Hello all - SO after over 20 years of console gaming, I have decided to go back to my roots as a PC gamer but this week, and a little bit of the weekend, proved that this task was easier said than done.
Let me start by what has got me interested in going back to PC in the first place: I always wanted to return however my console gaming mind was just too lazy to figure out all the ins and outs of PC building/purchasing. When the Xbox One X was announced I thought console gamers could really have an edge - it being the most powerful system and all. I purchased the Xbox One X day one and I was not all that impressed (read my initial impressions and update here:
https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/365585-xbox-one-x-thoughts-have-came-to-a-conclusionat-least-for-now/) and even though I did eventually appreciate what it was after playing Wolfenstein II, the feeling of being cheated....a little....fell upon me when I started playing The Witcher 2. Reason being was because as excited as I was for the backwards compatibility support, it still did not "enhance" the older games as I felt this monster system should have.
I watched a "Let's play..." video of The Witcher 2 and I couldn't believe how good it looked! It was presented as it should have been. That was last week and then Pro Day came. I decided enough was enough and took a risk - I traded my X1X, 2 Xbox 360s and one PS3, taking advantage of the extra 40% trade in deal for consoles. Oh, and I saw that GameStop sells gaming PCs so to me this was a no brainer.
Now at first I only wanted a PC that was just as good, if not better than a X1X because I knew that getting such a rig would also make older games look better than anything the console cold do. I had my eyes set on the PC I wanted:
https://www.gamestop.com/pc/pc-hardware/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-gxi11020cpg-w-intel-i7-8700-32ghz-desktop-gaming-computer/156184
Then I did some more research and found out that if I wanted to do 4K gaming on PC, I would need a GTX 1080i. SO, I was all set to purchase my new rig. I knew which one I REALLY wanted:
https://www.gamestop.com/pc/pc-hardware/cyberpowerpc-battlebox-ultimate-liquid-cool-slc8840cpg-with-intel-i7-8700k-37ghz-gaming-computer/155632
Mind you at the time I decided it was Tuesday - I get my phone, go to GameStop.com and boom! The rig I wanted is out of stock. Ok so I start looking for other PC's on the website with Intel i7 8800 K and a GTX 1080ti and what do you know!? All are sold out! These were just in stock the day before but now all PC's rocking 1080 ti are OOS.
So now I have all of this credit - $1100, just sitting. To make matters worse, I read about the global graphics card shortage which might have contributed to these 1080 ti PCs all of a sudden flying off the shelves - even Amazon.com has sold out of the above model.
I decided to call GS to see when they will have more in stock and they said they didn't know. So I called Cyberpower and asked them when they were going to restock GS and they said they have not gotten any orders from GS. Needless to say this whole process is frustrating but rewarding at the same time. Frustrating because of the shortage but rewarding because with all of the research I've done on PCs these past few days, I may never go back to Xbox again - the though of it makes me feel cheap.
I suppose I'm "woke" now because PC gaming is like another world compared to console gaming and I've only scratched the surface. It makes you get involved with the entire process and I can only imagine how much sweeter it will be once I have my dream rig and I'm sitting down and starting The Witcher 2 all over again - this time, the way it's meant to be played.