Now that I’ve entered the world of 4K – or more importantly High Dynamic Range (or HDR) – for both my living room and office space, I’ve spent the last two weeks searching for the best way to put this display technology through it paces. As it turns out, both film and TV still leave much to be desired in regards to the amount of HDR content available and, had it not been for the fact that we use multiple streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play Movies in my household, my options for content would have been pretty slim pickings.
After doing more digging, I’ve come to the conclusion that, surprise: video games are likely what’s going to push these newer display technologies going forward.
Coincidentally, this year we’ll have two 4K HDR capable consoles that can provide this new, higher fidelity experience. As a current PS4 Pro owner, it has been a treat to finally see what HDR is all about, especially in games like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Ratchet and Clank. Like many, I initially thought “what’s the big deal of having a wide color gamut?” But, now that I have compatible HDR displays, I realize how big of a difference it actually is.
Unfortunately, just like film and TV mentioned above, gaming content also has left something to be desired as there’s a very specific list of games that will receive (or have received) significant “Pro” updates on PS4. If I’m going to maximize on my recent investments, I’m going to need to spread my wings and open up to more platforms.
To do so, I am left with two options: the first is a high-performance gaming PC, and the second is an Xbox One X.
Since E3 2017, I’ve been watching the Xbox team very closely. The Xbox One X unveiling left something to be desired following their big E3 press conference: the messaging was a little muddled, and we didn’t really know what many of those “Xbox One X Enhanced” notations actually meant. A lot of games were shown, but many questions were still left on the table.
Thankfully, much of that changed during Gamescom in August, as the team put together a more cohesive vision than just “it will play better on Xbox.” That being said, a PC was still a very viable option.
After initial deliberation, I decided “you know what: I’ve been putting off the PC gaming thing for so long.” There are Xbox titles I want to play (like Sea of Thieves): “it’s time to put together a build.” I reached out to three resident PC gamers on staff for build advice, and what they told me caught me completely off-guard.
The first person I went to was my fellow co-founder, Yaris Gutierrez: someone who, as long as I remember (and we literally grew up together), has always been “working on a new rig.” I mentioned to him what I wanted to do: namely build a system around a GTX 1080Ti (for the long haul), and go from there. He said, “dude, I love PC and cranking games up to max settings while tinkering with all of the options, but there’s other factors that come with it.”
He then went into a 10-minute diatribe that mentioned things like “warranties on hardware, thermal paste, overheating, and maintenance.” Yaris capped off his part of the conversation with “if I were you, I’d just get the Xbox One X.” He added, “[on PC] max settings is great, but max settings will be max settings for only so long. If you were the younger you, who loved to tinker, I’d say go for it. But we’re old now [laughs] and sometimes we just want it easy. Enjoy your HDR and performance with the ease of plug-and-play.”
I trust Yaris’ word. I mean I have to: we’re family, after all. But I needed more opinions. I reached out to our Executive News Editor Giuseppe Nelva, who has been a PC gamer for as long as I’ve known him. I mentioned to him that if I went ahead with building a machine, I’d have someone like Yaris configure said build for me. He replied that “having someone initially configure a PC for you does not mean that it’s gonna be a hassle-free experience from then on. I don’t know if you’re the kind of gamer who cares to deal with that in the long run.” At this point he’s mentioning more maintenance: yuck. But the man knows his audience.
Switching things up on Giuseppe, I replied “OK, that’s your recommendation based on what you know of me. What if it was you?” Giuseppe quickly replied with “Well, I buy all platforms. If I had to choose one, and I was you — with limited time and patience — I’d probably go with a console.” He then continued “ultimately, PC is the best if you have the time and patience to enjoy its deepest perks, like modding and min-maxing visual options to get every bit of power juiced out of the hardware and onto the screen. As far as I know you, you have neither [the time or the patience].” Mind you, this conversation is happening through text on Discord, but I’m literally gasping at this point. This was totally not what I was expecting. Giuseppe was our PC gaming department for quite some time: the fact that this insight was coming from him was eye-opening.
"ULTIMATELY, PC IS THE BEST IF YOU HAVE TIME AND PATIENCE TO ENJOY ITS DEEPEST PERKS.”
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