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reaganadalynn -> High-end PC Gaming: surprisingly disappointing? (12/17/2021 4:51:28 PM)
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Long story short, I built a mid-range gaming PC in 2011 and was somewhat satisfied with it until it started to age. I had no money to keep it up-to-date, so it gradually became old and obsolete, and by 2017, it could not run any new games I wanted to play. I bought a used Xbox One for cheap and thoroughly enjoyed the frictionless experience after having spent 5 years constantly fighting against my PC to get games to run smoothly. I eventually upgraded it to a One X by taking advantage of some GameStop trade-in deals when Red Dead Redemption 2 came out. Last year, I was finally making decent money and bought myself an Xbox Series X, and it was wonderful. An absolute joy to use and a very solid upgrade over my One X.
Now, I have a friend who has a very high-end PC. 3080ti, i9 CPU, 144p 144hz monitor, the works. I had never played on a high-end PC before, so one day I went to his house and was thoroughly impressed with Doom Eternal running at max settings at silky smooth framerates. A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to buy a 3080 of my own, so after my experience with his PC, I dipped into my savings and bought a dream PC. After meticulously building it (one of my absolute favorite activities, I must admit) and installing some games, I was again very impressed and satisfied with the performance. However, I couldn't help but feel that, though it was technically better than my Series X, is it really $2,500 better (my PC was roughly $3k)?
I can certainly see the difference between 60fps and 144fps, but the improvement isn't substantial enough for me to really justify the extra hardware cost. After a minute or two of gameplay, I forget I'm playing at more than double the usual frame rate, and that makes it feel less valuable. I've also met some of my old PC demons with the random crashes, odd performance hiccups, and hours of tinkering and troubleshooting that I thought for sure would be all but eliminated with a top-shelf rig. These issues frustrate me and have me running back to my Xbox so that I can actually enjoy what little time I have for games these days.
So, while this PC is the absolute best, most powerful piece of hardware I've ever owned, I find myself going back to my Series X for the friction-less experience, ease of use, and comfort in knowing my games will work with no hassle or fuss. I can't help but feel I wasted my money on a PC that I thought I wanted, but in reality, had no need for. Has anyone else had a similar experience with PC gaming, or am I just a crazy fool who can't appreciate what he has?
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