PC vs. Xbox or similar....

[jo4re]

I always wondered how my PC (AMD 4400X2-oc'd to 2500MHz, GForce 7800GT) compares to an xbox or similar gaming system comparing graphics, speed etc. Since they are designed solely fr games to these systems typically smoke a PC or is it pretty even?

Just curious.

Thanks,
J.

 

[biostud]

x-box = pIII-733 + GF3.5
Generally consoles run at lower resolutions with less detailed textures. But because designers know exactly what they are programming for they are able to utilize the hardware better and still get nice graphics from "old" hardware.

the new consoles runs at HDTV resolutions which is quite better than the old ones, but I haven't experienced the xbox360 myself so I can't say how it looks compaired to pc.

 

[obeseotron]

Your CPU is a good bit faster than the 360's, and has a lot more RAM and more memory bandwidth all around. The GPU in the 360 is probably a bit faster than a 7800gt, but direct comparisons are hard because they have very different architectures (much more different than say r520 vs g70). So objectively it's either a wash or the PC might come out ahead. On a practical level every aspect of every game on the 360 is tailored to the hardware. Code is compiled to work under one configuration and features are implemented knowing exactly what the hardware is capable of. Carmack and others have said this standardization in hardware allows them to get about double the performance of general purpose code that has to deal with overhead.

Today I would say graphics of your pc and a 360 are currently pretty even, but the 360's games will look better and better over its lifetime, whereas PC games will only look better as they run more slowly. Consider this: Try firing up say NFS Most Wanted on a p3 733 (actually faster than the xbox1's p3 with celeron cache) with 128mb of RAM and a Geforce 4 Ti4200, it probably won't even start. Those specs are "more powerful" than an xbox1, but the xbox1 runs that game just fine. It's a double edged sword, by the time 360 games look a lot better than what that system can run, graphics cards that completely blow the 360 out of the water will be available.