Dude...you have a serious problem...you simply don't know what you want!!

First u mentioned extreme graphics, no compromise, blah...then u said ur limited by budget...can't upgrade PC blah...

Well, i got story for you consoles will ALWAYS be inferior to PC because hello...$$$ talks. You can't have BOTH cake and eat it to..u know.

And if you hate problems. generally, PC is the most stable...spare parts are cheap and u can fix it yourself.

Most importantly, it's about games...you're a PC gamers and most console games probably won't interest u much. And you'll feel bad when u play inferior version of PC ports on ur console...even a cheap RM3xx ATI 4850 coupled with a decent quadcore can outdo any PS3 and XBOX.

Btw, i don't see why u need to upgrade every 6 months...a good GPU can easily last 2 or 3 years....my ATI 4850 still rocks and runs DMC4 and SF4 way better than the PS3 version.,,,and i only use a duo-core, not even quad core...

My advice: forget about console and get a good mid range GPU...easily last you a couple of years...and still probably looks better than the console version.

PS:I'm not dissing console. I love console games more than PC games...but now has retired from console gaming and mostly play a little on the PC....(and a loads of nice CAPCOM console games is now on PC with better performance.. )

Well, FYI, a decent machine doesn't really need 4K. A 2K plus machine still can play all the games today...hey, even my C2DE4500 + 4850 can run Crysis decently...(not that i care about Crysis or any FPS that is..i hate FPS). GTA is a very bad example for comparison...because Rockstar games has a history of bad PC ports...and their engines are simply crap compared to other games of the same era.

And my E4500 i believe is > 2 years old...still can play all my games..in fact, just starting to play Dragon's Age Origin now...max reso (1680 x1050 (my monitor can only go this high), 4X AA, High details yadda...butter smooth). Other not too old games....Wolverine, LFD, DMC4, SF4IV, NFSS,RE5 runs just fine on my PC.

IMO. FPS games are the most demanding...if you're not into FPS like me, most games can run very smooth (even RE5 runs fine on my machine max settings). If you're into FPS, then, you'll get degraded performance and quality on a console.

So as i said it..no two ways...if you want max performance, then it's PC. But a decent PC still can play all the games if you're willing to tone down the graphics a bit...(and it'll still probably looks a bit nicer than consoles). If I'm going to buy a console, i'll look at the games and what's exclusive rather than hardware power...the PS3 is after all, an ancient NVIDIA 7800XT inside...

Also, remember other subsystem plays an important part as well...i find the loading on SFIV PS3 version is so slow compared to the PC. I believe PC will always have faster loading no matter what, coz all the data are on the hard disk while on console, most likely only part of the files are on disk in order to save precious(and expensive) console hard disk space.

And yeah consoles tends to break down very easily....from PS1, PS2( I own 3 of this!!) to XBOX360 famous RROD. Older catridges based consoles are more stable, but once Optical drive and hard disk are introduced, things tends to go bad very fast...coupled with high heat of modern GPU in cramped casing...it's a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, this is just some consideration for you. Another suggestion...maybe u should wait for Project Natal (next year, me thinks) and see what MS has up their sleeve b4 any commitment.

Enjoy!

Actually, the PS3 is not a good choice for RPGs. It's only advantage is Final Fantasy and even now that is being ported to XBOX if i'm correct. And XBOX has BIOWare games, which PS3 doesn't......and XBOX has much more Japanese RPG support now. IMO, XBOX360 is the better RPG machine this generation...best of east and west.

This post has been edited by Matrix: Nov 30 2009, 09:39 AM