when does a budget pc become a high end pc?

[Hood]

Good Point

To me, any PC that is worth $1500 and above is high end. Don't bother the naysayers.

Or if it isn't high end you've wasted your money on a lot of overpriced junk. A decent, fast PC can be built for $700-$800, twice that should get you a flagship CPU, plenty of fast RAM, and a video card close to the top tier. So yeah, what you said.

 

[Phusius]

My GPU cost $260 after rebate, but really only about $200 after i sold the 3 free games it game with, sapphire 7950. oc'd to 1200/1500 and it beats a gtx 680 and 7970 ghz edition

 

[natr0n]

If you can play any modern game just about maxed out your system is high end imo !!!

 

[Jetster]

If its the top of the latest series both CPU and GPU
Example 7970+ Ivy Bridge

Nvidia 680 + bulldozer

or visa versa

 

[Krazy Owl]

In my humble opinion:

Budget PC = All onboard components with basic hard disk , psu, ram

Medium pc = Some upgrades like a pci-e videocard or higher cpu or anything that cost under 150$
High end = More than 150$ invested on a pc in add on component that give a significant boost

 

[Hood]

Nobody else mentioned it, so I will - in this generation and maybe the last 2 or 3, an SSD for the boot drive is a must if you want to call it a high end system. Granted, until the last couple of years, the price may have been prohibitive for even those who considered themselves high-end builders. But for the last year or so, anyone can afford an SSD at least large enough for their OS and major programs. You might even say that an SSD will jump a mid-grade system into high-end territory all by itself.

 

[Krazy Owl]

True. High end means to have the newest stuff most of the time. That's why ill nbever be because i content myself buying older parts from others but that still do the job. Mine is not even budget pc i would call it Economy pc

 

[johnspack]

Not sure I agree about ssds. They need to have 320gigs for 100 bucks to be reasonable. My os boots plenty fast, and I don't shut down my computer normally. I have lots of ram, and set ram caches for the hds I need it for. Games from those load instantly. Ram cache is way faster than ssd cache anyways.

 

[Sir B. Fannybottom]

It's when you can play one of the latest games at high-max at a decent resolution and with decent framerate.

 

[Delta6326]

I would say you need to have a performance per $, something like for every $5 - $15 you get 1FPS depended on your game and settings so a Budget computer for me would be $600 so that should get you 30-60fps on medium settings or lower at 1080p... IDK if that would actually work though. It becomes High end when you can play at constant 50+ fps at 1080p+ on big titles

 

[acerace]

Not sure I agree about ssds. They need to have 320gigs for 100 bucks to be reasonable. My os boots plenty fast, and I don't shut down my computer normally. I have lots of ram, and set ram caches for the hds I need it for. Games from those load instantly. Ram cache is way faster than ssd cache anyways.

When you have SSD, you have a high end PC. Why? Because it's pricy.

 

[Jetster]

When its faster then mine

 

[Krazy Owl]

Still maganing to roll on a 8M cache sata2 so I dont see the use of ultra high performance when gaming can be good. A good cpu is one that will not overpass 75% of loading. why? To stay cooler.

 

[d1nky]

so budget is somewhat due to price..... and high end includes many factors ; price, output, specific needs, age, rating, components etc

 

[Outback Bronze]

Id have to say components. Why? Because my old school pc that was high end is now budget. This will always happen. But a budget pc will always be a budget pc. You could build a budget pc for $500 these days that will probably obliterate a 2-3 year old high end pc (possibly on the more gpu side of things).