My new PC is up and running. All of the parts arrived about a week before Halloween, I put everything together on a Friday night, and I started installing drivers over the weekend. Since then, I've installed and tested a few somewhat-high-performance games, namely Crysis, Alan Wake, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, L.A. Noire, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. They all run rather well on the highest graphics settings. I've also played a bit of Metro 2033, which I got for practically nothing from the Humble THQ Bundle last November, and it performs well enough on maximum settings as well. There's some stuttering, but that's probably the result of poor optimization and there might be a fix somewhere.
For obvious reasons, I don't own any truly "next-generation" games at the moment, so I'm not sure what kind of performance I'll get out of those. In any case, however, I'm better off with this new rig than without it. My old PC worked surprisingly well with some games (running the Metro 2033 demo at a playable frame rate on low settings), but it totally failed to work with others (namely L.A. Noire which, for whatever reason, was getting about two frames per second). Games ported to Windows from the upcoming generation of consoles can certainly be expected to work my new PC much harder than anything I've played so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs. On the other hand, I can't really say I'm looking forward to seeing what my new favorite toy can't do. After all the time spent on this thing, from finding the parts to powering it on, I want to believe it's perfect.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the final parts arrived — with any luck, I wouldn't have to shop for computer parts again for a few years — but there was still plenty of stress ahead of me. The first hiccup was a return of my supposedly new Gigabyte motherboard to Amazon, since the retail box was not sealed and had some rips in the corners. In other words, it looked like it had already been opened, though the parts inside were still in plastic. Despite my complaints, however, the replacement's box was in roughly the same condition, perhaps slightly worse. Again, however, the inner parts were still in plastic.
I don't know if Amazon was trying to screw me by selling me returned hardware as new, or if Gigabyte was to blame, but I figured I could just get it replaced if it was indeed broken or damaged so I decided to use the motherboard anyway. This might prove to be a mistake, but I was getting impatient. Besides, if Amazon couldn't send me a box that looked shiny and new, I'd have to buy it from elsewhere, and I wasn't confident that other sellers would be more trustworthy than one of the biggest online retailers in existence.
So I started building the computer. Long story short, the motherboard was not dead on arrival, and I've been careful to keep all the paperwork I received for warranty purposes in case something happens later. All of the parts, in fact, seem to be working nicely, even the cheap optical drive. The process of actually assembling the computer was quite an experience, though, since I'd never done it before.
Now that I have done it, building another would probably take less than an hour, but this first build took several. Most of that time was spent reading instructions, looking up computer-building tips, and wondering how hard I need to push to get one part to slide into another. Getting the stock CPU cooler into the motherboard was particularly terrifying, because there's no way to accomplish this without pushing harder than I ever though delicate electronics should be pushed. The same was true of installing the processor itself. I was afraid I'd break it, but those fears were unfounded, since I was doing it correctly and there was no other way.
After getting all the parts into the case, I experienced another momentary freak-out when I thought the fans on the case were totally incompatible with the motherboard. (The motherboard had four-pin headers and the fans had three-pin connectors.) I was wrong — they can, in fact, be plugged in — but it doesn't really matter now anyway, because I opted to plug the case fans directly into the power supply instead. My only concern now is that I might have created air bubbles in the thermal paste when installing that troublesome CPU cooler, since I picked it up again after letting it make contact with the top of the processor. So far, however, the temperatures don't seem to be reaching dangerous levels.
Given all the minor difficulties I encountered — all of which could have been much worse with a little bit of bad luck — I completely understand why the path I chose is less traveled than others. Most people buy consoles or pre-built computers instead, and I don't blame them. Consoles, in particular, are super easy; they plug in and work. You don't have to worry about whether a game is compatible as long as it has the right logo on the box. Moreover, they're affordable, and while performance might only be "good enough" instead of great, it's hard to tell when you're sitting on a couch ten feet from the screen.
People who choose PCs over consoles are sometimes seen as elitists in the so-called "gaming" community, and it's probably because some PC users feel the need to participate in the embarrassingly pathetic "console wars" that break out between fans of competing systems. Xbox fans and Playstation fans like to argue amongst themselves about which console is best, letting their brand loyalty metamorphosize into some kind of vendetta against everyone who bought the other product as they collectively provide Microsoft and Sony with all the free advertising they could ever want. But the PC user, whose system is built from various parts by different manufacturers, doesn't necessarily have any brand loyalty unless he has an affinity for AMD over Intel, or vice versa. The stereotypically elitist "PC gamer" thinks he's above the petty squabbling of console owners, but he stoops to their level nonetheless when he proclaims that his PC is better than any console and says not-so-nice thinks about everybody who bought one. So I'm not going to do that.
It's true that a good computer can outperform any console, because a console is just a specialized computer and it's never made of the best hardware available. For the right price, a PC can surpass a brand new console on the day of release. Even a cheap PC can beat a console in mid-generation, since PC parts continue to improve while consoles stagnate for up to eight years. The PC user, in a way, is right about his system's superiority. That's why console fans who brag about graphics will usually turn around and claim that graphics don't matter once the PC guy joins the discussion. Either that, or they'll pretend it costs over $2000 to build a PC that plays console games at console-equivalent settings, or they'll insist that the only games worth playing are console exclusives.
But there's really no need to grasp at straws so desperately, because consoles do have their purpose. While a PC is good for the hardcore game enthusiast, a console is a much easier solution for casual play, most often for a lower price. A console is a hassle-free, plug-and-play, guaranteed-compatible alternative for the living room. Let's just leave it at that. I might have considered buying a console myself if I weren't in need of a new computer anyway. It was a choice between a console plus a cheap computer, or one good computer, and I chose the latter.
The worst thing about choosing a personal computer over a console is all the second-guessing that comes naturally with an abundance of choice. Now that I have my PC, I won't be buying another for a few years unless something goes terribly wrong, so I won't get to try all the other hardware presently on the market. I guess that's why some people get paid to review this hardware, but there's nothing like first-hand experience, and I'll never be able to make my own comparisons unless I go and buy more parts than I can afford. Console users have fewer decisions to make when buying their hardware, but people are generally happier this way because they don't have to worry as much about making the wrong choice.
As for me, I'll just have to clear my mind of all those what-ifs, and be content with what I have. That is, unless it breaks.
