High end gaming graphics

[Hitmanuncut]

As I have not completed mine yet, I was going to ask is building a high end gaming pc worth the extra dollars we all spend and are the graphics that much better than anything a console has to offer. Most likely a ******* question, but I would really like to know how much better the graphics is so I can tell all the fools telling me to just buy a console that this is a justifiable option that will be much better although more dollars.

 

[Night Fox]

My graphics with my (cheap) 9500gt looks just about the same as console graphics. The high end graphics (probably anything above $200) is going to be much better than consoles (I'm just guessing here based on what I've seen with my friends' consoles). (Other than graphics, PCs are much better to game with because you can't beat the precision of a mouse and keyboard with a controller. Plus you can multitask while playing games...back when I played CoD1 and Cod:UO, I played both at the same time...1 on S&D and UO on Zombies.. (when I died in S&D I played zombies, and when I became a zombie, I played S&D).

 

[95BlackGA]

The main question is, do you want to keep upgrading for future game titles? Consoles will be able to play the most demanding games (for a PC) with ease, because they're coded to play on a certain set of hardware that the console has. PC versions have to be coded to play on different hardware, and software, so optimization isn't as easy to achieve.

 

[Yerfdog]

Well, the graphics alone probably wouldn't be worth the money, unless you've got quite a bit of money to be throwing around. If you're planning on getting tons of games, it'll be worth it (Steam sales, ie: everything that Square Enix has published for $75, >$400 savings). Also, mods will extend the lifetime of the games you have, and you can play older games, and there are some games that are legitimately free and good for PC (flash games, and some games like nexuiz, but that's the only one I can think of). The mouse and keyboard is much, much more accurate than a controller.

In case you're looking for a good GPU to max (about) anything (out right now), I think this would max about any game you tried with it. I think Crysis Warhead would be able to get about 30 FPS on 1080p on very high with 4xAA, 16xAF. Well, it gets 31 fps on those settings on 1680x1050 resolution.

 

[Druid]

PC's are much more powerful, but you can't see a huge difference from a distance. It's when you sit very close to the screen like a pc that you can tell. I had my ps3 hooked up to my computer monitor at one point last year, and I could tell how garbage it looks compared to my pc games. While 720p looks great at a distance, when you are up close, it is trash. You need 1080p. You don't normally play console games right in front of the screen though, so you aren't going to see a huge difference. 720p can look exactly the same as 1080p if the distances from the screen are in the right proportion. It is even possible for 720p too look better if you are very far from the 720p screen and close up to the 1080p screen. But generally, the farther away you are, the worse you are going to perform, especially in fps games.

 

[Hitmanuncut]

Thanks for all the information, your opinions have given me some ammunition to throw at them. PC's all the way.