Building an Xbox Series X-equivalent PC costs about $1,200 with new parts
A PC matching the Xbox Series X costs about $1,200 with new parts and roughly $730 used, Engadget reports.
The comparison starts from a claim that circulated when the Series X launched in November 2020 at $499.99: that $800 would buy a matching PC. PCWorld tested it and reached $1,559. Six years later, the Series X costs $799.99, and a matching PC still cannot be built for that with new parts. Xbox prices rose again on Aug. 1 in the third U.S. increase since the start of last year. Microsoft cited a components crisis and said memory and storage prices had risen by more than 2.5 times. At the same time, an equivalent PC has become cheaper because a six-year-old console does not require as much to keep up with, and cheaper GPUs can now handle work that needed premium parts in 2020.
The build used an Intel Arc B580 at $330; new cards in this class start around $310. PCWorld's new build around the Arc B580 lists an eight-core Ryzen 7 5700X at $209, a $25 cooler, a $70 B550 motherboard, 16GB of DDR4 at $104, a 1TB SSD at $149, a $60 power supply and a $65 case. With the graphics card, that is $1,012. Windows 11 Home adds $139 and an Xbox controller $65.
RAM prices have jumped. PCWorld paid $64 for 16GB in 2020; Tom's Hardware found a 32GB DDR4 kit that cost $48 a year earlier was about $200 in July, and 16GB of DDR5 was around $249. That led the build to AMD's older AM4 platform. A used build with a Ryzen 7 3700X, B450 motherboard, used 16GB DDR4 and an RTX 3060 Ti brings parts to about $730, but the current Jawa average for the 3060 Ti is around $284, making $800 more realistic; Windows and a controller push the total past $900.
PCWorld warned in September that used-market buyers should be cautious about cards worn down by crypto mining, untested parts and listings with AI-generated photos, and some sellers and manufacturers have refused returns on dead graphics cards. Microsoft sells a Certified Refurbished Series X for $649.99, which undercuts the used PC and includes a 4K Blu-ray drive. If the goal is only Series X performance, the article says, buy the console; it cannot moonlight as a PC.