Microsoft’s Xbox Series X might not have the best first-party games on the market, but it certainly beats Sony’s console offerings by a significant margin in raw horsepower. Boasting a graphical grunt of over 12 TFLOPs and impressive SSD technology, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S is an engineering marvel considering its graphical capabilities that come packed in such a compact form factor.
While it’s impossible to create a PC with the exact same specifications as the Xbox Series X, it always presents an interesting opportunity for exploring the current PC market and whether purchasing a PC would be a more feasible decision than Microsoft’s console. To that end, we present a comprehensive PC build that matches Xbox Series X in terms of specs and performance and try to see the price gap between the two machines.
Before starting out with the feature, it’s important to mention that we have only used off-the-shelf prices for brand-new components – and building out a comparable PC with used components will undoubtedly come at a much cheaper cost. Also, we have tried to include components that were close to the Xbox Series X hardware as it’s not feasible to have a 1:1 component list. And finally, the prices for these parts may change in the near future.
With that out of the way, let’s begin!
The CPU
Starting things off with the CPU, the Xbox Series X features an 8-core CPU that offers the flexibility between opting for a higher base clock without hyperthreading (or SMT as Microsoft calls it) and a lower base clock with hyperthreading enabled. For our purposes, we will be going with an Intel i5 Intel i5-13400F which features a total of 10 CPU cores (6 of which are performance cores and 4 are efficient cores).
With hyperthreading enabled, our i5 13400F is able to surpass the raw performance power of the Xbox Series X CPU thanks to the advantage of a newer more efficient architecture and higher base clocks. Having that performance buffer is important since Windows background services and system applications can eat up a decent chunk of the available resources. At a price point of $160, the i5 13400F might be a bit on the expensive side – but it does offer some assurance in terms of future-proofing our machine for at least the next couple of years.
The GPU
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the GPU is the beating heart of a gaming machine – and Xbox Series X packs some serious grunt with its RDNA2-based custom chip that enables a raw output of 12 TFLOPs which is marginally higher than the 10 TFLOPs of the PS5’s chip. To match our target machine, we will be going with RTX 3060 which comes with hardware-level ray tracing support and 8 GB of GDDR5 memory.
The Xbox Series X draws its graphics memory from the common RAM pool of 16GB, so going with an 8 GB card ensures that we have ample memory for rendering the latest games at high resolutions. Taking into account the RTX 3060’s 3584 CUDA cores and clock speeds of 1.76 GHz on the founder’s variant, we get a comparable 12 TFLOPs output as well which puts our system on a level playing field with Microsoft’s offerings. The RTX 3060 retails from anywhere between 275 to 300 USD depending on the manufacturer you choose.
RAM
Having ample system memory is paramount to ensuring smooth performance across a wide range of games, and for our purposes – we will be going with the Corsair Vengeance DDR4 16GB memory kit. It retails for around $40, and is the perfect pick for our needs of creating a comparable machine.
With a 3200 MHz memory speed, our PC shouldn’t suffer from any bottlenecks which should ensure stable performance results. Having dual channel memory also helps with performance optimization, though consuming 2 RAM slots on our motherboard does limit future upgrade options – so do make your choices wisely.
Motherboard
The motherboard is the component that houses our parts together, but it’s not the component that would really affect gaming performance in a tangible way since we are working with factory clocks and not bothering with overclocking. As such, we wouldn’t be spending much on this component to keep competitive pricing to the Xbox Series X – though you could spring up more cash if you wish to create a similar PC build. The MSI H610M-G gets the job done, and it comes at a price of just $80 which makes it a perfect candidate for such a list.
Power Supply
Talking about cheaping out on PC parts, the power supply is the one thing that one should definitely invest in. It’s always best practice to rely on reputed brands and ensure 80+ ratings to avoid any chances of frying out your expensive gaming equipment in an unfortunate case of a power surge. We are going with the Cooler Master MWE Gold 850 V2 which checks all of our boxes and comes in at a price of $95.
Storage
One of the bigger changes that the current gen consoles bring over the last gen is in terms of the storage which has been upgraded from traditional hard disk drives to superfast SSDs that have shortened loading times by a significant margin. Windows has also introduced a DirectStorage API that helps in optimizing load times with PCI e 4.0 SSDs, but not all modern games are making full use of that tech on PCs.
But still, we will be going with a PCI e 4.0 SSD for our build – and our candidate of choice is the Samsung 990 EVO 1 TB variant which comes in at around $84. Even comparing the read-write speeds on both devices wouldn’t offer an apples-to-apples comparison since the Xbox’s close-knit architecture gives it an edge over traditional architecture PC which is why we are going with the cheapest option on the market.
Cabinet
Lastly, there’s the cabinet which will be the Zalman Z7 NEO ATX tower priced at $80 on Amazon. It gets the job done, looks decent, and doesn’t blow out a hole in our wallet. Sweet, but you could always spring up more cash for aesthetics in a realistic scenario.
Total Budget And Conclusion
Totaling the price of our PC, the cost of our proposed CPU comes in at around $839 which is a good price considering this build should be able to hold its ground against Xbox Series X for years to come. However, it also needs to be emphasized that this PC build doesn’t include the cost of a gaming mouse and keyboard, a Blu-Ray drive, and a fresh copy of the Windows license – and adding that up will obviously increase the price by a good few dollars.
Furthermore, having a PC also gives you the flexibility of upgrading individual PC parts as you choose, better deals on games across different stores, access to productivity apps, and much more. Conversely, the Xbox Series X is much cheaper and you get access to a vast library of first-party and third-party games at a cheap rate thanks to Xbox Game Pass. Between a cheaper asking price and guaranteed support for an entire generation that typically lasts anywhere from 5 to 8 years, the Xbox Series X also comes with many compelling benefits.
But then again circling back to the point that we made at the start of the feature, a console and a PC are two machines that are fundamentally different from one another. However, it remains an interesting prospect to gauge how far the PC market has come – so do keep a lookout on similar features in the near future.
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