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

Impossible

[GigsVT]

build a PC comparable to the XBox specs

There's no way you could find hardware that will only run signed binaries on the open market. Only an idiot would buy such crippled hardware, and the company that came out with it would go under quickly, unless maybe they were some kind of monopoly or something.

Um, loss leader anyone?

[ByronEllis]

Well, since Microsoft is taking a loss on the XBox hardware so you might not be able to accomplish that. Its pretty standard Gillette-style marketing practice (give the razor away and make a killing on the blades).

Of course the 'killing on the blades' part is proving to be more difficult than they anticipated, but so it goes.

Re:Um, loss leader anyone?

[larry bagina]

do you have secret internal memos from microsoft that states that, or are you just repeating the conventional wisdom?

The XBox isn't cutting edge -- it's made from 1-2 year old components, and they drop in price rather fast.

Re:Um, loss leader anyone?

[ivan256]

Of course the 'killing on the blades' part is proving to be more difficult than they anticipated, but so it goes.

Perhaps they overlooked the fact that blades wear out, but game discs don't. You can't trade razor blades with friends or sell them back to "Razor Stop" and replace them with other used blades unless you like pain.

We won't even get into the fact that Gilette using existing patent law to protect their business model and didn't have to lobby congress for new protections that didn't exist to prevent reverse engineering.

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.

Re:Um, loss leader anyone?

[Glonoinha]

-MSFT has over $3.5 billion wrapped up in X-box so far.

Maybe Microsoft should have named it the XBox.com

Only a .com could piss away $3.5B in two years and have nothing to show for it one more year after that.

form factor

[wharrislv]

I'd really like to see any suggestions make specific reference to both the form factor and the noise issue. I'm imaging that the major desire to mod the xbox is that it fits in well with a home theatre landscape...its not so much the price anymore. Even though the xbox is huge (lol) its still a hell of a lot smaller and quiter and cooler than a typical cheap pc.

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.

Re:Lets see here

[photon317]

What would really make this interesting would be if someone would make it possible to run x-box games on such a box. Assuming the same graphics and sound chips the games should almost run unmodified, would just take a little bit of compatibility layer and perhaps a copy of the xbox rom?

Re:Lets see here

[jafuser]

I thought the XBox itself doesn't have an OS installed, and that the OS comes on each disc?

Including lawyers fees?

[anthony_dipierro]

Is this with or without the cost of defending yourself from a DMCA lawsuit?

Walmart PC

[MBCook]

Easy:

1. Go to walmart.com
2. Get a Microtel SYSMAR550 PC With 1.2 GHz Duron (without OS) for $200
3. Done

This PC has 128mb of ram (vs X-Box's 64), a 1.2 ghz processor (vs X-Box's 700mhz), 20 gig hard drive (vs X-Box's 8 gig).

It's worse than the X-Box because it doesn't include a monitor (where on the X-Box you can use a TV) and it doesn't have the 3D graphics. Also, it lacks the DVD drive.

It's BETTER than the X-Box in most ways, and you could give it a new graphics card and a DVD drive, but you already get a keyboard and mouse (would cost $20 maybe + $20 for a USB->X-Box adaptor) so it's entirely possible. The Microtel also has parallel and serial ports, audio in, speakers, and it has 2 PCI slots (it would take one to upgrade the graphics) so you could still put in a TV tuner or something.

So for $200 you get a VERY nice PC (compared to anything I have, MORE than enough to do anything including games, all you'd need is a better graphics card). Compare that to $178 for an X-Box (according to Walmart.com) and you have your comparision.

You could do much better if you were to go for that MS pays (since they take a hit on every X-Box, as has already been pointed out).

Oh dear god

[nickgrieve]

This is utterly pointless. Who cares?

the x-box/Linux thing is not, and has not and never will be about a cheap PC, it about getting Linux to run on something its not supposed to.

as for a $PC $x-box they are different beasts, one has a Mobo that does USB/RS232/Parallel/eth/etc... the other is a 3D accelerator card with a cpu onboard...

Your asking if people can find a substitute for apple juice made from oranges.

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.

Re:Try this...

[KurdtX]

* 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

Realizing you don't have to make Linux run on something "just 'cause it's there" - $priceless

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.

Why not build a Dreamcast-Like PC

[sirmikester]

In the spirit of recreating an xbox, why don't we also recreate a Dreamcast-like PC setup. Its development community was just about as active as the xbox's is today, plus it ran windows CE.. Its hardware specs were: - 128 Bit custom hitachi cpu (equivalent of Pentium II?) - NEC PowerVR2 Graphics card (I'm sure you can an equivalent at a used computer parts store) - 16 megs of ram - 12x cdrom - no harddrive - add on modem/network card. IMHO I think all would cost about 20 bucks, but getting it to run would suck... i guess you could use Knoppix!

Re:Its even cheaper

[ameoba]

The big problem with a modded xbox is that it's only got 64MB of memory, and you can't upgrade that. A modern desktop distro is going to want to use 128MB or more. With only 64MB of ram, the machine's not good for doing much of anything too interesting.

You Go

[blazerw11]

This is utterly pointless. Who cares?

Yeah and anybody else who's curious about something that I and the parent poster think is boring, just don't post your questions where we might be able to see it and not care enough about your pointless question that we feel the need to point out how pointless your questions is and how we really don't care about it.

Whatever, I don't care, it's all pointless.

Re:You Go

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

Thanks, at this point I need to call procurement and ask for a new monitor without coffee and snot on it. Coffee stings coming out your nose, did you know that?

Pretty darn close.

[zsazsa]

$276 for a system specced out at Newegg.com (yes, there are cheaper places online, but none as reputable). The kicker is video - most of the posts I've seen on this thread have generic onboard video, which is easily outclassed by the Xbox. This system would have been competitive pricewise if it didn't need a GF3/GF4 class video card with TV out.

Here's the specs. Here's a mirrored copy of the cart if you feel like shopping.

Dynapower Model# METIS CS-I3ALB.701 (Light-Blue) ATX MID-TOWER CASE w/ 300W POWER SUPPLY -2 x USB RETAIL : $22.00
Aopen Internal EIDE 16X DVD ROM / 40X Max CD-ROM Drive Beige RETAIL : $28.00
Seagate 30GB 7200rpm EIDE Hard Drive Barracuda V ST330013A - OEM : $50.00
SimpleTech (Simple Technologies) 128MB DDR PC2100 - OEM : $22.00
ECS K7S5A PRO USB 2.0 SiS® 735 SOCKET A MOTHERBOARD - RETAIL Back Plate Included : $47.00
AMD DURON 1.2GHZ Socket A PGA Processor -OEM : $34.00
VGA CHAINTECH A-GX20 TI-4200 64MB 8X VGA & TV-OUT. RETAIL BOX : $95.00

Subtotal : $298.00

It's pretty nice, but nothing beats getting a nice computer in a pretty box and with a fun controller for $179, subsidized by Bill Gates himself.

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.

My attempt.

[MoOsEb0y]

Coming from newegg.com,

METIS CS-I3ALB.701 (Light-Blue) ATX MID-TOWER CASE w/ 300W POWER SUPPLY -2 x USB RETAIL
$22.00

Seagate 30GB 7200rpm EIDE Hard Drive Barracuda V ST330013A - OEM
$50.00

SimpleTech (Simple Technologies) 128MB DDR PC2100 - OEM
$22.00

Shuttle Motherboard for AMD processors Micro ATX, Model MN31N - Retail (nForce2 Chipset with a geforce 4 onboard)
$90.00

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1GHz 200MHz Bus Socket A PGA Processor
$35.00

Coolermaster DP5-6I11A HSF
$4

Total:
$223.00

Umm, the Xbox plays games

[zaad]

It seems odd that people are leaving out this very important fact. Sure, you can build faster PC's for just a tad over the price of the Xbox. But what you can't do on your spiffy new PC is to play the console games that you can on your modded Xbox.

So with a modded Xbox, you get a pretty decent gaming console (with a game controller - no one seemed to factor this into their price either), a multimedia system (especially if you buy the remote), or a Linux box (probably for playing MAME games - 64MB of RAM isn't spiff-o-riffic if you plan to run X).

This is not even mentioning the "sticking it to Microsoft" coolness factor too.

Either way, there are reason why you might consider modding a Xbox instead of building a PC.

Missing something...

[shepd]

XBOX Controller + USB adapter cable: $30
USB plate (to match XBOXes 4 ports): $10
Ability to start a game right away without hassle: Priceless...

Re:Forgetting something?

[zsazsa]

Crap! So that's why I've been frying CPUs left and right....

Didn't Comodore64 already do this?

[ivanmarsh]

8^)