Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Well, don’t take that entirely literally. I’m just writing that to get your attention and/or I can’t think of a more accurate way to do it within the character limit. Obviously you can’t build your own Xbox One or PlayStation 4 – they use some custom hardware not available to PC-builders to do their next-generation thing, they’re running bespoke operating systems (and all the horror-DRM that goes with it) and contain it all with in a comparatively small black monolith that sits underneath your TV. Additionally, console games can be made to specific hardware requirements, which can entail a far great degree of optimisation than trying to target a hundred thousand million different PC configs. No matter what the console generation, the PC comparison can never be an exact one. What you can do, though, is build yourself a PC that has a little more grunt under the hood than these apparent future-machines, for pretty much the same amount of money.

To be honest, while hitting the £420 price of an Xbone is eminently possible, I’d recommend you spend just a little more on a games PC than that – it’ll last you longer, there’s more scope for upgrading later, games will look fancier and you won’t have to spend a week trawling price comparison sites. Either way, the idea that a beefy games PC costs thousands of dollars/pounds is an outdated and wildly inaccurate one.
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Move along. There’s absolutely nothing to see.

Still here? Fine. Intel’s new Haswell CPUs are a non-event for the desktop PC. In fact, with Haswell Intel’s indifference to the desktop might just have been upgraded to spite. If you really must have an explanation, here it is. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in Feb we had a little chin wag about the mad dash of annual graphics hardware launches slowing to a saunter. We can add a little more flesh to the bones of that story this week, with some pretty plausible looking details of Nvidia’s upcoming plans – and further confirmation of nothing new from AMD. It’s worth a quick dip into the mucky waters of rumour for anyone pondering a GPU upgrade or a generally a new rig as some new kit – of sorts – is imminent. Read the rest of this entry »

Why wait for Gabe Newell to wax his generous whiskers and turn up fashionably late to the launch party? Build your own Steam Box today. Or perhaps getting a pre-order in for Xi3′s today-it’s-official-tomorrow-it-ain’t Piston is a good idea? Yes, there have been some odd goings on. But all this PC-as-games-console jazz does throw up several interesting questions. Like what does it take to build a Steam Box yourself? Does Piston have plausible gaming chops? And can the official Steam Box compete with those evil corporate consoles on price? For answers to these questions three and a generous helping of finger-in-air prognosticating, ride your rodents to the other side… Read the rest of this entry »

Ahhh, the quest for PC games with graphics so good, they look pre-rendered. When will it end? Actually, it’ll end when PCs are capable of graphics that look pre-rendered. It’s going to happen. And say what you want about the gameplay or narrative, but Crysis 3 is a reminder that we’re getting ever closer. Think it’s also worth a recap on the Sony PS4 launch now that its beating, PC-derived heart has been officially revealed and tell you why I’m increasingly convinced it’s good news for the PC.
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Happy new year all ye hallowed RPSers. It’s time to get hardware back on track. This week, the theme is consoles. We’re talking next-gen Playstation and Xbox. We’re talking Steam Boxes. We’re talking hope for beleaguered AMD. Just maybe.

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Update: OK, we’ve now had correct answers to both questions, so please cease your frenzied entries now. Thanks for getting involved, all. Now updated with answers. Well done to our two winners! And for the avoidance of doubt, our two winners know who they are!

This is it, folks. Your chance to live the dream and kick off 2013 in style. I’ve scratched backs, pulled strings and fiddled with knobs. The result is that we’re giving away a pair of gaming rig kits composed of RPS’s favourite clobber. So, that’s an Intel Core i5-3570K processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 graphics and some Z77 motherboard action. And it can all be yours. All you have to do is riddle me these questions three. Well, two and a tie breaker… Read the rest of this entry »

Graphics, graphics, graphics. It’s all you lot care about. Actually, it’s what I care about most when it comes to PC performance. So why fight it? Instead, I’ve got a couple of graphics-related titbits for you this week. Firstly, I’ve had a chat with Intel’s graphics guru, Richard Huddy. Odds are, you’ll be gaming on Intel graphics one day. What’s more, the mere fact that Intel has snapped up the likes of Mr Huddy, previously known for his dev-rel uberness at ATI, when there was an ATI, is symptomatic of Intel’s increasingly full-on attitude to graphics. The other part of this week’s awfully exciting package is NVIDIA’s new GeForce Experience. It’s an automated game settings optimisation tool. The idea is to take the headache out of graphics settings and give you the holy grail of PC performance and visuals with console levels of setup pain, which is to say zero pain.
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We’ve dabbled with mobile gaming machines in Hard Choices passim. Gaming lappies are great, but they’re also punitively pricey. What if laptops with tolerable gaming chops were on the verge of an epic price drop? That might just be the case courtesy of Intel’s upcoming Haswell processors and a funky little software layer from a little known third party. For clarity, the context here is relatively low-end gaming portables, not full-on desktop replacement sorts. But if you’re strapped for cash or just looking for something casual for away days, read on.

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