Will my PC be more powerful than a PS4?

[GX1sans]

I'm building my own PC and have never really had my own gaming PC before.
This will cost £550 and am stuck between this and a PS4. This is the very limit of my budget and I would really like to know if this will get a higher frame rate and resolution than a PS4. Specs below:
HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive
CPU: AMD (Piledriver) FX-6300 3.50GHz (4.10GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 6-Core Processor
MEMORY: 8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Dual Channel Kit
GFX: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Dual-X Boost OC AMD Graphics Card 2GB
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P AMD Socket AM3+
PSU:EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply

I am new to PC gaming and would really appreciate any help!
Thanks, video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WQxr59KRto

 

[madmatt30]

Thoroughly decent mate ,is that £550 total including case & windows os?

 

[boosted1g]

Yes it is better then a PS4
Al parts look pretty good for what is in your budget.

 

[madmatt30]

you can squeeze a 280 in on that budget & a very good aftermarket cooler

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£75.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK THEMIS 65.7 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£19.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£65.86 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.33 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£26.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£50.34 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£74.43 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £550.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 21:13 GMT+0000

 

[AdviserKulikov]

Yes, but not by much when you consider console specific optimizations for each game. Add another $150 for a 970 and you'll easily beat the PS4 by a mile.

 

[g-unit1111]

Any PC with a dedicated CPU and GPU will be infinitely more powerful than the APUs used on consoles.

 

[madmatt30]

the gpu on both the xbone & the ps4 is very similar in performance to a 270x,bear in mind most console releases are running at an upscaled 900p at the equivalent of medium-high settings.
Whats killing recent pc releases such as unity,farcry 4 & dying light is really really lazy porting & poor optimisation on the pc side

 

[sora]

Yes it is better then a PS4
Al parts look pretty good for what is in your budget.

This haha. OP, you should put an extra 30 quids towards an R9 280X though haha.

 

[GX1sans]

Thanks for the quick replys guys, I really appreciate it since I don't really know any one who has an advanced understanding of technology.
Most of you have said yes, but not my much.
Can I have an example of graphics and framerate of a game like Dragon Age Inquisition, compared to PS4 and this PC?

 

[madmatt30]

The console version of dragon age maxes out at 30fps with drops below.
If you're happy with 30fps then with a 280 you could run it on ultra fairly easily.
The console versions graphics are somewhere between medium & high - it looks far better on pc ,on those settings you could pretty much frame lock it at 50 or 60fps.

Since going PC gaming full time dropping back to a 30fps console version of a game feels just awful to me personally.
The benefit of PC is that graphics options are so scaleable,you should pretty much always be able to hit that vsynced 60fps with a bit of tinkering.

 

[Icaraeus]

PS4 GPU is equivalent specs wise to R9 270 plus optimizations. CPU depending on how well devs put in the effort is right up there with the Intel i5s (GPGPU)I've already argued too much with other ignorant PC owners about this topic so if you want to read up on GPGPU it'll save me the effort. On top of this the PS4 has 5.5GB VRAM for games, on top of a lot of other stuff. The reason why some games run poorly on PS4 is due to DX11.2 which the PS4 isn't designed to use.

Games like The Order: 1886 run at 1920x800p on PS4 BUT it uses 4xMSAA so overall it is more taxing than if you were to straight up do 1080p plus a cheap (low resource intensive) AA solution. Also, games like Uncharted 4 while still being in development run at 1080p40fps stable (locked at 30fps for demo) meaning that there is headroom for graphics to improve if the PS4 targets 30fps. The difference between 30fps and 60fps is minor and it is only really an issue if you are playing FPS or racing games.

 

[mdocod]

Any PC with a dedicated CPU and GPU will be infinitely more powerful than the APUs used on consoles.

I'm sorry this is completely wrong.

The PS4 leverages dual quad core 1.6ghz Kabini class CPU's on a proprietary ring bus with a near HD7870 equivalent GPU sharing 8GB of unified GDDR5 system memory (system memory and VRAM are one and the same in this system).

The combined compute performance of both quad core CPU's combined is comparable to an i3-4130T or Athlon 750K. Nothing particularly chart topping, but that is certainly not infinitely less than the compute performance found in popular high end gaming CPU's, in fact, many budget gaming PC's are built with similar compute performance. Unfortunately, you can't really compare the hardware directly like this, because the console has several tricks up it's sleeve that no current discrete CPU and discrete GPU combination on the desktop offers....

When software is developed for a game console, the developers only need to write code for one specific hardware configuration. They don't have to include legacy support, they don't have to worry about broad compatibility, they don't have to make performance sacrifices in the software for compatibility reasons. In the case of the PS4, this means they can exploit HSA/hUMA and GPGPU compute and use a platform optimized compiler. The result is lean software that runs more efficiently, and, software that treats the GPU as an extension of the CPU for a large list of general compute instructions. Suddenly, the fact that the CPUs in the PS4 combine to something comparable to a low end i3 is irrelevant, because the compute performance available in a fully functioning HSA environment with platform optimized and compiled software can scale to many times greater than the CPU itself by offloading work to the GPU. Leveraging just 10-20% of the GPU on the PS4 for general compute instructions can double the effective CPU performance. The advantage of platform specific software, is that the compute overhead required to achieve the same performance outcome is lower than on the desktop, so we can't even really compare the hardware specifications directly anyway, as they run different software.

When software is developed for the PC industry, it is programmed and compiled for broad compatibility. As a result, the software is naturally more bloated and less optimized, has little to no control over scheduling optimizations, and of course, the PC industry has not yet adopted HSA/hUMA system architecture, and the few systems on the desktop that support this technology are largely irrelevant to the gaming ecosystem at this time as they are too weak, so desktop PC games obviously aren't taking advantage of that technology so can't really scale compute needs into the GPU very well.

Yes it's possible to build PC's that are more powerful on-paper than a PS4, but to claim that any PC with a dGPU and CPU is infinitely more powerful than a PS4 is highly inaccurate, especially when we factor in the differences in software layer overhead and optimizations.

In fact, a desktop PC with an i3-4150 or FX-6300 and an R9 270 or similar GPU, is going to be very comparable to the performance of a PS4, not infinitely more powerful.

 

[Icaraeus]

Any PC with a dedicated CPU and GPU will be infinitely more powerful than the APUs used on consoles.

I'm sorry this is completely wrong.

The PS4 leverages dual quad core 1.6ghz Kabini class CPU's on a proprietary ring bus with a near HD7870 equivalent GPU sharing 8GB of unified GDDR5 system memory (system memory and VRAM are one and the same in this system).

The combined compute performance of both quad core CPU's combined is comparable to an i3-4130T or Athlon 750K. Nothing particularly chart topping, but that is certainly not infinitely less than the compute performance found in popular high end gaming CPU's, in fact, many budget gaming PC's are built with similar compute performance. Unfortunately, you can't really compare the hardware directly like this, because the console has several tricks up it's sleeve that no current discrete CPU and discrete GPU combination on the desktop offers....

When software is developed for a game console, the developers only need to write code for one specific hardware configuration. They don't have to include legacy support, they don't have to worry about broad compatibility, they don't have to make performance sacrifices in the software for compatibility reasons. In the case of the PS4, this means they can exploit HSA/hUMA and GPGPU compute and use a platform optimized compiler. The result is lean software that runs more efficiently, and, software that treats the GPU as an extension of the CPU for a large list of general compute instructions. Suddenly, the fact that the CPUs in the PS4 combine to something comparable to a low end i3 is irrelevant, because the compute performance available in a fully functioning HSA environment with platform optimized and compiled software can scale to many times greater than the CPU itself by offloading work to the GPU. Leveraging just 10-20% of the GPU on the PS4 for general compute instructions can double the effective CPU performance. The advantage of platform specific software, is that the compute overhead required to achieve the same performance outcome is lower than on the desktop, so we can't even really compare the hardware specifications directly anyway, as they run different software.

When software is developed for the PC industry, it is programmed and compiled for broad compatibility. As a result, the software is naturally more bloated and less optimized, has little to no control over scheduling optimizations, and of course, the PC industry has not yet adopted HSA/hUMA system architecture, and the few systems on the desktop that support this technology are largely irrelevant to the gaming ecosystem at this time as they are too weak, so desktop PC games obviously aren't taking advantage of that technology so can't really scale compute needs into the GPU very well.

Yes it's possible to build PC's that are more powerful on-paper than a PS4, but to claim that any PC with a dGPU and CPU is infinitely more powerful than a PS4 is highly inaccurate, especially when we factor in the differences in software layer overhead and optimizations.

In fact, a desktop PC with an i3-4150 or FX-6300 and an R9 270 or similar GPU, is going to be very comparable to the performance of a PS4, not infinitely more powerful.

This ^, and also the PS4 is better than a R9 270 not just due to optimizations but because it has TMU tech that comes from the 290X as well as some other stuff.

 

[GX1sans]

OK, small update.
I found the PC I was going to build, already built with the EXACT same specs.
It seems a cheaper but I am wondering if I should just build it myself and buy a R9 280 instead.
Thanks!

 

[CAaronD]

^^^ Wow. Definitely not the average user!

How much cheaper is the build with the exact same specs?

 

[madmatt30]

Build it yourself ,the 280 is considerably better at anti aliasing & high-res texture mapping than the 270/270x.
It is pretty much the difference between running titles at 1080p med/high on a 270 to high/ultra on the 280.

 

[GX1sans]

Build it yourself ,the 280 is considerably better at anti aliasing & high-res texture mapping than the 270/270x.
It is pretty much the difference between running titles at 1080p med/high on a 270 to high/ultra on the 280.

Is the Motherboard compatible with this 280 and should I buy this one

http://www.ebuyer.com/663138-msi-r9-280-gaming-3gb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-dual-mini-displayport-pci-e-r9-280-gaming-3g?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products&gclid=Cj0KEQiA37CnBRChp7e-pM2Mzp0BEiQAlSxQCJrNgwdO6dRAuNz-HmjSEmYWFNc1cmYRJUg8nIA0Kx4aAqmj8P8HAQ

Thanks!

 

[Icaraeus]

270X and 280 are pretty much the same in terms of performance. The only difference is that the 280 has 1GB more VRAM. The best AMD GPUs are made by Sapphire.

 

[GX1sans]

270X and 280 are pretty much the same in terms of performance. The only difference is that the 280 has 1GB more VRAM. The best AMD GPUs are made by Sapphire.

OK then, how's this one instead.
http://www.ebuyer.com/630502-sapphire-r9-280-dual-x-3gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-11230-00-20g?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products&gclid=Cj0KEQiA37CnBRChp7e-pM2Mzp0BEiQAlSxQCLLEOmQQSwsfUlDHmd1G2S5lMhoLksLUpX3r4TZHcboaAonL8P8HAQ

 

[madmatt30]

^ its a good card mate - its cheaper on amazon though.
I'll reiterate again the 280 is a fair bit better than the 270x - that sapphire is known to over clock to near enough 280x performance & is a good buy.