Why is it not possible to build a PC that delivers the same performance as a PS5 at the same cost? What are we missing?
In: Technology
Seems no one mentioned that a console has straight up less material than computers. It has fewer fans, probably fewer materials for the case (plastic/steel/other metals), smaller total PCB surface, fewer ports. It also has less memory because, unlike computers, console APUs use only GDDR. On PCs, you buy the RAM and then the GDDR is in your graphics card. This has to be so because computer software relies on normal DDR memory, which has lower latency but also less bandwidth, so it’s inadequate for graphics. AMD sold repurposed PS5/Xbox Series chips on premade boards with GDDR and they suffered from this. See here: [https://youtu.be/cZS-4PgD4SI?t=242](https://youtu.be/cZS-4PgD4SI?t=242)
Consoles still get the benefits of scale *and* subsidies, but this is on top of the efficiency they get from custom-made parts that use only the amount of material that is necessary. When they release Slim versions, the material costs is lowered further.
Computer OSs also have features that are mostly unnecessary in consoles. If the OS isn’t second-guessing the game at every turn, it will be more efficient as long as developers put time into optimization. On PC, there are so many layers between the game and the hardware that optimizations aren’t always rewarding. DirectX 12 and Vulkan were made to alleviate this problem.
TL;DR we could probably build a machine with similar cost to a console if we had APUs that could use the same memory for all tasks and this memory was fast enough. Memory would have to be soldered to the motherboard. This may happen in the future as ARM chips are already like this, but until then, PCs will always need more parts and will struggle to meet the same price point even without subsidies until later in the generation unless the console is very under powered on release or suffers from other limitations (like thermals, which is quite crazy now that the PS5 uses liquid metal).
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