Features - QOTW: Can you build a gaming PC for less than an Xbox One?

[HEXUS]

And which components would you choose if working to a £350 budget?

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[Meowdance]

That's a pretty good rig for the price. If you factor in the second hand parts market you can reduce price or maybe get better parts (provided they work) for the money. There's even an impressive selection of games available for Linux now, eliminating OS cost if you choose that. Do spare parts you have lying around count? Also, take into account that this PC would be much more versatile than the Xbox in terms of internet browsing and everyday computing.

[wolfsSpirit]

I wonder if for that price you can build an equal poweful system ..
Looking at the system posted , i have no clue how it would perform . i am not sure about the 2 ghz cpu added , but that's because i am not fond about AMD cpu's myself

[Carlh]

You might want to add a 3.5" to 2.5 bay converter for the drive you have listed as otherwise could be an issue with building it

[Tunnah]

Holy crap that's a lot of machine for £350, it wasn't long ago that £500 was the sort of price you were looking at for a decent gaming rig..and let's be honest, the real price here is £280...

[scaryjim]

reckon you can do better?

For one thing I'd make sure I had a real PSU, not whatever pile of spare capacitors CIT give away with their cases I dont' have time to do a full build spec right now, and trying to squeeze Windows in there too will make it tight, but I'd probably start with an Athlon X4 760k, a cheap FM2 board, and some generic low speed RAM, and go from there. Will drop back with a full spec over the weekend if I have time

[Dooms]

Considering you only have to run most games at 720p to match the Xbone that spec should do great

[gagaga]

You forgot to include a controller (and a £5 webcam for the NSA ;-))

[AETAaAS]

My attempt; ordering from Scan and CCL, it will run you £341.58 (take off £5.99 for delivery on the CCL order); went for a FM2 build. You might be able to get cheaper by tweaking suppliers but I just wanted to squeak by the £350 target. edit; Just remembered you can go up to a 750k for about £5 more. I might prefer the 65W part for a build like this, in lieu of cash for an aftermarket cooler but those who want more and perhaps OC down the line, may consider the 750k.

[azrael-]

I believe that pricewise you will be hard pressed to build a gaming PC that matches an XBox One. There are several reasons:

Scale: XB1 is mass-produced and at a set spec. You'll never be able to buy parts at the same price in retail, although you might just come close if you buy bottom of the barrel parts. The OS skews the price difference even further. For the XB1 the OS is essentially "free". Sure, it incurred development costs, but since the new XB1 OS is derived from Win 8.1 you can pretty much guess who's also paying for the development costs.

Performance: Because of the set spec and bare-metal programming you get more performance from the XB1 than from a similarly specced PC. Mantle and the recently announced "in development for years" DX12 might even that out a bit.

Price: It's no secret that gaming consoles are often, if not always, sold at or below cost. To offset that Microsoft rakes in royalties for games, peripherals etc.

With all that said what you get with a gaming PC over e.g. an XB1 is something *better*, as well as something built to *your* specs and needs. And if you build it yourself there's that sense of accomplishment that can't be beat. I wonder how much sense of accomplishment a console gamer gets from unboxing their latest purchase...

[Mentawl]

Intel!
80+ Bronze PSU!
Windows 7!
Don't settle for less!

[Holythief]

Squeezing in windows makes things really tight.

Ignoring windows for £350 its not too hard to build a decent value gaming PC.

[Ksyruz]

Just to note, you are forgetting to add the controllers (£28.24 for wireless 360/ £47.98 for ps4 which is the better option with its track pad) /keyboard/mouse/Blu Ray/Cameras into the price which adds around another £100. But I wouldn't hold that against anyone as you can replace windows with Steam OS.

Firstly, these systems will perform even worse than XBone is currently with most hardware unoptermised games currently out and won't be able to hit 1080p gaming. Not to mention these systems would not be able to last as long as the XBox's 10 year life span, heck these systems would only make it for 2 years most.

So all in all you would still be paying much more than what you would for an XBox or PlayStation.

[tamzzy]

windows just kills the price of the rig lol

[hiyayhi]

I'd probably build something similar but with a 750k for the CPU and 8gb's of ram.

[Gravebond]

Went with an FM2+ mobo for an excellent upgrade path and futureproofing. Quad core and overclockable 760k CPU. The 750ti is capable of framerates above 30fps in all modern games at high settings and 1080p. Chose 1x 4gb stick of RAM so that its easily upgradeable to 8gb in the future by purchasing another 4gb stick. The PSU is more than capable of running this build with an estimated 244W ower draw without coming close to the 450W advertised max. Overall this build will play titles like TitanFall at higher framerates and graphics quality than on the Xbox One and also provide good upgradeability for the future. Only thing I would like really would be a better CPU cooler than the stock, but that can easily be purchased down the line for about £20 and should allow some decent overclocking of the CPU

PCPartPicker part list:

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor (£58.51 @ Scan.co.uk)

Motherboard: MSI A88XM-E35 Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard (£38.28 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: Patriot Signature 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory (£24.93 @ Ebuyer)

Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F1 DT 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£23.89 @ CCL Computers)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£110.82 @ Ebuyer)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (£71.98 @ Ebuyer)

Total: £328.41

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-11 23:31 BST+0100)

Case + PSU: CiT 1021 MIDI Case with 450W Power Supply Unit £19.99 from amazon.co.uk

TOTAL: £348.40