Is It Worth Buying a PC In 2024?

With 2024 rapidly approaching, we ask what seems like an easily answerable question. Is it worth getting a new PC in 2024? Well, yes, it is.

Because that’s not the difficult part. The difficult part now is the choice of how you’re going to enter into the world of PC gaming. Will you go for a desktop or a laptop? Will you stream via GeForce Now? Hell, you could even buy any of a selection of handhelds that offer up incredible gaming on the move. Will you get a windows PC, an Apple Mac or a Linux device? You could even get into VR.

Because that’s the thing about PC gaming – it’s all about choice. And while there’s often no perfect solution – not unless you have a lot of money to throw around – it is usually a near-perfect solution unto itself.

Games on PC

In many ways, the PC offers up the best of all worlds when it comes to gaming. You can play every Xbox game day one, and through Game Pass if you choose. PlayStation games come a few years after release on console. Third parties ship on PC, usually day one unless there are console shenanigans going on. Nintendo is the only real hold out.

On top of that, depending on what you’re playing on, there are usually big advantages over consoles. This is almost invariably graphical, but often there will be mods that fix things developers won’t. And on top of that, you’ll probably pay less money for the game too (although that’s not always the case now).

On top of that, you’ll have your entire backlog going back generations. Older games are released far more often on PC than on console, so you’ll have access to the games you used to enjoy or missed.

So What’s the Catch?

It’s true that PC gaming just isn’t as simple as playing on a console. Gone are the days where booting up a game would take hours of research, driver tweaking and compromise, but it’s true that it’s not as plug and play as a PlayStation or an Xbox. The balance to that is that you have far more control, but if that’s not something you’re interested in, it might be that you’re best sticking to something from Sony or Microsoft.

With that said, things are simpler than ever. Most decent gaming stores have a console-like Big Picture mode at best, or controller support at worst, and playing connected to a TV is easier than ever. And if you’re not a tinkerer, the chances are that you won’t have to worry about getting something set up, especially if it’s more modern.

The best gaming experiences are on PC. Some titles – especially when it comes to raytracing – are a generation or more ahead of console. The recently released content update for Cyberpunk is an example of that.

And you’ll be paying for that experience. PC gaming, in terms of hardware, is going to cost you more than a console. You could buy a PS5 and an Xbox Series X for the cost of a single handheld PC.

And while I wouldn’t necessarily be screaming from the rooftops about that in terms of value, a fully kitted out PC is going to deliver some serious gaming. And you can scale that back a lot in terms of resolution, graphical fidelity and features and still have an incredible experience. So really, there’s nothing to lose.