So many people came in here without reading the OP and just want to post their PC's specs, What the OP is saying is with something like the xbox360s or Ps3s complete amount of hardware could a windows PC run the same lvl of gaming, as in with 256mb of system Ram and with a 256mb graphics card of any spec on the pc, would it be able to boot up any game similar looking to anything from the ps3.

By that logic, that's like saying the Playstation 4 isn't as powerfull as the Playstation 3 because it can't run games with only 512Mb of Ram.

Fact of the matter is, the vast majority of PC's in Steams survey are vastly more powerfull than the Playstation 3 and because of such the vast majority enjoys better image quality, why should PC gamers suffer the limitation of an old and antiquated console?

And by the way, the 6-7 year old Core 2 PC I have can run Call of Duty Ghosts. - Wan't me to prove it? (I love doing this, do note the only change the system has had is a $30 GPU upgrade a couple years ago.)

Has the ps3/Xbox360 had a new GPU? nice edit btw :> also the same PC? Keeping in mind you need it to be a DX11 gfx card and for fun lets say the PC would have had to cost the same in 2006 as the Xbox360 did.

So many people came in here without reading the OP and just want to post their PC's specs, What the OP is saying is with something like the xbox360s or Ps3s complete amount of hardware could a windows PC run the same lvl of gaming, as in with 256mb of system Ram and with a 256mb graphics card of any spec on the pc, would it be able to boot up any game similar looking to anything from the ps3.

Of course the answer to this is no, you would have difficulty booting any OS after windows XP on that limited amount of system memory and the best looking games you would be talking about are CS and Halo:CE that would boot with such low system memory. You couldn't even get Post TBC World of Warcraft to run on Ps3/360 specs.

Ops point is basically how awesome Consoles are at optimization, if you were to look at whats in the box of the 2006 consoles and compare it to PC's you ofc would be blown away by what they can output. So to then compare the X1 and the PS4 to current PC components and turn around and say "meh my pc has more powerful specs" is like suggesting that the same PC which will barely run CoD:Ghosts today is going to be able to run the same games which will be running on the X1/PS4 in about 6/7 years down the line, you know it wont.

Rubbish. Stop changing the goal posts.
If you wan't to play the price game...

On launch I paid roughly $550 AUD for the Xbox 360, that covers the basic PC alone without a GPU, easily.
Then add on the 8 years of gold that I paid at $60 a pop, that's $480.
Then add the 100 odd games I have, which are typically $10-$20 cheaper on the PC, that's $1,000 - $2,000 right there. (That's being generous, considering you can usually get a 20-30% discount on most games on top of that $10-$20 cheaper price if you shop around on the PC and... Steam sales, Humble Bundle, GoG.com, Gamers Gate, Origin, uPlay, Amazon... Thre is ALWAYS a sale on somewhere!)
And suddenly, your consoles don't look so cheap do they?

Don't let logic hit you on the way out.

which is nice an all but doesn't change the fact that you can still build a PC that will get much better results. The OP is clearly insicure because for some reason he finds PC gamers pointing out you can have more powerful PC hardware. So they are arguing that because you can have better optimisation on consoles that consoles are more powerful, ignoring the fact that the reason PC gamers say you can get better results has nothing to do with how well things run on weak outdated hardware and everything to do with the fact you can have a order of magnitude more raw power.

Don't get me wrong optimising the shit out of something for a peice of hardware is cool. I love the demoscene and they do levels of optimisation that would make Naughty Dog's programmers curl up and cry in a corner. But that doesn't make the hardware any more powerful. Any more than a good driver makes their car any more powerful by the fact that he could beat a bad driver in a race. Optimisation is great from an accademic point of view, but I would still rather have hardware capable of playing games that push better tech at higher frame rates and higher resolutions with better effects even without that level of optimisation. Just the same as I wouldn't rather have a Commodor 64 than my current PC just because a demoscene group managed to push more animated sprites on screen than the hardware was thought to be capable of by hacking the CPU and forcing it to draw the sprites on intermittent scan lines on different parts of the screen.

On a scale of 1 to 10 how much better does saying that make you feel about the fact that it's possible to build a PC 5X more powerful than a PS4?

Yes you can make some optimizations when working with a fixed platform that will allow you to get better results. That doesn't change the fact that with a PC you are not limited to one spec so you can get much much better results by throwing more hardware at it.

Also saying a PS3 is more powerful than "a PC" because you can get slightly better graphics from similar hardware in a PC. Is like saying that a motorbike has a more powerful engine than a truck because it goes faster....

Only pc games are ever on sale?

go visit my thread @ http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=174578&page=1#

Now also talking about games from GoG.com? Fallout 1 and 2? Now you're actually talking about games which would run on a pc with 256mb of system memory at least. That's the only logical thing about this post regarding this thread.

you kinda walk into this one, but it's quite possible to compare consoles to PC's like this simply because consoles do not have the massive trailer full of junk that is windows to be carried along behind them (except maybe the dreamcast and the original xbox since they both had modified versions of windows running under the hood)

A few PC owners have been saying that current gen consoles such as ps4 and xbone are already outdated or will be more out dated by the end of this gen just by judging it on the specs, consoles specs should not be compared with pc specs, how many pc rigs can run games like the last of us with 512mb of RAM?  infact what would a current game look like running on 512mb of ram on a pc??