Ok

Uber PC time.

Phenom 9850 + Mobo = $235
4850 = $170 with MIR
4gb ram = $70
Ubercase/PSU combo = $100
HDD/Optical = $80
Vista 64 = $100

Total. $470 aprox. as an upgrade to existing users.
up to $755 for new builds.

Since everyone needs a pc - and a new one costs about $350 to build, therefore the actual cost to "gamefy" = $400 and well justified considering the performance leap over the consoles. The CPU is better than the Xbox360 cpu by a good margin and the GPU happens to be at least 3x more powerful than the PS3 GPU. You can also game on this machine for many many years and then when you've finished you can always retire it to media centre duties etc.

the new graphics cards coming out today can already run crysis on better settings then what you have suggested. so i am expecting more then that for me to upgrade.

Just for you, Mummelmann.

Crysis / 1920x1200 / Very High / 4xAA / 16xAF

GeForce 280 GTX - 21 fps
GeForce 280 GTX SLI - 35 fps
GeForce 280 GTX 3-SLI - 51 fps


Crysis / 2560x1600 / Very High / 4xAA / 16xAF

GeForce 280 GTX - 15 fps
GeForce 280 GTX SLI - 27 fps
GeForce 280 GTX 3-SLI - 38 fps

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-sli-triple-review-test/13

So you claim it doesn't scale well? Looks like it scales pretty damn good to me. Now if a 280 GTX 3 way SLI can do that well, a set of quad crossfired HD4870X2's should knock it out of the park.

And have enough left over from the $20 to buy a car.

LOL, this argument is old and retarded. Throw in some lame charts and some pc parts with costs and it is supposed to convince people. Look at Gamespot's look at the pc needed to run the new Conan game. Pretty expensive to get good graphics out of it.

Crysis we are talking about here. Why jump to Conan suddenly when the debate no longer rides in your favor?