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As you probably know by now, the PS4 is substantially a $400 PC. It has an x86 PC CPU, a standard PC GPU, and the same kind of RAM that you'd find on a PC graphics card. At that place are a few custom chips on the PS4'southward motherboard, but for the most part it's just a normal PC with some custom software. This led me to wonder… could you really build a comparable PC for $400? More importantly, given how Sony has bedridden the PS4'due south home theatre functionality, is it possible to build a PC for $400 that is actually amend for games and as a living room media box?

To respond that question, nosotros showtime demand to agree on the PS4'south hardware specification. It has a motherboard, an AMD APU (8-core Jaguar CPU + GPU on the same flake), 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a PSU. The PS4 also has WiFi and Bluetooth — and we'll too demand a case, of course. I think information technology'll exist very hard to build a PC with the same specification for $400, but nosotros'll see.

Setting some footing rules

DM 387 Micro ATX case

DM 387 Micro ATX instance: Not quite a PS4, but as close as nosotros're gonna become for $400

From the get-go, we have a problem: The APU in the PS4 is unique. Information technology pairs an eight-cadre Jaguar CPU with, essentially, the Radeon HD 7850. The all-time AMD APU currently on the market (the Richland A10-6800K) has most 1 third of the processing power of the PS4'southward GPU. There are no 8-core Jaguar parts on the market place — merely the quad-cadre Kabini A6-5200, which is paired with an even weaker GPU than the A10. Kaveri, when it comes to market in January 2014, will be a closer match — but the PS4 will still have around twice the graphics grunt. In curt, we're forced to use a CPU and detached GPU. It but got a lot harder to hit our $400 target.

The other big problem is the 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, which has an utterly insane peak bandwidth of 176 gigabytes per 2nd. There is no way to build a PC with such a configuration. In the PS4, the RAM is used by both the CPU and GPU in a HSA ii.0 configuration, providing a sizable speed heave — an option that isn't available to the PC world until Kaveri launches. It's important to annotation that even if we could slot some GDDR5 RAM into a PC motherboard, it would probably exist much more expensive than conventional DDR3.

Tin can you build a PS4-alike PC for $400?

We'll exist using Newegg for component prices, because that's our components supplier of choice when we build new rigs hither in the ExtremeTech bunker.

  • Motherboard:ASRock H61M-DGS ($50). A no-frills motherboard, but you become integrated Gigabit Ethernet and 6-channel sound. It only supports DDR3 1600 RAM, but that'southward a compromise we're forced to brand.
  • CPU:Intel Celeron G1610 ($fifty). This flake is only a dual-core, simply for lightly threaded workloads information technology has comparable theoretical performance to the PS4'due south 8-core Jaguar CPU.
  • GPU: Asus HD7850-DC-1GD5 ($140, or $120 after rebate).
  • RAM: Kingston HyperX Black 8GB ($65). This stuff is DDR3 1600 — which has a fraction of the bandwidth of the PS4's GDDR5.
  • Storage: 500GB Samsung Spinpoint M8 ($55). 500GB of two.5-inch storage goodness.
  • Other: USB Bluetooth + WiFi dongle ($11)
  • Case and power supply: Noon DM-387 Micro ATX case ($45). This bad boy is cheap, includes a PSU, and can stand on its side — similar the PS4!

Total cost: $416, or $396 after rebate

So, in that location you have it: It is only about possible to build a PS4-comparable PC for $400. You make a lot of concessions, though: We haven't included the price of an operating system, nor a keyboard/mouse/gamepad. The DM-387 instance is a lot bigger than the PS4. At that place'due south no optical drive, and then yous're forced to load games via USB or digitally download them via Steam. But everyone has an old copy of Windows XP/7 and a spare Xbox 360 or DualShock gamepad kicking around, right?

PS4 system board, and other hardware bits

The insides of your $400 PS4-similar PC won't expect quite every bit pretty

Overall, I am very surprised at how close we got to the PS4 for $400, particularly when Sony says it'due south losing $60 per console. If we had a budget of $460, we could've got a nicer example or a much faster CPU. There are some who will betoken to the drastically different RAM, but in reality, with 1GB of GDDR5 on the graphics card, the real-world difference between the PS4 and our $400 PC will be marginal.

For $400, then, you can have a PC with PS4-like performance that's (probably) capable of playing the same games at similar resolution and detail levels. The PS4 will likely have an reward because games tin can exist specifically tailored towards the console's hardware provisions, but skilful, high-budget PC ports should be virtually comparable. For $400, you also get a total-fatty PC that tin can play every file blazon yous throw at it, either locally, via the LAN, or streaming video/music from a website.

Now read: The PS4 takes the 'pure gaming machine' thing way too far