Next-gen consoles are coming. Despite the COVID-19 crisis, both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are still scheduled to released within the next 6 months. While we don't know prices yet, it's safe to assume it'll be anywhere between $400-$600. In this post, I'll definitely be biased towards the PC build, offering a best-case scenario versus consoles. To that effect, I'm going to assume the Xbox Series X will cost $600, though $500 is the more likely price point.
The next task will be to match Xbox Series X parts to current-gen PC components. As a reminder, here are the full specs of the Xbox Series X, courtesy of Digital Foundry.
First up, the CPU. While the Xbox Series X features a 8-core Zen 2 CPU @ 3.6 GHz, we're going for a 6-core Zen 2 CPU, Ryzen 5 3600X, at a higher clocks of up to 4.4 GHz. In gaming workloads this CPU usually runs around the ~4.1 GHz range. Yes, the Xbox Series X CPU is probably still faster overall, but we're going to give the consoles a handicap as mentioned before.
We've seen the Gears 5 developers specify the Xbox Series X offers similar performance to a RTX 2080, even before optimisations. So, really, the Xbox Series X should offer an experience similar to RTX 2080 Super. But let's be modest and go for a RTX 2070 Super instead - which offers a very similar performance profile to the outgoing RTX 2080.
Choosing memory is rather tricky, given the console is running 16 GB shared between the CPU and GPU. Our GPU has 8 GB VRAM, plus we'll add 16 GB of system RAM to go with it. Yes, this is more than the console, but the prices aren't much different.
Finally, we have the SSD. I have chosen a reasonable 1 TB NVMe SSD, though the Xbox Series X's custom SSD is likely to be somewhat faster.
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor | $239.99 @ Best Buy |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $72.99 @ Best Buy |
| Memory | G.Skill Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory | $59.99 @ Amazon |
| Storage | Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive | $128.99 @ Dell |
| Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC 3X Video Card | $499.99 @ Best Buy |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $1001.95 | |
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-06-03 07:24 EDT-0400 |
Just tallying up the basic components, and we are already at $1,000! Add in the case, power supply, Blu-ray drive, Xbox controller, OS and we're up past $1,250.
So, it would seem like building a PC today for twice the price of the upcoming console will net an inferior experience. If we were actually to do like-for-like choices, the price would be well over $1,500. What gives?
Consoles are mass-produced and subsidized - the console manufacturers make most of their revenue through royalties of game sales and subscriptions. PCs are of course much more versatile, but also, these are components you can buy today. By the time the consoles release, we'll have new Zen 3 CPUs, and new GPUs by both AMD and NVIDIA - RDNA2 and Ampere. I'd imagine those will offer significant improvements in value. That said, PCs will always be more expensive, but PC components should offer a lot better value in just a few months' time.
If you can, I'd definitely recommend against upgrading or building a PC today. If you really must, I'd say don't get the graphics card, maybe buy a cheap second hand card to tide you over till the next-gen graphics cards release.