The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X show that we might expect consoles to transfer into platformstiers of hardware, with more powerful boxes released every three to four years.

Shocking, I know.

And so please, all ye console believers, factor in whatever amount of bias youd like to the following statement.

Heres a handful of reasons why PC gaming is a better value than consoles.

Thats normally where the PCs fallen behind in the past, compared to consoles.

Yeah, I could spend thousands of dollars on a PC or 300 to 400 on a console.

That hasnt changed.

If you can build a gaming desktop for 400, youre either a wizard or extremely good at snagging discount parts and waiting for sales.

More power to you.

But the PC isnt that much more expensive at this point.

Youll can build a console-beating Ryzen gaming PC for under 550, or a much more powerful gaming rig for 850.

Brad Chacos Prices have come down a lot graphics card prices especially.

A 3GB GeForce GTX 1060 will only run you 200 on Amazon, which is incredible.

Compare Pc Vs. For Video Games Plus Frames Per

Max out graphics at 1080p resolution and youll still hit 60-plus frames per second in basically every modern game.

For only 200. And a more future-proof version with 6GB of on-board RAM only costs 260, and thatll let you game at higher 1440p resolutions without problem.

Competition has made the PC more affordable than ever before.

And that 200 graphics card is better than whats inside the PlayStation 4 Pro.

Heres a comparison of raw TFLOPS power, courtesy of PCWords graphics guru Brad Chacos.

Nvidias 3GB GTX 1060 offers roughly equivalent gaming performance as AMDs RX 570, while the 6GB GeForce card performs like AMDs RX 580: Brad ChacosIDG Its a bit misleading because consoles and PCs take advantage of their hardware in different ways, but serves well enough as a raw comparison.

PS4 Pro.

Grab the rest of your parts and youre all set for pretty, especially if you already have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor handy, as many people do.

Hell, you can go lower than that if youre only looking to match the performance of the original PS4 and Xbox One.

A 110 graphics card like the GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560 paired with AMDs most affordable Ryzen 3 chip (107 on Amazon ) will get you over that extremely low bar.

But wait, theres more Okay, sure: PC gaming is more affordable than ever before.

I dont see how you can also say its the best value for most gamers.

Were getting to that part, fictional Mr.Ms.

Rhetorical Device.

Compare Pc Vs. For Video Games Upgrade Path This

Better upgrade path This is the big change, and the inspiration for this article.

A lot of people bought a PlayStation 4at the time the most powerful console ever made.

The difference, this time, is that consoles are now using a faux-PC upgrade strategy.

Compare Pc Vs. Mac For Video Games