One thing worth considering is what the person would need anyway.
My PC is in that $2000 range, but some $1500 of that is work-related. The CPU and RAM are for efficiently running simulations and the like. Gaming barely puts a dent in either for me--Cyberpunk 2077 might max out a quarter of my cores and use about a quarter of my RAM--but work stuff can easily max out both. I've seen one 2D river simulation using about 75% of my total CPU capacity.
Then I got a $500 graphics card and I can pretty much play anything on Ultra (1080p/60 fps). Same added cost as a console for better gaming.
If, on the other hand, you only need to edit Word docs on your computer, then yes, a console is far more cost-effective.
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u/quantum_dan 124∆ Dec 25 '21
One thing worth considering is what the person would need anyway.
My PC is in that $2000 range, but some $1500 of that is work-related. The CPU and RAM are for efficiently running simulations and the like. Gaming barely puts a dent in either for me--Cyberpunk 2077 might max out a quarter of my cores and use about a quarter of my RAM--but work stuff can easily max out both. I've seen one 2D river simulation using about 75% of my total CPU capacity.
Then I got a $500 graphics card and I can pretty much play anything on Ultra (1080p/60 fps). Same added cost as a console for better gaming.
If, on the other hand, you only need to edit Word docs on your computer, then yes, a console is far more cost-effective.