The battle between the “Console Peasants” and the “PC Master Race” is an ongoing one that isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. However, if you are not affiliated with any agenda and just want to enjoy the actual games rather than debating which platform is better and why, can the modern gaming PC truly be considered an affordable choice anymore?
Not that it was particularly affordable at any point in recent times to be honest, but even after the cryptocurrency madness mostly subsided, pushing the price of gaming graphics cards down again, is the investment something that can be justified in 2019? Let’s try and find a reasonable answer that looks at things more objectively, without joining either side of the console vs. PC war!
How Big is the Investment Anyway?
Depending on where you are, who is selling the PC components and what your definition of a true gaming rig really is, the prices can differ widely to say the least. However, thanks to technological advances made possible by innovations in gaming hardware, we can today build a good gaming PC, capable of maxing most modern games out at 1080p, under a budget of $1000 – $1200, which is definitely a bargain.
Things become trickier when you move towards 4K territory, as that’s where the prices start to go up significantly. To have a seriously powerful gaming rig that can run the most demanding of modern games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Monster Hunter: World or even the aging Crysis 3 at max settings without a hitch (60fps or higher), you will require a rig with two GeForce RTX 2080Ti running on it, which is going to cost you a pretty penny!
In spite of NVIDIA’s massive marketing regarding the new RTX series, the performance boost to 4K gaming was not as good as was expected, and if you check the benchmark scores here, it should become obvious that a single RTX 2080Ti, which is the most powerful gaming card available to the masses right now, fails to sometimes reach 30fps in Quantum Break or Kingdom Come Deliverance!
Things have improved a lot since the benchmarking tests were conducted though, and a single 2080Ti can run a lot of games in 4K at consistently higher than 60 frames per second nowadays, especially if you decide to turn down a few settings. Nevertheless, you will probably need one more 2080Ti in there if you are someone who hates having to turn NVIDIA HairWorks off in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, just to get a higher framerate.
Make no mistake, the price of affordable 1080p or even 1440p gaming hardware has come down by a significant margin, which in fact, has made PC gaming a lot more approachable. However, most PC elitists who are looking to build a beastly gaming rig, will expect every game available now and in the coming year or two to run like butter at 4K, which is possible but extremely expensive at the same time.
Is that Beastly Rig Affordable?
Well, if you have the funds for it, you can definitely build a true gaming rig with specs that can run even the latest games in 4K at 60fps or much higher, but is it affordable?
The answer depends on who you are and how you define affordable really, but in general, building a rig with parts along the lines of an Intel Core i9-9900K, twin RTX 2080Ti GPUs, 32GB DDR4 RAM, SSDs, a suitable motherboard and chassis, appropriate cooling solutions and everything else that comes along with such a powerful PC is going to set you back thousands of dollars. On top of that, you will also need a monitor which can do justice to all that gaming power you have invested in. So, as far as general affordability is concerned, the answer would have to be a no for obvious reasons.
Do You Really Need that Enthusiast-Grade Gaming PC Then?
This is where high-end PC gaming starts to make sense and the previous points about it not being affordable for the general gaming population become irrelevant.
Enthusiast-grade gaming PCs are not meant for the average gamer to begin with! General PC gamers can simply get a $1000 PC with the powerful and capable AMD Ryzen 5 2600 + NIVIDIA RTX 2060 included and it will run all modern games in ultra-settings with high fps at 1080p. Those who are looking to buy a truly high-end, beast of a machine are not your average gamers to begin with; they are enthusiasts who want to see every detail that the developers of the game wanted the players to see in ultra-high definition. The PC Master Race is real and they are not going to settle for anything less than perfect.
If spending $5000+ on a glorious gaming computer setup is a waste of money, then so is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a single sports car. It’s more about the passion and the hobby than the actual money involved here because if that was indeed the priority, then no PC could beat the PlayStation 4 Pro, as far as price-to-performance and console exclusives are concerned!
Admittedly, cash is not always available at hand for such an expensive purchase even if the will is there. The good news is that if you are a true PC gaming enthusiast, and a few hundred dollars is keeping you from updating your PC to the most recent standards, you can simply check out Bonsai Finance for the best personal loans.
To conclude with an answer to the question in our title, it would be fair to state that PC gaming is actually more affordable now in 2019 than it ever has been before. Not everyone is an enthusiast and decent mid-range gaming PCs are no longer as expensive as they used to be. The old-Gen GTX 1080 and GTX 1080Ti are extremely capable NVIDIA cards, even now, and unless you want the absolute best and latest hardware, it is possible to build a much more cost-effective high-end 4K gaming PC around these older cards in 2019. As for those that settle for nothing less than the best, this was never a real question to begin with.