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PC vs Console Gaming
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PC or console is one of the oldest arguments in gaming, and it has changed more in the last five years than in the twenty before them. Consoles have become more like PCs, PCs have become easier to live with, and several of the arguments people still make for either side no longer hold.
Here is where the two actually stand, and how to work out which one suits you.
Cost
Consoles win on the day you buy, and that is a real advantage rather than one to talk around. A current console costs a few hundred pounds and plays everything on its platform.
A gaming PC that meaningfully outperforms a console starts higher. Around £1,000 puts you comfortably ahead of console performance, and you can spend a great deal more.
Where the gap narrows is over the life of the machine. PC games are consistently cheaper, particularly during sales, and the difference across a library of twenty or thirty games is substantial. Neither Steam nor Epic charges you to play online, where console platforms do. And when a PC starts falling behind, you replace one component rather than the whole machine.
The honest summary: consoles cost less to buy, PCs cost less to own. How that lands for you depends on how much you play and how long you keep things.
Performance
Consoles have improved enormously. Current models handle 4K, high frame rates and ray tracing in a way that would have seemed unlikely a generation ago.
But a console is fixed. The specification it launched with is the specification it will have in six years, and games late in a console generation are built around hardware that is by then well behind.
A PC is not fixed, and the top end of PC hardware is a long way ahead of any console. If you want to play at 4K with everything turned up, or hold 240 frames per second in a competitive shooter, only a PC will do it.
It is also worth being clear that a cheap PC will not beat a console. Buying badly is the one way to lose this comparison outright.
Upgrades and lifespan
This is the strongest argument for PC and it gets stronger the longer you own the machine.
When a console generation ends, your console ends with it. When a PC starts to struggle, you change the graphics card, or add memory, or replace the processor. The case, the drives and often the power supply carry over.
It means a PC bought today can still be a capable gaming machine in six or seven years, upgraded once or twice along the way. It also means you can start modestly and improve it as your budget allows, rather than saving for one large purchase.
Games and exclusives
This has shifted more than any other part of the argument.
Console exclusives used to be the trump card. They matter far less now. Microsoft publishes its games on PC on day one, and Sony has been porting its major titles to PC steadily, with the gap between console and PC release narrowing each time.
Meanwhile PC has an enormous library that consoles cannot match: everything on Steam, decades of older games that still run, indie titles that never reach console, and free-to-play games that dominate the charts.
PC also has mods, which is a genuine advantage rather than a niche one. Games like The Sims 4 and Minecraft have communities that have added years of content, and none of it is available on console.
Controls
Mouse and keyboard is more precise than a controller, and in competitive shooters that precision is the whole game. Nobody plays Valorant or Rainbow Six Siege seriously on a controller.
Strategy and simulation games are the same story. Cities: Skylines II and Total War are built for a mouse and awkward without one.
Where a controller wins is racing games, sports games, platformers and anything you want to play from the sofa. The good news is this is not a choice: every PC supports controllers, including the ones from your console. Use whichever suits the game.
Ease of use
Consoles win here and it is worth saying plainly. Turn it on, put the game in, play. No drivers, no settings, no working out why something will not launch.
PCs have improved a lot. Games detect your hardware and configure themselves, storefronts handle updates, and drivers largely look after themselves. But there is still more that can go wrong, and occasionally does.
If you buy a pre-built machine that arrives set up and tested, most of that disappears. Building your own is where the learning curve sits.
It is not only a games machine
Often forgotten in this argument. A gaming PC is also the machine you work on, study on, edit video on, and stream from.
The components that make a good gaming PC are the same ones that make a good machine for creative work, and if you are going to buy a computer anyway, the incremental cost of making it a gaming one is smaller than the headline price suggests. A console does one job.
Streaming is a good example. A PC that plays games well will also broadcast them, with no additional hardware required. We have covered what that takes in our guide to setting up a streaming PC.
Backwards compatibility
Consoles have got better at this and PCs have always been good at it. A game from 2005 will generally still run on a modern PC, sometimes with a community patch, and your library carries forward indefinitely.
Console backwards compatibility is real but partial, and it does not go back very far.
So which should you buy?
A console makes sense if you want the lowest possible cost to get started, you play mostly on a TV from the sofa, you value simplicity over control, or the games you care most about are on one platform.
A PC makes sense if you play competitive shooters, strategy or simulation games, you want the best possible performance, you would rather upgrade than replace, you want access to mods and a much larger library, or you need the machine to do other things as well.
For a lot of people the real answer is both, and that is a perfectly sensible position. A PC for the games that need one and a console for the sofa is a common setup.
If you are leaning towards a PC
Buy once, properly. The most common mistake is buying at the very bottom of the range to keep the initial cost close to a console, which gives you a machine that does not do the thing you bought it for.
Work out what you play first. Competitive shooters are a processor purchase. Single-player games at 4K are a graphics card purchase. Our guide to the best CPU for gaming explains which side of that line your games sit on.
Browse the gaming PC range, or build your own with our online configurator.
