xbox 360 vs laptop

[myaccountsname]

Can someone tell me why a $300 xbox has better graphics than an $800 laptop? The game i am concerned with is skyrim and i am looking to build my own gaming desktop

 

[nbelote]

The short short version:

Can your Xbox run Office, AutoCAD, Photoshop and the like? No? That's why the laptop costs more. Laptops were initially designed to be productivity machines, not gaming consoles with a screen attached to it. Also, your standard Xbox is larger and contains more dedicated gaming hardware than that small laptop of yours. It was designed specifically for gaming.

 

[jwk3]

nbelote is correct. it's like comparing a drag racer (Xbox) to a sports car (laptop). the drag racer is only designed to do one thing and is therefore finely tuned and good at it. the road legal sports car however costs more but it has the additional capabilities like passenger seats and a boot.

 

[JD88]

The short answer is that it doesn't. Games for Xbox (or any console) are optimized specifically for that hardware. Therefore, the game will play well even though specs are significantly lower.

Also, consoles typically run games at lower resolutions and at a steady 30 FPS.

It also depends on the specs of the laptop. Some $800 dollar laptops can be fine for games like Skyrim, while others wouldn't play it well at all. It mostly depends on the graphics setup of the particular system.

As for building a gaming desktop, how much are you looking to spend?

 

[OcelotRex]

There's also the fact that the Xbox 360 was designed in 2005 and uses pretty much the same hardware only more efficient. You are buying a gaming machine designed in the early 2000's.

I don't have my Skyrim Box on me so I am not sure if it is a true 1080p game but a lot of Xbox 360 and PS3 game run at 720p and have a target of 30 FPS. This is acheived by using lower settings, smaller texture packs, and disabling AA and other effects.

Given a budget of $450 (minus software licenses) you can build a AMD CPU/GTX 650 Ti Boost gaming computer that will not only play Skryrim at 1080p but can do so with greater detail and with some AA and effects turned on.

The last statement confused me a little - are you wanting a gaming laptop or to build a new desktop?

 

[myaccountsname]

The short answer is that it doesn't. Games for Xbox (or any console) are optimized specifically for that hardware. Therefore, the game will play well even though specs are significantly lower.

Also, consoles typically run games at lower resolutions and at a steady 30 FPS.

It also depends on the specs of the laptop. Some $800 dollar laptops can be fine for games like Skyrim, while others wouldn't play it well at all. It mostly depends on the graphics setup of the particular system.

As for building a gaming desktop, how much are you looking to spend?

My budget is $1000 but flexible if needed

 

[myaccountsname]

There's also the fact that the Xbox 360 was designed in 2005 and uses pretty much the same hardware only more efficient. You are buying a gaming machine designed in the early 2000's.

I don't have my Skyrim Box on me so I am not sure if it is a true 1080p game but a lot of Xbox 360 and PS3 game run at 720p and have a target of 30 FPS. This is acheived by using lower settings, smaller texture packs, and disabling AA and other effects.

Given a budget of $450 (minus software licenses) you can build a AMD CPU/GTX 650 Ti Boost gaming computer that will not only play Skryrim at 1080p but can do so with greater detail and with some AA and effects turned on.

The last statement confused me a little - are you wanting a gaming laptop or to build a new desktop?

I want to build a Desktop, that i will play games on. Like Skyrim

 

[OcelotRex]

Here's a $1,000 build that will slaughter Skryrim.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($216.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($144.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($62.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($255.91 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.74 @ Amazon)
Total: $1042.57 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-23 10:13 EDT-0400)

Edited to just Newegg and Amazon

Not only will this play current games at 1080p it will also play PS4/Xbox One quality games that look better. The caveat to that is that the new consoles have a frame rate target of 60 fps. With AA and other eye candy enabled your rig in the next few years should have a 30-40 FPS target but will look a lot better. Turn those off and you can hit the 60 FPS of the new consoles.

The best thing is you're set for the future. The unlocked processor will allow some extra overhead later. The power supply I chose should be able to handle another 760 in SLI when one is not enough.

 

[jaguarskx]

Skyrim for PCs any day of the week.

Why? There are tons of available mods that changes gameplay, adds new quests, new monsters, more weapons & armor, clothing too, and grahpics.

 

[myaccountsname]

Here's a $1,000 build that will slaughter Skryrim.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($216.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($144.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($62.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($255.91 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.74 @ Amazon)
Total: $1042.57 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-23 10:13 EDT-0400)

Edited to just Newegg and Amazon

Not only will this play current games at 1080p it will also play PS4/Xbox One quality games that look better. The caveat to that is that the new consoles have a frame rate target of 60 fps. With AA and other eye candy enabled your rig in the next few years should have a 30-40 FPS target but will look a lot better. Turn those off and you can hit the 60 FPS of the new consoles.

The best thing is you're set for the future. The unlocked processor will allow some extra overhead later. The power supply I chose should be able to handle another 760 in SLI when one is not enough.

so will all this work when put together? Will all the cables come with it?

 

[OcelotRex]

so will all this work when put together? Will all the cables come with it?

PcPartpicker checks to make sure that the parts should be compatible, which it is showing that they are. I chose that case becasue it is the highest reviewed ATX Mid-tower on Newegg. Tha motherboard is a standard ATX and will fit. The one issue there is that the case lacks USB 3.0 slots on the front but the MB does have an empty usb 2.0 header to wire them those ports.

The Z77 chipset of the MB matches that processor to a "T" and will overclock the CPU if you choose to. The RAM is standard DDR3 1600 so there's no issues there. The motherboard comes with 4n SATA cables, looks like 2 6gb/s and 2 3gb/s. The HDD is the 6gb/s and you can hook the optical up the 3 gb/s.

The power supply has the 24 pin and 8-pin connector for the motherboard along with 4 6+2 Pci Express connectors for 2 cards in SLI. The Mobo also has 2 PCI-Express 3.0 slots for 2 760s in SLI.

Of course you can choose to change out the case for another or drop or pick up another brand of motherboard if you choose to. It took me a month to put together my computer to pick out the right components especially the motherboard. It all came down for me to having 3 fan controllers on the motherboard to control the three case fans in my silverstone case using the ASUS fan controller software.

The parts list I made should all work together but there might be a set of parts that would fit your needs more.

 

[OcelotRex]

To me this is would be a better build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($220.98 @ Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme6 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($154.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($62.99 @ Amazon)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($255.91 @ Newegg)

Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($48.00 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850W 80 PLUS Silver Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($119.99 @ Newegg)

Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.74 @ Amazon)

Total: $1036.57 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-23 15:27 EDT-0400)

Those prices reflect mail in rebates though. The total cost up front would be $1,095.56 with $55 in MIR.

The CPU, motherboard, and video card are recommended by Tom's hardware. I like the HAF series cases because they allow for a lot of airflow. The downsides are they get dusty and the acoustics are not great. The EVO CPU cooler and the MSI GTX 760 are both quite quiet so that should help.

That ASRock Mobo also comes with a USB 3.0 3.5" plate to add ports to the front of the case. That will put lots of accessible ports on there.

I changed the PSU because of the combo deals offered on Newegg. In essence there's $46 saved instantly with combo deals, $101 including MIR. That's about 10% saviings total.