Dethroning Myths: 2005/06 PC was cheeper than PS3/XBOX360

What I hear a lot from consolites is 

"Find me a pc back in 2005/2006 with 512mb ram that could run games better than PS3/XBOX360"

Well. I don´t know why it must be 512 mb of ram, because even back then RAM was already cheap. Besides we cannot compare PC specs directly to consoles´ because PC is multi-purpose and multi-process device hence always needs more RAM, while consoles run only one application (game) at a time. Once consoles will be able to switch running applications at a fly, from a game to a web explorer, from a web exlorer to Photoshop, from Photoshop to Ofice, and from Office back to the game, then we will talk about RAM parity. 

Well...

I built my PC in 2006. On my business trip to California, I visited local Fry´s Electronics and bought all components in combo heavily discounted.

I got 

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1gb RAM DDR2, Nvidia GPU 512mb GT9600 (see Edit below), 180GB of HDD, DVD player

Altogether for 530$.

While back then PS3 wasn´t even released yet, and once released costed arround 600+$

And by some reason, I couldn´t find an XBOX360 for less than 500$.

I played back then on a simple LCD 17", there wasn´t HD tvs yet.

So, I was able to run following games on that machine,

Resolution always  at 1024x768,

1. Crysis, details medium/high.

2. Gears of War, details almost on high.

3. Company of Heroes, details on high.

4. Mass Effect, details on high.

5. EVEN GTA 4, details on medium/high, reducing shadow quality

6. Fallout 3, looked just great

7. Total War Medieval 2, looked great as well.

8. Bioshock, details almost maxed.

Resuming, I could play basically everything at 1024x768 resolutions, setting details on high, and even setting AA at 4x in many games, which automatically gave me 

better visuals than on consoles.

I was gaming on that machine until 2009 when I started to build a new gaming PC which I am using for gaming today. Right now, my 2006 PC is collecting dust, but I have a slight suspicion that I still can run current games on it at 1024x768 resolution and low/medium details, exactly like current gen consoles do today.

EDIT:

Sorry, I didn´t put it clear. I was gaming with a cheap video card for a while which was...7600GT (I think)  and then I upgraded to 9600GT. Still it´s included in 530$, because the combo cpu+ram+mother was at 210$. And 9600GT I got later for 150$. My original goal was to build a 400$ PC, and I got it even cheeper than I had thought. 

Doubt you'd run current games on low with that P4 and 9600GTMonsieurX

Hmmmm, that would be a nice experiment but I am too lazy to carry it out.

P4 and a 6800Ultra is enough to run games from 2010 on the lowest settings.faizan_faizan

Is that really playing though? Most of the time games on the consoles look way better than the lowest settings on the PC and are much more stable. 

Remember in 2005, just like today in 2013, PC devs couldn't assume that their entire market had high end gaming rigs and had to make their games for a very wide range of hardware. This adversely affects what they could do with graphics at the time.

I argue that Gears of War was the best looking game on the market when it launched (but that only lasted a few months, not even a whole year). This is simply because Epic had 1 set of hardware to work with and they didn't have to worry about scaling. In 2005 the differences between high and low graphics were far more than they are today because gamers were alright with low settings being just enough to barely play the game and devs had way less experience and technologies to make the low-end graphics at least look appealing. 

Same thing is happening now only devs have been building games that scale much better for quite some time, so the gap will be even less.  Initial PS4/Next Xbox games will look mighty impressive, but a year or to down the road games on your average mid-range PC will look better because there will be larger markets with more powerful hardware. 

There was just no way, no how one was going to build from scratch a Gaming PC in 2005 for less than $400 that would match the looks and play of a Kameo or PGR3 and in 2006, the jaw dropping Gears sooo, just sayin. :P

You could come close to PS3 during it's initial $599 stage. However, it should be mentioned that PS3 came with a Blu-Ray player, and those weren't cheap back then.

I argue that Gears of War was the best looking game on the market when it launchedWasdie

Stop!!!

Console gamers don't give a crap. We are not going to play games on a PC; because gaming on a PC sucks. It's doesn't matter if it's both more poserful AND cheaper - it's still a PC.

What I hear a lot from consolites is

"Find me a pc back in 2005/2006 with 512mb ram that could run games better than PS3/XBOX360"

Well. I don´t know why it must be 512 mb of ram, because even back then RAM was already cheap. Besides we cannot compare PC specs directly to consoles´ because PC is multi-purpose and multi-process device hence always needs more RAM, while consoles run only one application (game) at a time. Once consoles will be able to switch running applications at a fly, from a game to a web explorer, from a web exlorer to Photoshop, from Photoshop to Ofice, and from Office back to the game, then we will talk about RAM parity.

Well...

I built my PC in 2006. On my business trip to California, I visited local Fry´s Electronics and bought all components in combo heavily discounted.

I got

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1gb RAM DDR2, Nvidia GPU 512mb GT9600, 180GB of HDD, DVD player

Altogether for 530$.

While back then PS3 wasn´t even released yet, and once released costed arround 600+$

And by some reason, I couldn´t find an XBOX360 for less than 500$.

I played back then on a simple LCD 17", there wasn´t HD tvs yet.

So, I was able to run following games on that machine,

Resolution always at 1024x768,

1. Crysis, details medium/high.

2. Gears of War, details almost on high.

3. Company of Heroes, details on high.

4. Mass Effect, details on high.

5. EVEN GTA 4, details on medium/high, reducing shadow quality

6. Fallout 3, looked just great

7. Total War Medieval 2, looked great as well.

8. Bioshock, details almost maxed.

Resuming, I could play basically everything at 1024x768 resolutions, setting details on high, and even setting AA at 4x in many games, which automatically gave me

better visuals than on consoles.

I was gaming on that machine until 2009 when I started to build a new gaming PC which I am using for gaming today. Right now, my 2006 PC is collecting dust, but I have a slight suspicion that I still can run current games on it at 1024x768 resolution and low/medium details, exactly like current gen consoles do today.

jhonMalcovich

I'm confused. How did your $530 (US) PC cost less than the 360 which was $399? Yes, it is cheaper than the higher end model of PS3 which was $599, but not by that much AND the PS3 also launched with a $499 option. Again. $499 is cheaper than $530 last I checked.

Second, you admit to upgrading your PC 3 years after buying it while the 360 and PS3 are now 7/8 years old and games still look great. So you are spending just as much (if not more) for a PC as a gaming console for less than half the time period.

no blu ray on that pc

no blu ray on that pc

osirisx3

There was just no way, no how one was going to build from scratch a Gaming PC in 2005 for less than $400 that would match the looks and play of a Kameo or PGR3 and in 2006, the jaw dropping Gears sooo, just sayin. :P

SecretPolice

Well, xbox360 was really matchin high-end PC for 2 years, MS had done a good job by pushing it quite early. But I consider Xbox360 case more like an exception.. PS3 wasn´t released yet when I built my PC which was already matching PS3 visuals. 

And today we have PS4 that is coming with 2-year old PC gpu, and rumored XBOX720 specs weren´t impresive either. So I don´t think the xbox360 phenomenon will be recreated any soon.

You could come close to PS3 during it's initial $599 stage. However, it should be mentioned that PS3 came with a Blu-Ray player, and those weren't cheap back then.

gamecubepad

And almost nobody used them back then.

[QUOTE="SecretPolice"]

There was just no way, no how one was going to build from scratch a Gaming PC in 2005 for less than $400 that would match the looks and play of a Kameo or PGR3 and in 2006, the jaw dropping Gears sooo, just sayin. :P

jhonMalcovich

Well, xbox360 was really matchin high-end PC for 2 years, MS had done a good job by pushing it quite early. But I consider Xbox360 case more like an exception.. PS3 wasn´t released yet when I built my PC which was already matching PS3 visuals.

And today we have PS4 that is coming with 2-year old PC gpu, and rumored XBOX720 specs weren´t impresive either. So I don´t think the xbox360 phenomenon will be recreated any soon.

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

What I hear a lot from consolites is

"Find me a pc back in 2005/2006 with 512mb ram that could run games better than PS3/XBOX360"

Well. I don´t know why it must be 512 mb of ram, because even back then RAM was already cheap. Besides we cannot compare PC specs directly to consoles´ because PC is multi-purpose and multi-process device hence always needs more RAM, while consoles run only one application (game) at a time. Once consoles will be able to switch running applications at a fly, from a game to a web explorer, from a web exlorer to Photoshop, from Photoshop to Ofice, and from Office back to the game, then we will talk about RAM parity.

Well...

I built my PC in 2006. On my business trip to California, I visited local Fry´s Electronics and bought all components in combo heavily discounted.

I got

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1gb RAM DDR2, Nvidia GPU 512mb GT9600, 180GB of HDD, DVD player

Altogether for 530$.

While back then PS3 wasn´t even released yet, and once released costed arround 600+$

And by some reason, I couldn´t find an XBOX360 for less than 500$.

I played back then on a simple LCD 17", there wasn´t HD tvs yet.

So, I was able to run following games on that machine,

Resolution always at 1024x768,

1. Crysis, details medium/high.

2. Gears of War, details almost on high.

3. Company of Heroes, details on high.

4. Mass Effect, details on high.

5. EVEN GTA 4, details on medium/high, reducing shadow quality

6. Fallout 3, looked just great

7. Total War Medieval 2, looked great as well.

8. Bioshock, details almost maxed.

Resuming, I could play basically everything at 1024x768 resolutions, setting details on high, and even setting AA at 4x in many games, which automatically gave me

better visuals than on consoles.

I was gaming on that machine until 2009 when I started to build a new gaming PC which I am using for gaming today. Right now, my 2006 PC is collecting dust, but I have a slight suspicion that I still can run current games on it at 1024x768 resolution and low/medium details, exactly like current gen consoles do today.

 

ZIMdoom

I'm confused. How did your $530 (US) PC cost less than the 360 which was $399? Yes, it is cheaper than the higher end model of PS3 which was $599, but not by that much AND the PS3 also launched with a $499 option. Again. $499 is cheaper than $530 last I checked.

Second, you admit to upgrading your PC 3 years after buying it while the 360 and PS3 are now 7/8 years old and games still look great. So you are spending just as much (if not more) for a PC as a gaming console for less than half the time period.

In my location, xbox 360 were priced arround 500$ easily, especially at launch.  Probably I should have checked its price in Fry Electronics, but I had needed a PC back then for my work.

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

What I hear a lot from consolites is

"Find me a pc back in 2005/2006 with 512mb ram that could run games better than PS3/XBOX360"

Well. I don´t know why it must be 512 mb of ram, because even back then RAM was already cheap. Besides we cannot compare PC specs directly to consoles´ because PC is multi-purpose and multi-process device hence always needs more RAM, while consoles run only one application (game) at a time. Once consoles will be able to switch running applications at a fly, from a game to a web explorer, from a web exlorer to Photoshop, from Photoshop to Ofice, and from Office back to the game, then we will talk about RAM parity.

Well...

I built my PC in 2006. On my business trip to California, I visited local Fry´s Electronics and bought all components in combo heavily discounted.

I got

Pentium 4 3.2Ghz, 1gb RAM DDR2, Nvidia GPU 512mb GT9600, 180GB of HDD, DVD player

Altogether for 530$.

While back then PS3 wasn´t even released yet, and once released costed arround 600+$

And by some reason, I couldn´t find an XBOX360 for less than 500$.

I played back then on a simple LCD 17", there wasn´t HD tvs yet.

So, I was able to run following games on that machine,

Resolution always at 1024x768,

1. Crysis, details medium/high.

2. Gears of War, details almost on high.

3. Company of Heroes, details on high.

4. Mass Effect, details on high.

5. EVEN GTA 4, details on medium/high, reducing shadow quality

6. Fallout 3, looked just great

7. Total War Medieval 2, looked great as well.

8. Bioshock, details almost maxed.

Resuming, I could play basically everything at 1024x768 resolutions, setting details on high, and even setting AA at 4x in many games, which automatically gave me

better visuals than on consoles.

I was gaming on that machine until 2009 when I started to build a new gaming PC which I am using for gaming today. Right now, my 2006 PC is collecting dust, but I have a slight suspicion that I still can run current games on it at 1024x768 resolution and low/medium details, exactly like current gen consoles do today.

 

ZIMdoom

I'm confused. How did your $530 (US) PC cost less than the 360 which was $399? Yes, it is cheaper than the higher end model of PS3 which was $599, but not by that much AND the PS3 also launched with a $499 option. Again. $499 is cheaper than $530 last I checked.

Second, you admit to upgrading your PC 3 years after buying it while the 360 and PS3 are now 7/8 years old and games still look great. So you are spending just as much (if not more) for a PC as a gaming console for less than half the time period.

First off, If you bought the cheaper PS3, you probably upgraded the hard drive by now, which makes up the extra $40, right there.  

And, you're missing an important clue here:  He didn't upgrade because he NEEDED to. He should be able to play most modern games at console settings, or only a little bit worse.

He upgraded because he DIDN'T want to play at crappy console settings. He wanted 1080p, 60 FPS, bette rlighting, betetr textures, etc, etc, etc.

Where as console gamers are stuck in the past, Pc gamers, have, for the msot part, moved on, years ago.

It's also goign to be the same thing this generation. console gamers will be all psyched that they (finally) get to experience Pc visuals and PC games (MMO's, Free to play, etc) and promptly declare PC dead. The Pc will continue to improve, to create new genres and new markets, while consoles continue to play catchup. In 2-3 years, when most PC gamers are playign games t higher resolutions, with better performance and wya better graphics, console gamers like you will start throwing this nonsnse out again.

"Well, if you bough a PC 3 years ago you'd hav to upgrade now!"  Bull$hit.  We will upgrade 3-4 years because we will be moving on from the console experience, to a much better, new technologicla one, leaving you guys stuck in the past, yet again.

So cry some more, consolite. Cry some more.

2005-06 PC components were much more expensive and didnt play as well as the HD consoles.

Lack of optimization was also (and still is) a major problem for PC Gaming.

Prices on PC upgrades didn't start to become competitive until 2010

LOL at the P4 and 9600GT (relabeled 8600GT FYF, 9K series LOL) in the OP, that crap couldn't even run Oblivion half as well as the 360 did.

2005-06 PC components were much more expensive and didnt play as well as the HD consoles.

Lack of optimization was also (and still is) a major problem for PC Gaming.

Prices on PC upgrades didn't start to become competitive until 2010

LOL at the P4 and 9600GT (relabeled 8600GT FYF, 9K series LOL) in the OP, that crap couldn't even run Oblivion half as well as the 360 did.

EvanTheGamer

Oh, it's you again. The idiot consolite that gives all other idiot consolites a bad name.

It's no surprise that you're WRONG, yet again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEp9GvwJF3w

That's a 9600GT running Oblivion at BETTER THAN CONSOLE SETTINGS AND at a higher frame rate than consoles.

And almost nobody used them back then.

jhonMalcovich

Was the only reason to own a PS3 from my recollection.>_>

360 costed 400 dollars stop trying to make excuses to make it cost 500 for you ,    wii costed 250 , ds by the time 360 came was 150  ,    psp 250 , so consoles were cheap the only console not cheaper then what you paid for your pc is the 60 gig ps3 model ,,

2005-06 PC components were much more expensive and didnt play as well as the HD consoles.

Lack of optimization was also (and still is) a major problem for PC Gaming.

Prices on PC upgrades didn't start to become competitive until 2010

LOL at the P4 and 9600GT (relabeled 8600GT FYF, 9K series LOL) in the OP, that crap couldn't even run Oblivion half as well as the 360 did.

EvanTheGamer

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

And almost nobody used them back then.

gamecubepad

Was the only reason to own a PS3 from my recollection.>_>

But how many people bought a slim version after a fat one ?

How many people had to buy a new XBOX360 due to the RROD problem ? One my friend got his launch xbox360 broken down after 2 years of use; had to buy a new one.

360 costed 400 dollars stop trying to make excuses to make it cost 500 for you ,    wii costed 250 , ds by the time 360 came was 150  ,    psp 250 , so consoles were cheap the only console not cheaper then what you paid for your pc is the 60 gig ps3 model ,,

mariokart64fan

I ddin´t see any WiiU black edition at a promissed 350$ at launch, rather arround 400-450$. XBOX360 wasn´t 400$ either, at least, not everywhere, and at leats, not on ebay.

Doubt you'd run current games on low with that P4 and 9600GTMonsieurX

So this guy found some super discounted PC parts and is claiming that means PC gaming was 'cheaper'. So if I found a 360 in a dumpster console gaming would be free? It's pretty desperate for Herms to claim PC gaming is cheaper than console gaming, many of us game on both PC's and consoles, and anyone claiming PC gaming is cheaper is frankly full of sh*t.JamDev

Is Fry´s Electronics a dumpster now ? :lol: It´s like an electronics wallmart if you don´t know. 

nobody was buying pentium 4's kids they bought athlon 64 for gaming.

crytek actually released the original far cry for free and it had athlon 64 in game advertisements lol.

[QUOTE="MonsieurX"]Doubt you'd run current games on low with that P4 and 9600GTnextgenjoke

This cpu can actually handle crysis 2/3 better than crysis and warhead because the games have been consolized.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103535

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"][QUOTE="MonsieurX"]Doubt you'd run current games on low with that P4 and 9600GTfaizan_faizan

How did u build a PC with a 9600GT in 2006 when the 9600GT released in 2008? GioVela2010

Prices on PC upgrades didn't start to become competitive until 2010

EvanTheGamer

 :lol: 

You clearly have no clue what you are talking about

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"][QUOTE="nextgenjoke"] Just gotta keep upgrading the gpu. With dx11 card still run any game out there today at playable framerates.nextgenjoke

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"][QUOTE="faizan_faizan"] I did the same thing, My CPU is from 2006 and it's a MASSIVE bottleneck, I just need to upgrade to a decent CPU.faizan_faizan

How did u build a PC with a 9600GT in 2006 when the 9600GT released in 2008? GioVela2010

Sorry, I didn´t put it clear. I was gaming with a cheap video card for a while and then I upgraded to 9600GT. Still it´s included in 530$, because the combo cpu+ram+mother was at 210$. And 9600GT I got later for 150$. My original goal was to build a 400$ PC, and I got it even cheeper than I had thought.

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"]

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"] i was running crysis warhead on max settings with my socket 939 single core and 8800 GT years ago before i bought a dualcore just to see what hype about.nextgenjoke

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"][QUOTE="faizan_faizan"]
You have a single core CPU? Oh wait there weren't any Dual Cores in 2004
How do you run modern games on a Single Core?MonsieurX

[QUOTE="faizan_faizan"]

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"] i was running crysis warhead on max settings with my socket 939 single core and 8800 GT years ago before i bought a dualcore just to see what hype about.nextgenjoke

cryengine 2 has more advanced lighting than cryengine 3 actually.

[QUOTE="nextgenjoke"][QUOTE="faizan_faizan"]
You have a single core CPU? Oh wait there weren't any Dual Cores in 2004
How do you run modern games on a Single Core?GioVela2010