Radeon HD 7950 $200 @ Newegg

[Eric]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814131478

-$20 after EMCXMXP229 promo code
another -$30 after rebate.

Damn good card for $200.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

[bovine]

I have a hard time justifying new PC hardware costs, as that is 2/3 the cost of current console hardware and 1/2 - 2/5 the cost of next gen hardware.

It is totally an incredible price, but I could be getting a whole new fancy box for (what seems to me like) just a bit more.

[Eric]

Yeah, PC gaming is for people who used their PC as their dedicated gaming console really(Or just like to invest money into their PCs like me ). You do get better performance/graphics as a result, Far Cry/Tomb Raider/Devil May Cry running @ 60 FPS vs 30FPS console counterparts. If you don't care about graphics/performance consoles are easily the better investment, and it's not like they look terrible, they look great obviously, PCs can just push the small stuff a bit further.

At this point I typically buy multi-platform games on PC and console exclusives on consoles.

[SineSwiper]

Fuck all of that. Indie games need no fancy graphics and $500 video cards.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah the main drawback to PC gaming is that you have to align yourself with elitist assholes like me. Not the price tag.

You can get a decent machine for just a little more than a console and the fact that you can do basically anything you fucking want on the thing without voiding your warranty is worth the price of admission.

[Eric]

I think this is the first generation of consoles where the PC Market's primary components are actually fairly affordable vs the console counterparts.

You can get a AMD FX 8320 for $145 and a Nvidia GTX 760, $249. Which is roughly the price of a PS4, both are more powerful then the PS4's CPU/GPU. Granted, this ignores motherboards/ram/case, etc, but if you were just updating bits and bolts.

Back in 2006 when the 360 launched I think duo cores were all the rage, and the graphic cards were behind the consoles at the time for the same price point.

[SineSwiper]

I think that has to do with the fact that the technology is growing, but it's not so wildly different as to force you to buy an entirely new PC. I mean, PCIe has been around for 10 years now.

That and we're running into that classic "polygons and diminishing returns" problem. And that games have to be multi-threaded to take advantage of cores.

[Eric]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 0HD%207950

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ageSize=20

To give you guys an idea of how good a deal this was(when I posted it) those same cards in that series are going for $350+ now.

And the ones in the R9 series which replaced it the 280(X) is $400+