fanboys are pretty ridiculous.
The ignorance in this thread is astounding.
Here it is, the truth:
* Take ANY 3rd party developer, and have them create a crossplat game for XB1, PS4, and PC.
* The developer will develop PRIMARILY on the PC, which uses *drumroll* DX11 and Windows APIs as the primary software interface.
* The XB1 ALSO runs Windows, albeit a streamlined version, with full DX11 support.
* The PS4, just like the PS3 and every So...
"Hint for fanboys: PS4 is Directx11 as well"
Um no, it's not.
The chipset in the PS4 _supports_ DX11, which is a software API. The only operating systems that can actually use DX11 are MS Windows-based products, which the PS4 does NOT run, and the XB1 does.
Sony uses an OpenGL-like 3D API, bro, and uses their own OS and SDK, which are NOT on Windows, Linux, or any other development environment.
"GDDR 5 ram sips on power compared to the ancient DDR 3 ram"
Umm.. no.
Your math is wierd, and your statement is really unclear.
It's true that the XB1 CPU has better bandwidth to its DDR3 (30 GB/s) than the PS4 CPU does to the GDDR5 (20 GB/s), but bandwidth is usually only an issue for the kind of embarrassingly parallel work GPUs are good at.
It's true that the XB1's CPU memory latency is lower than the PS4's.. that's actually kind of a big deal, due to its impact on cache miss performance, that the uninfor...
...and games like Skyrim and GTA4 are bound by the GPU at resolutions 1080p and under... except no, they aren't.
The best games are CPU bound, as I see it.
The GTX660 draws 140W -- by itself, and all on the 12V rails. The nVidia min recommendation for a PSU is 450W. Most CPUs run in the 80-125W range, and that's in addition to the GPU. Then you've got the HDD, the Optical drive, the case fans...
450W is barely enough.
How about: "Why do high-end gaming PC CPUs use DDR3, and not GDDR5?"
LoL @ all the would-be game devs in this thread, who have never once seen the APIs for using the ESRAM, and have no idea what they're talking about.
It could be as simple as setting a flag on a framebuffer or texture when it has memory allocated. "If" it is just that simple, said folks are looking like fools to real devs who read this.
So.. Valve better be selling these PCs with no profit margin, or serious gaming rig makers like Origin, Alienware, FalconNW, etc. will have a good laugh.
It's laughable how many people disagreed with this guy.
You basically get a PC, with a low-to-mid range CPU and integrated GPU, for that. Competition with consoles... no. Lol.
I gladly pay $40-60 in respects each time a good JRPG arrives. The trouble is, only about 100K english-reading, JRPG-playing people tend to do this, even for good JRPGs. That makes the costs a serious concern.
That's optimistically about $3M the publisher seems, and that's before they pay for manufacturing and shipping those 100K discs to retail (~$7 per disc is $700K manufacturing costs), and before licensing fees (~$7 per disc goes to Sony, for PS3 games, as an ex...
Umm.. these specs don't match up with common sense.
A 450W PSU? Pretty certain the GTX 660, the least powerful GPU in that list, will be barely keeping its head above water, with that one. That's the bare minimum spec for it. The other GPUs on the list need a lot more juice.
In any case, "the Steambox", as a platform, would have to be the least of any machine listed. Any game made for it, has to run decently on a "i3" with a &q...
Typically buggy releases mean end-of-line for startups. =(
Hopefully these guys can bounce back, as long as the loudmouth SOCOM fanboys/armchair game designers can stay off their backs long enough.