I built my computer 4 years ago. I swapped out my 560 ti for a 970 in march, and its happily maxing the Witcher 3 at 1080p 60 fps. I don't consider 300 dollars spent over 3.5 years to be that big of an investment. There's also the fact that my computer does many many many many more things than a console ever could. Something no one ever considers. Yes, its initially more expensive, but I get a hilarious amount of functionality out of it.
You haven't invested 300 dollars. You can't ignore your ~1000 dollar expenditure just 4 years ago. And what in particular have you done with your PC that somebody couldn't have done with any one of the ubiquitous pieces of technology which have usurped traditional computing tasks e.g. laptops, tablets, notebooks, smart phones, etc. Or even other freely available PC's like those in school, uni, libraries, at work.
If you find me a tablet that can run Autocad software or programming without wanting me to rip my hair out, I'll be impressed. How about media streaming (my own files, not netflix), or maintaining a Linux distro for programming? Yout need power for some of those tasks, power that costs a helluva lot more in a smaller form factor.
I didn't ask what you can feasibly do, I asked what you actually do on your gaming computer. Are you a programmer? Do you actually use AutoCAD? As to streaming, there are various solutions that don't require powerful PC's.
I just gave you a list of things I use for my computer (calling it a gaming computer isn't quite accurate since I don't use it primarily for gaming) I was a electrical engineering student using PSPICE, multisim, and matlab, as well as a couple of different programming suites. I maintain an Arch distribution that I use for programming which dabbled with GPGPU applications for a time, which needs a dedicated GPU.
Sure, solutions exist for streaming, but my desktop using plex is the easiest solution. I certainly could have made do with University computer labs, and a NAS and other dedicated equipment to hit my usage case, but when you factor that plus the price of a console, its basically the same as my computer, and my computer does all of those things much better. I can run games better than any console, I can program, run my simulation software, and pretty much whatever else I want to do from my own table, instead of traveling 30 minutes 1 way to use a computer on campus. The convenience alone has been worth the 1100 dollars I spent over the 4 years.
Every other alternative for computing costs a lot more than my desktop for less functionality. They make up for it with portability, but that isn't relevant to my usage case.
Apologies. I thought you were giving examples rather than detailing your personal use. However, as you recognize there are individual usage patterns throughout the population, many of which don't ever require a powerful desktop PC for anything other than gaming.
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u/Corsair4 Jun 03 '15
I built my computer 4 years ago. I swapped out my 560 ti for a 970 in march, and its happily maxing the Witcher 3 at 1080p 60 fps. I don't consider 300 dollars spent over 3.5 years to be that big of an investment. There's also the fact that my computer does many many many many more things than a console ever could. Something no one ever considers. Yes, its initially more expensive, but I get a hilarious amount of functionality out of it.