I noticed my PS3 controller has a larger deadzone than my Xbox 360 controller. Maybe its because of the age. But I was wondering if theres some reasonably priced controller with a very small dead zone for FPS gaming that can ideally be used on all platforms. I prefer the design of the Xbox 360 controller over the PS3 one, I find it more comfortable.

Thanks for the replies. I'm not going to be building right away, I'm considering what to get for the next gen of gaming. Either a console or gaming computer. Uptil now quad cores were kind of pointless but I noticed recent games being quad core optimized. But if I decide to build I'll definitely ask you guys for help. Thanks :D.

But the Alienware looks so nice. Are there reasonably priced beautiful looking cases like the x51 or Maingear Potenza Super Stock?

To be honest there is no reason to get a dual core system since you can get fairly good quads at the low end of the scale. Nowadays more games can benefit from quads but still for the next few years it will still be dual core minimum requirement with some better scaling to 4 cores, and i certainly wouldnt expect to see any games in the next 3-5 years optimised for more than 4 cores. This being said though fast cores are still required so for gaming 2.66ghz is the lowest i would suggest for a gaming core and even this in quad has seen a few issue in the older models q6600 for example. If though it was between a 3.4ghz dual and a 2.8-3ghz quad then i would take the quad all day. These how ever are just guesses based on all things being equal, if you can give some exact make and models we can give clearer examples and why :)

5SI-GonePostal

Yeh what's wrong with Alienware? They've been reviewed highly and give me a cool easy way to get a good computer. Maybe I'm missing something?

Now I know we have *no clue* as to what exactly the next gen consoles will have in terms of hardware. But bare with me here, I want you to answer this question by taking into consideration what you expect the next gen consoles to have assuming the same hardware trends are followed as were in this current generation.

Let's assume the next generation will be 8 years long and that the consoles at launch will be as powerful compared with PCs as the PS3 and Xbox 360 were when they were released.

Which of the following two setups do you think would be able to play games decently (console quality) for longer:

1. Alienware x51 base model for $699 plus a hardware upgrade of CPU and GPU midway through the next generation for upto $400.

2. A next generation console purchased at launch (expected holiday season 2013).

With all that the Steam folk have said and their linux port, do you think there's any possibility that linux would be the new Windows for gamers? Right now Mac games run slower in general and aren't really given priority. Would Windows become like that? I personally can't see it happening given that most people use Windows. I like Windows 8 so I dont even know why linux should be brought up.

Well if I get a multiplayer game say a year later when its on sale wont people have moved onto the sequel? Take the Call of Duty series for example. You would pretty much have to get it within a few months of release to be able to enjoy the most number of players and sort of an active online community. Or maybe I'm mistaken. Could it be said that console gaming is more suited for casual gamers who just buy at most a handful of games a year?

I've noticed that many of the recent games recommend quad core systems as they are optimized for multithreaded use. Do you expect quad core to become mainstream in the near future at least with 'next gen' titles?

If you were building a system which would you choose assuming same price, a fast dual core or a little slower quad core? How much of a speed increase would a dual core CPU need to overcome the quad cores advantage do you think?

How much of an improvement have recent games shown when a quad core setup is used?

I'm thinking of getting into PC gaming but I would like to know if it is possible to sell off games that you're done with. On the PS3 and Xbox 360 this is easily possible. On Steam this is of course not possible at all. So if I get a game on physical media then would it be possible to sell the game once I've had enough of it? How does the used games market work in the PC side?