I upgraded from my 15 year old PC to one of the new Mac Minis at Xmas last year, thinking that I would be fine for gaming with my Xbox / Game Pass, and I would “skip a generation” on PC hardware. I have a small Steam / Epic library, but everything that didn’t work on MacOS, I had a Game Pass version of.
Fast forward a year. Xbox shit itself, RAM and GPU prices / 2026 outlook are dismal, etc etc
What’s my best option going forward for gaming? The only option I see right now is cloud gaming like GeForceNOW, but it seems like such a ripoff.
Any advice?
Edit- a lot of people are fixating on GamePass. I canceled my GamePass sub when the price went up. I no longer have it.
Older and or used hardware is gonna be a place to start for CPU and GPU. Used dell optiplex can get you most of the way there, then buy a decent GPU when you can. Just make sure it fits in the case and the PSU that comes with the optiplex can handle the power draw. I’d recommend a new PSU though. Dont buy used for PSU or storage is the best advice I can give.
Optiplex are not gonna get you top of the line performance or anything but it’ll be a lot better than nothing and you can always use it for something else later like a nas, a server, home theater PC, etc.