Gaming Consoles vs. PC's

While this gaming consoles (Nintendo Gamecube, Playstation2 and Xbox) may seem unrelated to computers, we assure you that it may have everything to do with the performance of your computer.

While it many not seem practical to buy both a computer and a gaming console for yourself or your children, in the long run it will save you lots of money.

A gaming console costs between $75-$250. A computer that handles the most graphic-intensive games costs at least $1200. Many computer games require the latest and most powerful hardware to run effectively or at all in some cases. This means that although your computer may run every game on the shelf today, in six months new games will be out that require a faster video card, more memory and more hard drive storage space.

Today the most powerful games on the shelf recommend 512MB of RAM, a 128MB video card and over a gig of hard drive space. By the middle of next year, these specs may well be out-of-date.

To keep your computer up and running fast enough to play games, most gaming PC users will suggest that it costs an average of $500-$1000 per year to really keep up. And that doesn't even count the cost of the games. In addition, computer games can also be a major source of spyware, software conflicts and other performance problems on computers.

The life of the average gaming console is about three years. The average life of a gaming computer system is one year before it requires the next $100+ upgrade.

If you or your teenagers, enjoy playing video games here are a couple suggestions:

1. If you plan on playing the latest games on your computer, be ready to keep forking out the cash. There is no end in sight for technology.

2. Save the money you would have spent on a big fast computer and buy a small computer and one of each brand of gaming console. You will save money in the long run.