Keep Above
Console or gaming PC
The console-or-PC argument usually runs on feelings; this page runs it on arithmetic. Each side takes its purchase price, its yearly running costs, and how long one would last before being replaced — counted over the same years, with every replacement bought again at the price you entered. Both land on a cost per year; no winner is ever declared, and no brand is named.
Not counted while this is $0
Not counted while this is $0
Put in what each one would cost to buy and to run. Nothing here is read from your budgets, and nothing is saved.
| Option A | Option B | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid up front (one unit) | — | — |
| Times it would be bought | — | — |
| Buying, all-up | — | — |
| Running, all-up | — | — |
| Total over 10 years | — | — |
| Cost a year | — | — |
What does a gaming PC cost that a console does not?
The two sides are replaced in different ways, and the lifespan box has to carry that difference. A console is replaced whole and on somebody else's schedule, so one lifespan figure describes it; a PC is more often replaced a part at a time, and may have no single year in which it is bought again. Where that is the shape, those parts belong in running costs, and the lifespan is however long the machine as a whole would stay in service.
The purchase price may also not cover the same ground on each side: a console leans on a screen that is already in the room, while a PC figure often has to carry a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse before the two are describing the same setup. A subscription needed to play online on one side and not on the other is a yearly cost with no counterpart, which is what the running-costs boxes are for.
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
Which one costs less depends on how long it is kept, so the honest horizon is years — which budgeting apps forecast your balance, and how far ahead.
About this calculator
What goes into running costs a year here?
Whatever playing that way would cost per year where the two sides differ — an online-play subscription that one side needs, what the games themselves tend to cost you per year each way, and for a PC any parts you'd expect to replace along the way. The same kinds of costs belong on both sides, so the comparison stays like for like; a box at $0 simply isn't counted.
Why are replacements counted?
Because a cheap thing that lasts 3 years inside a 10-year window is bought 4 times, and that is usually the whole story. Every replacement is counted at the price you entered, as a step in the cumulative total — only the first unit is money paid today.
What is the crossing year?
The first year the two cumulative totals would cross, replacements included. It is phrased symmetrically and names no side — a position in the arithmetic, nothing more.
How do you enter a PC that is upgraded rather than replaced?
Parts bought one at a time are not a replacement in this arithmetic, because nothing is bought whole again — the lifespan stays as long as the machine keeps working in some form. The steadier place for them is the running-costs box, which spreads them across the years instead of landing them all on one. The other side has no equivalent unless it too is replaced in pieces, so leaving its running-costs box at $0 keeps the two describing the same thing.