DECEMBER 2020 PCWorld 137Cost comparison
Like the PS5 build, you’ll spend more than
$1,500 on this Xbox Series X PC, thus killing
the internet’s optimistic $800 estimate
completely dead. Our current parts list costs
almost double that, and even when
compared against the Series X plus a $480
eight-year subscription for online play
(assuming this generation lasts that long), the
difference still exceeds $500.
WILL THE PRICE FOR THESE
BUILDS CHANGE?
Inevitably, these initial prices will change.
Outside of the inevitable drops that come as
hardware ages, the cost of these builds will
shift as component swaps are made. So if we
end up using a lower-tier GPU, the cost could
go down. But likewise, if we switch to Intel
(which historically has never budged much on
its suggested MSRP for processors), the price
could increase.
As noted in the build names, these takes
are just the first round of ballparking. We’ll
narrow down the field and lock in the final
parts in the coming weeks and months. In the
meantime, we’ll begin collecting
performance data. Speaking of....
WE BUILT A TINY NEXT-GEN
CONSOLE PC!
For this article, we’ve focused on the basics of
re-creating the PS5 and Xbox Series X in PC
form. But I also wanted to see how much more
the cost rises when attempting to imitate size.
So I built a wee version of our PS5 PC. Kinda.
In one of our November livestreams, I
assembled a mini-ITX variant of the PS5 PC in
real time on YouTube. It closely resembles the
parts list above, but with one notable swap: The
use of an RTX 2080 Ti instead of the RTX 3070.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (go.pcworld.
com/r737)
CPU cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid
ML240 Mirror AIO (go.pcworld.com/ml24)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 I Aorus
Pro Wi-Fi (go.pcworld.com/ax57)
RAM: Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4/3600
(2x8GB) (go.pcworld.com/rpjw)
Graphics card: Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti FE
(go.pcworld.com/rtxi)
Storage: Corsair Force MP600 TB Gen4
NVMe SSD (go.pcworld.com/crfr)
Power supply: Cooler Master V650 SFX
Gold (avail. 11/17) (go.pcworld.com/v650)
Case: Cooler Master NR200 (White) (go.
pcworld.com/nr20)
Fan: 1x Cooler Master SickleFlow V2 (go.
pcworld.com/sfv2)
Why? Well, two reasons. First, the 2080 Ti
and 3070 essentially post the same level (go.
pcworld.com/smlv) of traditional game
performance. Second, the 2080 Ti has more
memory (11GB vs. 8GB) and thus offers some
wiggle room when benchmarking at 4K. I
might not need that extra memory, but I’ll take
it while figuring out what video card to get.
All together, squeezing into a mini-ITX