Building a PC Equal to XBox for the Same Price or Less?

Lonnold asks: "Every time the topic of Linux on the XBox and/or XBox modding comes up, some one always responds, 'I can build a better PC from scratch, why waste time modding a game console?' So that's my challenge, can anyone demonstrate that it is cheaper to build a PC comparable to the XBox specs?"

Comments

Lets see here

[Glonoinha]

CPU : PIII 733MHz w/ 128k cache
RAM : 64M
Video card : GeForce 3ti or maybe even a low end GF4.
Sound card : Regular ol' sound card.
Media : CD/DVD reader.
Hard drive : 8G

$220 without a floppy drive, keyboard, or OS? I think we can probably do that pretty easy, or should I say yes, very easy. Probably do twice as much performance (Celeron 1.4GHz or even higher cpu, twice as much memory, hard drive space) for $250.

Re:Lets see here

[seinman]

Scratch that "regular old sound card..." the Xbox does 5.1 digital audio. I don't think your bargin bin sound card can handle that one, can it?

Re:Lets see here

[crisco]

pricewatch:

geforce 3ti: $63
celeron 1.3GHz(*): $40
mboard(**): $58
64MB: $9
20GB: $45
Case, power: $11
DVD Drive: $31
controller ??

(*)Much lower than Pentium III in the 733 to 900 range
(**)Probably cheaper motherboads, searched for one that listed the Celeron at 1.3GHz

Total $257

Cheaper buying used stuff, or if you can get everything from one place, but you're going to be hard pressed to get below the xbox price unless you come across some sweet deals. You're right, higher CPU performance is cheaper. The vid chip in the xbox is somewhat geforce3 era but does some stuff that is only now showing up in pc graphics cards.

pricewatch

[enigmatichmachine]

you can get a duron 950 128 megs ram, surround sound speakers, tv out, eth. modem, cdrom, 20 gig drive for 180 pluss shipping. thats identical to an x box in terms of price, signifigantly faster. and it doesn't have that ugly x box logo all over it...
oh, and a year from now its 20 bucks to double its speed, thats a big part too.

Re:pricewatch

[ameoba]

You forgot the video; I doubt anything at that price point is going to have worthwhile onboard video, so you're going to want to drop another $50 or so to get a better GPU.

Try this...

[Anonymous Coward]

From NewEgg.com:

* MSI motherboard w/ generic "3D" video - $50
* Athlon XP 1700+ CPU - $45
* Kingston 128MB SDRAM - $24
* Seagate Barracuda 30GB 7200RPM drive - $50
* Dynapower METIS ATX Mid-Tower /w 300watt PSU - $22
* NEC 52x CD-ROM drive - $15

~ $206.

This isn't skimping on things here - you can probably get a cheaper CPU, hard drive as well. FYI, a DVD drive is only $15 more.

And this configuration should pretty much blow the Xbox out of the water for anything *but* games. And if you're thinking about modding the Xbox you probably won't be playing games on it.

Here's the problem...

[maunleon]

PC games are made to run on a PC.. they usually assume keyboards, mice, etc. They get launched from an OS with a generic user interface.

XBox games are made to run from an appliance-type PC.

So, even if you were to create a PC as cheap as the X-box, unless it ran X-Box games, you would be crippled by the PC games. I may be okay with a large computer next to my TV, but I really do not want a keyboard there as well, just to launch and manage games.

Can the XBox play DVDs w/o additional hardware?

[lightspawn]

I thought you needed to buy the remote for that.

I'll try...

[benjamindees]

Socket 370 Motherboard: $25

Celeron 733: $32

128MB Memory: $32

nVidia Geforce 4: $47

DVD-ROM: $28

Case w/ 300W PS: $23

20GB 7200 RPM HD: $57

4 Channel Sound Card: $8

Total: $252

Of course, the XBox has a 5.1 channel sound card, but, other than that, this box would be superior. Not as cheap, though.

Nforce Based System For Under $179

[docstrange]

Ok, it's a geforce MX, but heck...... it's close enough and has more cpu / ram / hd than a xbox for the same price.

$59 - Nforce Board - Has onboard 5.1 Sound/ Network / Geforce Graphics - Pricewatch.com

$30 - Athlon 1.1ghz - Pricewatch.com

$13 - PC2100 DDR 128MB - Pricewatch.com

$48 - 40GB Drive - Pricewatch.com

$151 and all we need is a Power supply. I know of a lot of cheap power supplies for less than the remainder.

Re:Um, loss leader anyone?

[cdrudge]

I posted this in a previous dicussion when someone asked almost the exact same question.

Q: How long will Microsoft support a platform that seems destined to be in the red for the next few years? After all, you have invested $3.5 billion on the Xbox and are still losing money on the sale of each unit.

A: We are being smart about bringing the cost of producing the Xbox console down. We can decide to not make it a long investment business and price it to get a better return, but this is a 10-, 15- and 20-year investment.

Source: Interview with Robbie Bach, chief Xbox officer (CXO) and vice-president of the Home & Entertainment Division at Microsoft Corp. June 16th, 2003. (It looks like the canada.com link is no longer working, but you can read the article here.)

The Register also had a recent article that puts the loss per sale figure at around $150. While PC costs have dropped over the last year or two, so has the X-box price. They also have to recoup serious development and advertising fees. MSFT has over $3.5 billion wrapped up in X-box so far.