With the latest consoles coming out soon, will someone give me some non-pessimistic thoughts on the future of my gaming rig? The PS4's GPU can supposedly reach a ridiculous FLOPS level, and it's running on a AMD 8 core.
In comparison, I have got 4GBs RAM, a 7790 with 2GB VRAM, and an AMD X4 Athlon running at a slight overclock. I am upgrading of course over time currently saving up for a big splash out on a AMD mobo, CPU and RAM combo (if my PSU can handle it. But things are A LOT more expensive in Britain. So aside from my rather weak thoughts that "I mostly play indie games, and "I suppose I can OC a bit" can someone give me some reassurance that I didn't waste all my money on my budget build? Anyone.... Please...?
You didn't waste your money. Upgrade the GPU, when it is appropriate to do so, and you will destroy consoles.
Next-gen consoles don't have very many games that play in 1080p. You will be comfortable playing at 1080p
Consoles can die from heat exhaustion, because you can't open them up and clean out the dust. You can clean and maintain a PC.
Consoles have limited functionality.
You don't have to pay for the same game twice. If you want to play multiplayer, you can play multiplayer. Without additional charges for online access.
There isn't a better time to get into PC gaming. Next-gen consoles aren't too different from the current gen. Just a slightly improved variant, and the capability has been grossly overstated. The octacore APU is nothing to get excited about. The 8 cores don't make it inherently better than a 4 core processor, particularly when you dedicated graphics, dedicated graphics that you can upgrade.
And the console exclusive games don't look particularly good. PC has a much stronger library of games, in my view.
Going with a budget PC is a non-issue. It's better in every way. Steam sales are approaching. You can pick up cheap games at Halloween, and during the holiday season. Will you complain about purchasing AAA games for £5? There's an offer on Batman Arkham City, for £5. Prime example. You'll never see that value on console.
This could be the last console generation. They do not make enough of a return on consoles, following years upon years of research and development. The PC market is healthy, PC gaming is the way forward.
That's all you need. I assume you got one of the newer Athlons? The 750K?
All you need is a GPU, priced around £200, and you have a machine that can play games on ultra. You can worry about platform upgrades later. That GPU will allow you access to high-end gaming. It's that simple.
No point buying a console, knowing it could die inside of 6 months. And the only real diversification in game design happens on PC. Can you tell me how many good RTS games feature on console? None.
One more thing to note is the fact that consoles can never be upgraded. So every few years you can upgrade the graphics card and ram in your pc to play the latest games.