lowcar100 said:
Personally I would get the xbox 360, while computers will have better graphics and, in my opinion, better gaming feel, you will not get near the graphics by buying $500 of computer things that you would with buying the 360.
You would need somewhere around an AMD 3000+, 1gb ram and a 6800 or higher series or ATI equivalent to match or beat the 360's graphics. Of course you could always get better parts than those I recommended and obviously better gaming.
please correct me if I am wrong about what you would need to top a 360's performance.
The GPU in the Xbox 360 is pretty friggin advanced. Here's the specs:
Custom ATI graphics processor
10MB of embedded RAM (eDRAM) framebuffer
48-way ALUs (parrallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines) for Vertex or Pixel Shader processing
Unified shader core architecture
500 million triangles per second
16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA (16 filtered and 16 unfiltered texture samples per clock)
It'll be awhile before PC gaming catches up. You also have to consider that when gaming on the 360, all of the system memory is dedicated to gaming. Your PC has to share the system memory with a bunch of other processes (unless you manually shut them down). In terms of pure CPU and GPU power, the Xbox 360 blows 97% of desktop computers out of the water. Here's the 360's CPU:
Three Symnettrical PowerPC-based CPU cores each running at 3.2GHz each
Two hardware threads per core; six total
Of course, you can't do any word processing on the 360, so that's a HUGE drag...But if you want a mean gaming machine, the 360 is the choice for you - until AFFORDABLE PC options appear. I saw affordable because when a PC comes out that can do 6 hardware threads at 3.2GHz each, it'll cost 1000 bucks just for the chip. . . .let alone a comparable graphics card. If you wanted, you could buy the 360 just for gaming (even though FPS games are a little better with a keyboard and mouse), and get a cheap PC to do all your graphics work and word processing on (that's what I do).
In terms of pure computing power, the PS3 is going to be better than the 360 (without a doubt), but the graphics processing unit in the PS3 is a 7800GT (I believe), and is still more than 1 1/2 years behind the one in the 360. The PS3 also has half the system memory the 360 has (which is REALLY bad for the PS3). I'll be getting a PS3 (Playstation games are the shiznit), but the 360 has more potential in a graphical sense (besides, the 360 is getting a ramped up version of BattleField 2, Gears of War, and a TON of other amazing games). If anyone decides to go with a top of the line PC, they'll be paying a few thousand dollars, while the 360 and PS3 will outperform it (for the time being), and the 360/PS3 owner will be saving a LOT of money (money better used on a 40 inch 1080p when they come out).