and I guess your idea of a pc is mindmelding? This rig can't even show a picture, on any screen.

it is a big deal when a bet is being made where 10$ is in fact the tipping point to where he doesn't win the bet. In fact you can get them for about 4$ on a website. Even 4$ makes the bet lost.

So, how much would it cost to upgrade a PS3 or 360 so it could run Office? Or send and receive emails? Or process video and audio files and digital photographs? Or run the development programs I use to build websites and productivity software?

Because the difference between a PC that can do that and thousands of other things besides and a PC that can also play games more than adequately is just a £75 graphics card.

People are bashing him when he actually made a PC cheaper than the PS3. Of course, you could make a much better PC that looks much better than a PS3 or 360 for more than 350$ but that wasn't the point.

Well, I find his computer to be kind of a mixed bag. He has some decent components, but you can tell he cheaped out in other places just to make it look like a good value against a PS3. Who honestly uses a $5 mouse for gaming? That's just rediculous, and a couple extra buttons are very useful in most games. There are no legitimate services that allow HD movie downloading for free, so frybread is relying on illegality for this computer to be a good value against the PS3 in terms of HD movies. Add a blu-ray drive and that raises the price by $70. A few dollars for a wifi card/bluetooth dongle would be in order as well if we are keeping it even.

Why not just accept that a comparable PC built from scratch costs more than PS3? One isn't necassarily better than the other. It all comes down to what you want. A PC does a lot more and is more versatile, but obviously there are good reasons to buy a PS3 over PC (and vice versa) even at comparable price points.

Strictly in terms of a PC that runs Fallout 3 better while ignoring other reasons why you'd want a PS3 over a PC (or the original terms of the bet), I suppose frybread is right. Realistically though, you'd spend atleast an extra $50 just for a decent mouse, keyboard, an hd that isn't a ripoff, and a little better case/psu.

How does he not win the bet? Judging from the rest of the thread, adding in a $4 cable would take the cost up to $354...still cheaper then a PS3 which is what i thought he was going for?

he said he could do it for 350$ therefore he loses. Next time read the OP more thoroughly.

like amaretsu says, he deliberately skimped and used some pretty shady deals to get the PC to that price.
It was well mentioned by someone that the xp was off of ebay.
A lot of details are left unmentioned and it is not the actual complete price.

It is a lot of "cherry-picked" hardware, for a "cherry-picked" purpose.

People like Soleron understand this because, these days, that is pretty much the most basic computer you can build. Which is why he asks for a 250$ SMG-capable PC.
Someone took the most basic of parts and tried to find the most intensive game it was capable of playing that was also on a console.
It has nowherre near the capabilities of an HD console and doesn't claim to. Only one game, (and now recently proven by me and others) for a higher price.

I did read the OP:

Someone challenged me on another forum to come up with a PC that runs Fallout 3 better than PS3/360 for less than $500.

Too easy, I said.  Let's make this interesting, I'll make it for $350, cheaper than the triple.

He made it for less than $500 which according to his first sentance was one of his goals. Wow, he went $4-$10 over the $350 budget, congrats, you proved him wrong. He still beat his larger goal.

If you want to get real nit picky about price (which quite a few are, especially people complainging about buying an OS off ebay), toss out the xp disc (saves $55), boot up a copy of Linux and then throw WINE on it and play your windows games for free. Congrats, your now under $300.

The whole point is that it isn't an extra 4$, there is quite a bit that is not included, but you didn't read the OP and so I assume none of the subsequent posts either.

Funny how you just said that you read the OP, when you though he said "for the price of a ps3" in your second to last post, and now you've changed it to 350$.

The point is that this build isn't able to cool itself, has insufficient power to OC as the OP claims it can, has no heatsink, cannot even display a picture, and now that you're bringing linux into the equation, most people are now definitely going to need someone to set up the rig. On top of that, the rig also assumes you have an HDtv, because if you don't then you're going to need a different video-card.

Not everyone buys HD systems for the HD picture. They buy them for the games.

EDIT: also does not include shipping.

i can play starcraft 1 on my ps3 though :P

What do you mean by "isn't able to cool itself"? The processor is boxed, ie. has necessary cooling. Graphics card seem to always have necessary cooling unless you take it off yourself. OC? That's not essential, although you're probably right. No heatsink? I can't remember any other heatsinks in my own PC except for the one that my processor has. Boxed processors seem to always have a heatsink, and this is a boxed one. Cannot display picture? That's rather cheap to fix, and it's also likely that you own a proper cable already. Linux is very easy to install these days, practically as easy as Windows. No HDTV? Why would a different graphics card be needed? A PC basically requires something capable of higher resolution than SDTV so it's unlikely you'd get one for SD. That said, you probably have an old monitor or an HDTV already. Shipping isn't included in any online prices so that's a bad point. Even a PS3's price doesn't include shipping.

Anyway, you didn't say anything important. I'd say all you're doing it nitpicking.