138 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020HERE’S HOW BUILD A PS5 OR XBOX SERIES X PC
LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE4K/Ultra
1440p/Ultra
1080p/Ultra9657.4113Gears of War 5
Frames per secondcase adds about $300 to the RTX 3070-based
build for a total of about $1,800. (Small ain’t
cheap in the world of DIY PC builds.) If you
factor in the current street cost of a 2080 Ti,
then tack on another $500 to $700 for a total
of $2,300 to $2,500. A refurb 2080 Ti sold
directly by Newegg will set you back $1,000,
while a new one sold through third-party
vendors goes for about $1,200.
As for performance, I’ll share one teaser
chart for now (see right).
Since our PS5 and Xbox Series X PCs
really only differ in color (especially in this
mini-ITX rendition), I willfully crossed party
lines to take a look at Gears 5. This game has
been heavily promoted for its Xbox Series X
enhancements—namely, native 4K/60-fps
output during the single-player campaign
using the PC version’s Ultra textures and
120fps during competitive multiplayer. So I
spun up its PC benchmark with Ultra textures
installed to see what the 2080 Ti would do on
the campaign side of things.
Overall, it’s a good showing for the Series X.
Next-gen console performance out the gate
looks impressive, even knowing that the
console version of Gears 5 has fine-tuned
adjustments that dial back visual fidelity in
places. (My former colleague Destin Legarie
dives into those details in his coverage on the
Series X version of Gears 5 for IGN [go.pcworld.
com/sxg5].) I think that the 2080 Ti has the
edge though, as the PC variant of Gears 5 is full
fat. If anything, this first quick set of benchmarksillustrates the inherent apples-to-oranges nature
of comparisons between console and PC, and
how easily one might believe the consoles win
against the PC on paper.
That’s it for the moment—as I said, I stlll
have a fair amount of benchmarking and
comparing ahead. Game delays have spread
launches more widely over the holiday
season, and so we’re still awaiting big
multiplatform titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and
Halo Infinite. I’ll be following up in the coming
weeks with updates on these first stabs on
next-gen console builds as games hit shelves
and the GPU landscape settles down.WHAT ABOUT THE XBOX
SERIES S?
Given all the hubbub surrounding the PS5 and
Xbox Series X, it may seem like we’ve forgotten
about the Xbox Series S, which also launches
on November 10. We haven’t. We’re interested
in also creating a doppelganger for that $300,
all-digital 1440p console—so it’s part of this
project and will get its own separate rundown
in an upcoming article on PCWorld.