A PS5-Level Gaming PC Build Cheaper Than Sony's Console: Is It Possible?

The PS5 is prohibitively expensive right now. This is old news. Even almost two years after launching, Sony's current-gen console remains out of stock-not to mention overpriced for the kind of gaming performance it brings. But what if there was an alternative?

(Photo : Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Living room with a Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console and DualSense controller alongside a television, taken on Novemebr 3, 2020.

By "alternative," we mean something like a gaming PC with the same power as the PlayStation 5-but perhaps cheaper than what the console is going for right now.

But before we go into the build, a DISCLAIMER: all of the prices you'll see here are subject to change without prior notice and are accurate at the time of writing this article. Furthermore, it is also impossible to completely copy the PS5's hardware piece by piece, so all you'll get are the closest approximations.

Lastly, the parts list will not include a mouse, keyboard, monitor, game controller, or Windows license in the budget.

With that out of the way, let's begin!

Official PS5 Specs

Eurogamer shared the official hardware specs for Sony's current-gen console ahead of its release, and they are as follows:

8-core 16-thread AMD Zen 2 CPU at 3.5GHz
AMD RDNA2 GPU at 2.23GHz with 10.3 TFLOPs of computing performance
16GB GDDR6 memory
Custom 825GB SSD with NVMe M.2 slot

We can spec out our gaming PC build to match up with the PlayStation 5 as closely as possible using these specs.

(Photo : Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Detail of the logo on a Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console, taken on October 29, 2020

Parts List

CPU: The CPU for the build will be an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, which has the same 8-core/16-thread configuration and Zen 2 architecture as that of the PS5s. You can get this for as low as $209 on eBay as of this writing.

GPU: RDNA2 is the same architecture found in AMD's RX 6000 series. The closest in terms of performance and specs will be the RX 6600 XT, which can be had for as low as $455 on eBay at its absolute cheapest.

RAM: The PS5 uses 16GB of GDDR6 memory. There's no PC equivalent as right now, PC memory is only up to DDR5. As such, we're going with the cheapest one on Amazon right now: the G.Skill Aegis 2x8GB DDR4 3000 RAM kit priced at $59.99.

Storage: One of the biggest USPs for the PS5 is its super-fast internal SSD, which loads up games in mere seconds. All we need is a simple 1TB NVMe M.2 drive with PCIe Gen 4 speeds to compensate. The Samsung 980 Pro 1TB Gen 4 M.2 is a great choice, priced at $149.99 on Amazon.

To round off all the other parts, here are our choices:

Motherboard: ASRock B450M Pro 4 ($69.99 on Newegg)

Power supply: EVGA 110-BQ-0600-K1 80+ Bronze 600 watts ($60.90 on Amazon)

Case: Fractal Design Focus G Black ATX mid-tower case ($54.99 on Newegg)

With all of these parts, our grand total is $1,059.86. In comparison, a PlayStation 5 on eBay can cost between $620-$1000 right now. These prices for the PS5 had gone down from their peak highs in 2021 when they were being scalped to death.

Final Thoughts

So, the result is as follows: you CAN build a PS5 equivalent gaming PC, but NOT for cheap. This is considering how the PlayStation 5 has actually gone down in price, even on local markets, and how PC components like graphics cards have remained super-expensive.

If the downward pricing trend for Sony's new console continues, it would become an insanely good value for how much performance it packs relative to its price.