Can't Find a PS5? Just Build a Gaming PC
Many staunch gamers have yet purchased their PS5. The supply chain is still minimal due to high consumer demand. With the holiday shopping season upon us, it’ll be a while before retail outlets have a large inventory of consoles that will meet consumer demand. Why go through the rigors of trying to find a PS5 these days when you can simply build a gaming system. Keep in mind; the disc model console retails for $499. If you decide to purchase PS5 accessories that include the Sony Pulse headset, HD Webcam, controller, media remote, you’re looking at a total price of about $1,000.
The goal here in this build guide is to construct a gaming PC comparable to the PS5. The budget for this build is $1,000. Let’s get started.
The Processor
We kick things off with the processor. We need to find a reasonable price CPU that can handle the rigors of gaming. Luckily, Amazon and Newegg have plenty of high-performance processors you can purchase on the cheap. One that comes to mind is the 10th Gen(Comet Lake) Intel Core i5-10400F. It has 6-cores and 12 threads, with 2.9GHz frequency, 4.3 GHz boost frequency. Notably, this Processor is overclocked ready—good news for those wanting to push performance boundaries.
The Motherboard
Since we're using a 10th Gen Intel processor, the best Motherboard for this build is the MSI Z490-A Pro ATX LGA 1200. Not only is this motherboard price friendly, but it has all the latest features found on the more expensive options you have on the market.
The Graphics Card
Out of all the hardware I picked for this system, finding a quality budget graphics card was quite tricky. Typically, the graphics cards are the most expensive hardware in your computer, especially if your need is high-resolution gaming. With a little bit of research, I stumbled upon the perfect graphics card for this PC build, that's the XFX-AMD Radeon RX 580 GTS Black Edition. Not to say this graphics card is a throw-in; it does have respectable specs and features (GDDR5 8GB, 1257 MHz base frequency, 1340 MHz boost frequency). Notably, the XFX-AMD RX 580 Radeon is a good fit for gaming at resolutions up to 2560 x 1,440.
The RAM (random access memory)
There is plenty of cheap high-performance RAM on the market. That's why it was fairly easy for me to choose the Patriot Viper Steel DDR4-4400 (2x 8GB) for this system. What stands out is it’s superb 19-19-19-39 DDR4-4400 timings, which on paper should outperform several competitive DDR4-4400 kits on the market.
The Hard Drive
When it comes to the hard drive, the goal here is to get the best price/performance possible. Since the motherboard we chose for this build does have an M2 PCIe slot, the ideal hard drive for this system is WD_Black 1TB SN709 NVMe. Notably, NVMe storage drives are 6-times faster than SSD’s, which equates to fast read /write speeds and better gaming performance.
The Power Supply Unit
Now we're going to need to power up all of this impressive hardware. When it comes to the power supply unit, the market is saturated with high-quality units that you can purchase at a reasonable price. Let’s go with the Corsair CX series modular 750W 80 plus Bronze ATX PSU. It has a decent efficient rating, and it’s fully modular.
The Case
We've come to the finale of this PC build, the case. When it comes to the chassis, design and spacious interior are what I’m looking for in a quality PC case. The Corsair-Carbide SPEC-DELTA mid-tower ATX gaming case meets my criteria. It’s spacious enough to support a 360mm radiator in the front and up to six 120mm fans. Not bad for a case that retails for just $79.
Price: $79.99 at BestBuy
Total Price: $1019.93
Over budget by +$19.93
