Console beater

[Dashers]

"I really ought to get a PC to play games again"

£800 will do you a real nice rig

"Hahah, I can't afford that"

This conversation happens more times than I'd like. So come on folks, what's the absolute console-beating, barrel scraping build that will work?

Instantly there are some expensive things when coming to PC gaming - monitors and Windows licenses.

So I'm guessing to keep things cheap the rule has to be "plug this into your lounge TV" or for those doing more productivity "find an old 19" monitor off freecycle".

Asking people to use Linux is never going to work - but I hear there are some pretty cheap places to buy Windows keys legally (although to MS' chagrin), not had to myself, so any hints on that front of actual costs?

Console beating graphics: I'm defining this as 1920x1080. Either visually more impressive at console framerates, or at least equally visually impressive at 60fps.

Games: Well generally it seems to be Elite with the people I chat to, but lets go with some of the more popular PC games:
GTA 5
ARK
Rainbow Six Siege
Overwatch
Battlefield 1

That sort of thing.

Peripherals: Gotta assume people don't have them, but if following the plug it into your tele approach then arguably you don't need speakers - but will probably want wireless input devices.

Brand spanking new: It's cheaper to get second hand, but lets do this new - if we can get some of these parts second hand then that's fantastic or we might even be able to upgrade a bit. But we can't rely on that as a stock answer.

So, onto the components.

CPU: Good place to start, what's really needed for gaming these days? I haven't gamed on anything lethargic in years so I don't know how easily you can get away with a "Pentium" branded dual core with 3MB of L3 cache? I remember a meg of last-level-cache being jaw-dropping.

I don't really see AMD being much use in this market space if you're going with a dedicated GPU as the equivalently priced Intel chips seem to be better when graphics are offloaded. This might change if we get cheap Ryzens. Or I might be barking up the wrong tree and my natural distrust of integrated graphics a symptom of being an old-man in IT.

Current suggestion: Intel "Kaby Lake" Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core: < £55
or Sky Lake Pentium G4400

The box: Before getting onto other components, lets discuss form factor. Whilst I've only got a single slot left available in my full tower, I can't imagine this sort of scenario will ever call for expansion cards beyond a GPU. Ideal for ITX really, but that level of miniaturisation and relatively low popularity tends to bump the price up.

The obvious one is - do you have an old computer in the corner of a room somewhere? We can use the case from that.

Otherwise a BitFenix Neos - better air flow than the Nova. £30. They're pretty poor quality, I've got one for the Mrs, but for the price, they look reasonably smart and hold computer bits in them.

Only one fan (exhaust), is an intake necessary?

Storage: We all want M.2. But SSD full stop is out of the reaches of this build. The cost per GB is just too high. So there's not much point in requiring a chipset capable of providing M.2 on a mobo.

Most people are going to be dumping games onto rust even if their OS is on SSD. And frankly x4 SATA connections is plenty of more than capable connections for this level of computing.

Is 1TB enough? 2?

1TB ~ £40

Mobo: Probably whatever is cheapest. Nobody at this price point is going to be interested in premium chokes, SLI support, LAN teaming etc.

One thought is WiFi. Is it still the case that people put their computers on a desk next to their router so wire it in and otherwise it's all wifi? I wire everything that I can, but again, most people can't be arsed with channelling UTP into their walls.

Another is RAM slots. If we're skimping on spec, does it make sense to have 4 RAM slots for future upgrades? Or is that again, me being old-school.

Looks like an entry board with an uninspiring B250 or H110 chipset is going to cost about £60.

RAM: This follows on nicely. Dual-channel DDR4 obvs. But how much? I run 16GB, that's probably too much for games, but I easily eat 32GB at work. I cannot for the life of me get a Windows 10 virtual machine to be useful once a few office apps are open on less than 3GB. Would 4GB provide enough with the condition "you need to remember to close your website on hamsters before playing"?

8GB £50

GPU: Quite clearly the key component for any gaming rig. And probably the best place to save on cash. How much memory? 1GB wasn't enough on my 560 setup, but at 1080 I'm not seeing any issues with the last 512mb of slow RAM on my "4"GB 970s. So is 2GB still enough? And will it be enough for the next few years? I'm thinking 4GB...

Cards that jump to mind are the RX460 or 1050Ti. I think the 1050 pips it from what I can find.

1050Ti: £120

PSU: As cheap as they come. A system of this spec is most of the time going to be draw under 50W, and even with room to spare, it's not going to top 300W.

~ £35


So, so far:
PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£50.74 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI - H110M PRO-VD PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£42.30 @ Novatech)
Memory: ADATA - XPG Z1 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory (£50.63 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB FTW GAMING ACX 3.0 Video Card (£117.29 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix - Neos Black/Silver ATX Mid Tower Case (£27.97 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA - 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£32.88 @ Aria PC)
Total: £359.80

And we still haven't got onto peripherals or an operating system. Can further gains be made?

Of course the approach not considered here. Is it better to buy a cheap computer from a system-builder and addon a graphics card?

Thoughts for the bottom of the barrel?

[Xlucine]

Using AMD graphics makes the comparisons easier, as the consoles are made off the same tech. Which console are you aiming at? Xbox one/PS4, or xbox scorpio/PS4 pro? The original xbox1/PS4 is an easier target, they have 12/18 blocks of shaders in their GPU (xbox has 12, PS4 has 18) clocked very conservatively so a 560 or equivalent will easily beat them. xbox scorpio or PS4 pro is a harder target, that has 40/36 of the shader blocks (40 in scorpio, 36 in PS4 pro), so you need a 580 or equivalent to match them

[wazzickle]

Going with new components, you won't be able to match the performance of consoles, which have components and operating systems streamlined and optimized for a very narrow range of usage, and games designed to excel in those environments. An end-user, catch-all operating system like W10 is a comparative resource hog that needs to be ready to do a bunch of different things at once. I'd imagine if you're very good at the whole range of flavours of linux, then you might be able to get a system performing nearly as well as a console for a similar price.

Of course, if you 'cut corners' by getting second-hand components, you might match or possibly even beat a similar-priced console - with enough refinement and optimization (both software and hardware) - but then you're not comparing like for like.

The premium you pay for building your own system are the satisfaction of putting it together yourself with your own bare hands, the increased knowledge of the market and how these things work, customizability and upgradiness going forward, and the range of potential uses, rather than specialization.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The normal PS4 GPU is probably around HD7850 to HD7870 level and is actually GCN1.1 based,so I would say an RX560 should just about match it - DF found their GTX750TI based rig couldn't match a PS4 as time progresses.

A G4400 probably won't cut it either. The XBox Scorpio also probably will have a faster GPU than a RX580 - the 40 CU GPU has 4 more CUs than an RX580 with a clockspeed not more than 10% to 15% lower,and it also uses Vega based shaders and has upto 50% greater memory bandwidth too. The PS4 PRO also uses some tech not found in Polaris,but looks more like a downclocked RX480.

Now if you want to build a solid enough entry level PC,I would be looking at a G4560 and a RX470 4GB as a minimum.

Games: Well generally it seems to be Elite with the people I chat to, but lets go with some of the more popular PC games:
GTA 5
ARK
Rainbow Six Siege
Overwatch
Battlefield 1

A number of those games do benefit from more threads,so definitely the G4560 would be the minimum,and ideally a quad core or 4C/8T CPU.

I might suggest looking at CEX for a secondhand Haswell Core i5 too.

However,two of those games do stand out - BF1 MP likes threads,and it can push even a Core i5 to almost 100% utilisation and ARK is by far one of the poorest optimised POS games released in the last 5 years. It is terribad even with high end cards and is a hardware sink.

[jim]

Asking people to use Linux is never going to work - but I hear there are some pretty cheap places to buy Windows keys legally (although to MS' chagrin), not had to myself, so any hints on that front of actual costs?

The cost can be virtually nothing, as the keys are likely to be stolen or misused trial keys.

MS used to provide a service called Technet which allowed industry professionals who are installing / uninstalling operating systems on a daily basis for say testing purposes to access Windows Server, Windows, Office keys etc - and it was very reasonably price at c. £100 per year (I don't remember exactly). Problem is, people started buying the memberships, getting the keys, and then selling them as if they were legitimate retail products.

Of course, they'd work initially, because it was a key from MS that would activate on MS servers, but by no means would it be a legitimate key. And once MS determined that the original buyer wasn't testing systems at all, but selling the keys on the open market, they might disable all of them. Point is, it might work for a bit, but there's no guarantee it would work long-term. And, wonderfully for the scammer, by that point they already have their feedback anyway.

So MS got rid of Technet, which was a gigantic pain in the arse. There are still plenty of other ways of getting keys in bulk through dodgy means though, so the trade continues. If you want to find out more about how "legal" but illegitimate keys are getting onto the market, read up a bit on what some sellers are doing on G2A - it's more or less the same scenario.

If you want to do it, no-one's going to stop you, but I'd think very carefully before handing over money to a random individual. If it's not through an authorised reseller, and it's not a boxed retail product, probability is that it is not legitimate.

[Dashers]

@Xlucine: Console spec is too hardware focused. This is more about experience - as a console is going to be lighter on resources and access hardware directly, you're going to see better results form a like-for-like spec.

But the PS4 Pro spec is a good point about how high you have to start in terms of cards.

@wazzickle: I'm pretty sure my computer matches the performance of consoles I think what you're suggesting is the matching the performance and the price. That's not what I'm angling at here. More what is the cheapest way to play PC games with an experience on-par with a console.

You and I both get kicks out of building computers, not everybody does though.

@CAT-THE-FILTH: I was afraid of that, looks like I'm aiming too low in terms of price for an entry level system. Second hand is obviously a winner, but that's a little more fluid in what you can get hold of.

@jim: These are my concerns. I think there are some more legitimate keys, but knowing how to identify those are going to be nigh-on impossible. Which means £80 to the base price of a computer.

[scaryjim]

... This is more about experience - as a console is going to be lighter on resources and access hardware directly, you're going to see better results form a like-for-like spec. ...

Yep, and that's your key problem. You simply can't match the level of optimisation that consoles get on PC, which means pouring cash into it.

Of course, defining "console experience" gaming on a PC is tricky, because there's no way of knowing exactly what resolution and image quality a game is using. IGN has a community-sourced page that lists suspected resolution and framerates, which suggests that many games run at 1080p/60fps on the PS4, but even then it doesn't take account of what the image quality settings are.

Of course, if you're willing to tone down resolution and image quality to, say, 1600x900/medium, you might even get away with an RX 460/560. But whether or not that's an acceptable gaming trade off really is down to the individual (I'm generally happy playing games on lowest IQ so I can run at native resolution, and as a result can get away with pretty low specs for my gaming machines.). I still reckon the absolute bottom line, though, is if you want a gaming machine @ console prices ... buy a console.