The Ultimate Gaming Rig is Cancelled!
I've suddenly decided that I won't purchase a new gaming rig. Whaaaaaat!?
After many, many, many hours of research, and a seven post series exploring the ultimate gaming rig, I’m not getting one after all. Not right now, anyway.
I started the giddy process of putting together a list of the parts I wanted, and did a little shopping around for the best prices. Then I suddenly realized - once again - that I don’t need a new gaming rig. My employer-provided Surface Book has 16GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7 CPU, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU. It’s not a massively powerful package, but it’s capable of running the games I play these days. I don’t get a ray-traced graphics or a gazillion frames per seconds, but the laptop is good enough.
And how much do I actually play? According to Steam, I’ve played a grand total of 1.1 hours in the past two weeks1. The game I played? Counter-Strike: Source, a first person shooter that was release back in 2004! It will probably run on your fridge.
Do I sound like someone who need a new gaming rig? No, I don’t.
Perhaps Some Day
I also had a look at the system requirements of some of the games I’d like to play if I had the time. My Steam wishlist (feel free to buy me any game on there) hasn’t got a single item with minimum hardware requirements that can’t be matched by the Surface Book. Sure, it’s will probably struggle with some of the games - like it sometimes struggles with the frame rate on Cities: Skylines (review) and Euro Truck Simulator 2 (review). But I can still play those games and enjoy the experience.
In the future, however, this might change. There are rumors that there is a new Grand Theft Auto game in the works. Cyberpunk 2077 also looks very promising. There is no way my Surface Book can cope with those titles. But none of them are available now.
Even though I’m not purchasing the ultimate gaming rig of my dreams right now, I’m sure it will happen some day. Maybe in half a year. Maybe in two years. Maybe when I can no longer use the Surface Book I got from my employer. Maybe when the kids move out. Maybe, baby.
This is not the whole truth, though. I played an hour or two of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden as well. But that was on the Epic Game Store, which doesn’t track playing time yet. ↩︎
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