PCWorld have tried, and apparently the answer is a big NO.



In an attempt to create a custom built computer with specifications matching exactly those of the newly revealed Xbox One X (which I personally decided to refer to as XB1X but feel to come up with your own acronym), PCWorld concludes that, apparently, for the first time in the history of gaming, a console may be more powerful than a custom built computer of the same price tag at the time of its release!

XB1X specs:
CPU: Custom AMD 8-core @ 2.3 GHz
GPU: Custom AMD chip @ 6.0 teraflops
RAM: 12 GB GDDR5
HDD: 1 TB
OPT: 4K Blu-ray drive

PCWorld's attempt #1
With 8GB DDR3 for a total cost of $652

PCWorld's attempt #2
With 8GB DDR4, for a total cost of $944

So... can you do better than PCWorld? Let us know what you think. PC master race!
Read more at PCWorld

 

[D34DL1N3R]

in the end the cheaper and less suped up console won.

Or not.

 

[UltraHurricane]

It's not a very good strategy to make profit, they will lose a lot of money on this for months/years. It will only pay off if they manage to take a foothold in the market again. I see this as their last ditch effort to catch up with Sony.

The PS3 was sold at a loss, and was very expensive at launch - they tried to make money on selling the games, but in the end the cheaper and less suped up console won. The XB1X reminds me a lot of the PS3, and that doesn't bode well for M$.

that's only because the PS3 was a very expensive console to manufacture with it's overtly complex architecture and multimedia features they had to cut out in later models to save money like the numerous memory card slots and PS2 backwards compatibility (i'm still hard press to find anyone that actually used the SACD function on the early models)

so i can't imagine XB1X is being sold at THAT much of a loss since it's still basically off-the-shelf x86 hardware

 

[duwen]

Safe option to assume is that they sell consoles at loss, getting profits from games. That's a pretty good marketing way to sell, and get profits.

It was common knowledge that almost all consoles in the nineties/2000's were sold at a loss with profits coming instead from software sales. That's why you seldom see price drops on Nintendo hardware.
The X360 was also initially sold at a loss, unlike the PS3 which was deemed overpriced yet barely covered it's production costs.

...the newly revealed Xbox One X (which I personally decided to refer to as XB1X but feel to come up with your own acronym)

I like this...

 

[Bladexdsl]

feel to come up with your own acronym

this

 

[Deleted User]

X1X
Xonex
XBoneX
XBONX
XOX
Onex
Xeno

or just xbox one x... xbox?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I don't think their build #1 is the best attempt. That CPU is far more powerful than the XBox One X, and so is the GPU AFAIK. They could have gone with cheaper components and gotten a build more similar to the XB1X for a much lower price.
If you take that into account then the price/performance ratio is likely better than an XB1X.
Build #2 on the other hand seems like just an average mid-budget PC that has nothing to do with XB1X at all, the XB1X' AMD CPU doesn't even compare to that i5, nor does the price, and the components seem a bit mismatched (for example, going for a high end gaming motherboard in a budget build makes no sense)
They could have done better.

Also, if used components are an option, then it's possible to build a PC that outperforms a XB1X by several times more for the same price.

Pff Amatures! I got a better system for rougly 530$, (OEM license from a REDDIT place) I could have choosen another CPU, for 30$ more and got an 8 core instead of a 6 core. However the speed on the 6 core was a lot faster than the 8 core so it would have evened out.
Then again, these people aren't selling at a loose profit. So yeah, it's perfectly possible to build a system close to the specs of the Xbox One. Of course I don't know how much the parts will cost around the release of the Xbox One X.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XXQNwV

PCWorld is as trustful as Kotaku, so I wouldn't even try to listen to their advices

That seems like a more reasonable build and would easily outperform the XB1X in games I think. Games will benefit more from higher CPU clock than 2 extra cores.

 

[smf]

But I don't know anyone who would buy a powerful gaming PC and not do anything else with it. The specs can also be justified to programming, video/audio/visual editing, streaming, whatever.

I have a year old i7 laptop that was pretty expensive & an extra long hdmi cable so I can plug it in. I rarely do though and my ps3 gets more use at the moment.

 

[Ritsuki]

What PCWorld does is interesting, but parts for an electronic device generally costs less when bought in bulk, when the part is developed by themselves, and other stuff. The price listed here are prices from Amazon, so of course it is going to be more expensive. Knowing the production costs would be a bit more precise

 

[leon315]

There's no reason to buy Xbox x, since 90% of games are coming for window 10,buy switche instead which is the only one with Mario and Co.

 

[Foxi4]

I never quite understood the point of this exercise, not when they did it with the original XBO and PS4 and not now with the Pro and X either. You can't replicate the build with off-the-shelf parts because both "supercharged" systems use solutions unavailable on PC, or ones that were only just released and are only available in high end parts. Both systems use shared memory, GDDR5 on the PS4 to make things interesting which isn't usable as system memory on PC's, both implement features of the VEGA line to support 16-bit computation on a traditionally 32-bit GPU series, the XBOX uses a hardware implementation of DirectX which significantly cuts down on the amount of instructions that'd otherwise had to be ran in software and they both run software specifically optimised for them to begin with. Even if you could build an identical PC, you wouldn't get the same performance anyways, so it's not a like for like comparison. I feel that it's a waste of time since there's no level benchmark to look at, at least one that'd be available to the public.

 

[netovsk]

This thing is still completely locked down, and games will never drop in price like PC games do.

Depends on the game.

Torment Tides of Numenara prices at least for me were always around 30 (20 on sale) on both Steam and Xbox

Gears of War 4, Dead Rising 4, Halo Wars 2 brand new physical copies at least here in south america go for 65-75% off Retail price meanwhile they never went below 50% on the UWP version. And if you take into account that physical copies hold value, it's a steal.

BUT you don't have to pay 40-50 for a remaster on PC for instance.

And there is an advantage on PC which could seal the deal for some: You don't get locked to 30 fps EVER. Xbox one X could probably run destiny 2 at 60 fps but they locked at 30 so it would'nt give an even bigger edge over Xbox one S players. You don't get that kind of BS in PC.

 

[Foxi4]

Depends on the game.

Torment Tides of Numenara prices at least for me were always around 30 (20 on sale) on both Steam and Xbox

Gears of War 4, Dead Rising 4, Halo Wars 2 brand new physical copies at least here in south america go for 65-75% off Retail price meanwhile they never went below 50% on the UWP version. And if you take into account that physical copies hold value, it's a steal.

BUT you don't have to pay 40-50 for a remaster on PC for instance.

And there is an advantage on PC which could seal the deal for some: You don't get locked to 30 fps EVER. Xbox one X could probably run destiny 2 at 60 fps but they locked at 30 so it would'nt give an even bigger edge over Xbox one S players. You don't get that kind of BS in PC.

Except you do (Batman: Arkham Knight, anyone?), the difference being that you can patch the games, however doing so automatically makes you ineligible to play online there's any anti-modification measures in place to prevent cheating.

 

[SnakeOil992]

Do you know what actually has countless of games to play? PCs. Not glorified multimedia boxes. That's what matters in the end.

 

[netovsk]

BTW not sure they are actually taking that big of a loss since they actually took the previous hardware and heavily customized it integrating DX12 and APIs into the silicon and made it super efficient removing any bottlenecks. It's not really about the cost of producing hardware per unit but on how much money microsoft sank engineering this beauty.

 

[Foxi4]

BTW not sure they are actually taking that big of a loss since they actually took the previous hardware and heavily customized it integrating DX12 and APIs into the silicon and made it super efficient removing any bottlenecks. It's not really about the cost of producing hardware per unit but on how much money microsoft sank engineering this beauty.

Pretty much. They're saving a lot on RAM (one form of shared memory rather than a split design like on PC's), integrating everything into one APU (no need for discrete ports, easier power rail construction, simpler cooling) and a number of other things you just wouldn't be able to achieve on a PC box from scratch. I think they're close to breaking even in terms of price, especially since they're paying "mate's rates" for the parts, not RRP like a normal user.

 

[spotanjo3]

PCWorld have tried, and apparently the answer is a big NO.

View attachment 90400

In an attempt to create a custom built computer with specifications matching exactly those of the newly revealed Xbox One X (which I personally decided to refer to as XB1X but feel to come up with your own acronym), PCWorld concludes that, apparently, for the first time in the history of gaming, a console may be more powerful than a custom built computer of the same price tag at the time of its release!

XB1X specs:
CPU: Custom AMD 8-core @ 2.3 GHz
GPU: Custom AMD chip @ 6.0 teraflops
RAM: 12 GB GDDR5
HDD: 1 TB
OPT: 4K Blu-ray drive

PCWorld's attempt #1
With 8GB DDR3 for a total cost of $652
View attachment 90401

PCWorld's attempt #2
With 8GB DDR4, for a total cost of $944
View attachment 90402

So... can you do better than PCWorld? Let us know what you think. PC master race!
Read more at PCWorld

What about Nvidia ? I am not fond of Radeon.

 

[ATofix]

Microsoft won't be making much money of this I guess.

 

[Deleted User]

Can't wait to see the PC Master race group's excuse for this is going to be. It's gonna be gold.

1. when buying a new pc I don't always need to buy casing as I do still have my old one (not always thats the case, but... whatever)
2. I dont really need the bluray drive so I will probably not buy it
3. a pc gamer doesn't need to pay periodically for online gaming- just two years cost over 100$...
4. a pc gamer can upgrade just one part at any given time- no need to buy a whole console just for better graphics...
5. ability to use pc for other stuff- programming, video making (sorry I cant find a better word...)
6. if someone wants it, he can buy something more expensive and get a better machine then the xb1x...

and again, I am not in the pc master race as I own 2 (soon 3) consoles but you have to realize the advantages of pc over consoles...

also, the consoles I own are 3ds, xb360 and (soon^tm) a switch. on 3ds I dont have to pay for online and on the two others I dont use, nor do I plan to use online... for that I have my laptop (NOT GAMING LAPTOP) which can play online games Im interested in (minecraft, lf2, lately- payday2)

 

[TheDarkGreninja]

MS have most likely struck a deal with AMD to sell at a pretty big loss, meaning they'll probably not have many of these consoles in comparison to the number of Xbox One S's.

 

[DinohScene]

Interesting.

PC masterrace?
I think not anymore.