The dream of building a gaming PC has become a nightmare for your wallet. With the prices of SSDs, RAM, and graphics cards skyrocketing, justifying an investment of over 1,500 euros to play at 1080p is increasingly difficult. The performance gap with consoles has narrowed, and the PS5, which has also gone up in price, is no longer that cheap refuge it used to be. The outlook is bleak for anyone who wants to game without selling a kidney.
The hidden cost of today's technology 💸
The problem isn't just inflation. Manufacturers have segmented the market: high-frequency DDR5 costs 40% more than two years ago, and NVMe SSDs with fast controllers are approaching high-end prices. Graphics cards, with their new generation, barely offer 15% more performance compared to the previous one, but cost 30% more. Add to that the VAT increase in some countries and tariffs on imported components. The result is an equation where performance per euro has plummeted.
Tip of the year: sell the console and buy yourself a coat 🧥
If you're still torn between a PC or a PS5, the answer is simple: neither. With that money, you buy a good coat, a thermos for coffee, and a subscription to a cloud gaming service to play on your phone. At least you won't have to worry about updating drivers or whether the power supply can handle the new graphics card. And if someone tells you that building a PC is cheap, ask them if they live in 2019 or if they own Nvidia stock.