What the hell are you talking about? That PC he listed is quite a bit more powerful than any of the gaming consoles, and it vastly outperforms all three of them as well. How on earth can it "lag in capabilities"?

If you're going to hate, at least have the facts straight. Seriously, you're only proving that you're subjectively biased against PC gamers.

Anyhow, you'll never find a gaming PC with blu-ray that costs less than the PS3, & that's because PCs are always designed to do a LOT more than consoles. You're paying more for a mess of extra features. It's foolish to think you'll find one that costs less. Until the PS3 does everything a PC does, you can't expect anything otherwise.

That's the one I have.  I have it at 3.2 now with only a minor voltage bump.

I have a stopgap rig at the moment. Mostly waiting for Operation Flashpoint 2 :O

I still find it amazing that so many people think a good gaming rig is like $1000+

I do have my facts straight. That PC misses Windows (which 99.9% of gamers use). A full Windows license will cost most people around $100. To top it of, it has no Blu-Ray drive. It therefore it lags in capability because it misses hardware.

Just because you can download HD movies, of significantly lower quality than Blu-Ray movies, doesn't change any of that. Besides, the PS3 and Xbox 360 can also download HD movies last time I checked.

See, I do know that PC is more powerful. That was not my point. Heck, I have (and am very happy with) a gaming PC myself.

My point is that these comparisoms are always lopsided - Windows is suddenly free or 'not used', Blu-Ray becomes irrelevant 'because I can download' (like the consoles) and all consoles suddenly cost $500+ in order to win. The truth is that a complete $399 PC, with Blu-Ray drive and the Windows license, would not compete with the $399 PS3 in specs. Nor would a $299 PC with a valid Windows license be able to compete with the Xbox 360.

And all this without mentioning that console games are (with one or two exceptions worlwide a year) plug and play over the course of the entire generation. Whereas for lots of people (witness all those tech-support forums) PC games are more like plug-and-pray, or just plainly need an upgrade every year or so to keep up with minimum specs.

This is a never ending debate.  It is up to personal preference.  People can build these pcs, but most don't.  If they did, CoD4 would not sell 6 million copies on an inferior version if there was a superior version that was easily and quickly within grasp of the masses.  To each his own.  The best selling pc games(now days) are ones that are accessible to an incredible array of setups, ie anything from Blizzard and The Sims games.  It is just much easier for someone to buy a closed box and hook it up to their tv.  Yes, free online is great, yes the graphics are better, yes you can do word processing on it, but to some people, they just want something to play games on.  

Couldn't people reuse their windows disks or use their current hard drives with Windows already on it? You could also perhaps find deals on it, such as if someone was a student as mentioned above.

Also, I'm not sure why you're pushing Blu-ray on the PC. It's pretty darn expensive considering that DVD readers and burners for around $20-30 (glanced quickly at newegg) and I'm not sure if it's even worth it yet for general PC use until Blu-ray drives get MUCH cheaper (though 25+ gigs of storage is certainly interesting). There's the whole point of listing a cheap PC build to counter people saying that gaming PC's cost $5,000 and you're fixated on a Blu-ray drive.

It isn't important and am not sure why the hell the guy is bringing it up.  And there is probably some hack that will let you play Windows games on Linux or something.  And Linux is free.

Let me say it again.

You do not need Windows to play Windows games.

Just because "99.9% of gamers use Windows" doesn't mean all gamers need Windows. You can use Linux, which is free, then emulate Windows inside Linux. What this will do is, firstly, allow you to pay absolutely nothing to get the same functions as Windows. And secondly, it allows you to actually have better system performance because Linux uses virtually zero system resources, unlike Vista which practically halves system abilities after all is said and done. Your system will perform immensely better this way. Yes, it requires a lot more know-how, but it's worth it. Why does a PC have to have Windows? Fourteen years ago, nothing required Windows. You used DOS, and that didn't have to be Microsoft's version. It just had to be DOS. Commander Keen, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem, Castle Wolfenstein, Epic Pinball, Jill of the Jungle, Prince of Persia, Wacky Wheelz, etc. All great games that existed prior to the Windows conquering of the market. Just because Microsoft makes the operating system that everybody uses just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.

And if it's an HD movie, it's probably a BDrip. Meaning it is the blu-ray movie, which means it's the exact same quality.

Again, get your facts straight.

As for being able to download on the consoles, you can download, yes, but you have less compatibility, less variety, less of nearly everything.

Anyhow, just FYI, I'm not arguing any superiority, myself. I'm (obviously, since I post here) a console gamer, myself. Look at my game collection. I'm just saying what the OP's trying to say - a good PC that's capable of, for the most part, far more than any of the consoles isn't outrageously expensive, especially if you know what you're doing and can work around the more expensive solutions.

So, bottom line being you can build a $500 PC, reusing some parts from a previous computer and a free/recycled OS for a bit more than 2.5x the cost of an Xbox 360.

Assuming it's being used for something other than gaming, it's a very fair trade off, but even a $5,000 PC won't play any platform exclusives published on either the Wii or the PS3 and even a fair amount of games on the 360 that will never see the light of day on the PC due to the differences in gaming markets.

Make it a $10,000 PC and that still doesn't change.

It still goes back to individual player preference. If your mainstay is RTS and MMORPGs for instance, why would it even matter what exclusives consoles offered?

It's a pointless argument that will never cease regardless.

Most cheap computers from name brands like Dell offer computers a little over 400$ are good for gaming,The only thing there missing is the processors in the "Next Gen" Consoles.

also Dell offers blue ray in Computers so..