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By Rick Lane
PC gaming is mega expensive. It's one of the most steadfast assumptions among gamers, an argument that crops up in almost every forum thread when the letters "P" and "C" are placed alongside one another.
Few people stop to question whether PC gaming actually is more expensive than console gaming, and why would they? When you can buy an XBox for £200, and a top-end graphics card can cost twice that, the question barely seems worth asking...
But I've always been skeptical about the presumed price-gap. So I decided to ask my good friend Maths for an answer. Here's the plan. We're going to examine the cost of running both a new PC rig and a new console set-up over a period of three years, looking at all the accumulated costs during that time, and see how they stack up. If you've avoided taking the PC plunge because of cost, you might find something here to change your mindset...
PC gaming is mega expensive. It's one of the most steadfast assumptions among gamers, an argument that crops up in almost every forum thread when the letters "P" and "C" are placed alongside one another.
Few people stop to question whether PC gaming actually is more expensive than console gaming, and why would they? When you can buy an XBox for £200, and a top-end graphics card can cost twice that, the question barely seems worth asking...
But I've always been skeptical about the presumed price-gap. So I decided to ask my good friend Maths for an answer. Here's the plan. We're going to examine the cost of running both a new PC rig and a new console set-up over a period of three years, looking at all the accumulated costs during that time, and see how they stack up. If you've avoided taking the PC plunge because of cost, you might find something here to change your mindset...