While Microsoft got us to sit up and take notice at this year's E3 with its announcement of the incredibly powerful Project Scorpio console, our excitement was deflated somewhat with the news that it won't be coming out for at least a year and a half.
Fortunately, you can get a gaming machine that's even more powerful than the Xbox Scorpio right now – by building your very own gaming PC.
We've taken a look at the projected specifications for the Xbox Scorpio, and used PC components of equal or greater power to create a gaming machine that will blow the new Xbox out of the water.
And thanks to Microsoft's commitment to bringing all (or almost all) of its games to both PC and Xbox One, you'll be able to enjoy stunning 4K games right now.
Buying the graphics card
Microsoft has unsurprisingly been rather coy about the exact specifications of Project Scorpio, but we do know a few things that can help us determine what kind of graphical power it will have.
According to Microsoft, Project Scorpio will have six teraflops of graphical performance power. To put this jargon into perspective, the Xbox One has 1.32 teraflops, and the PlayStation 4 has 1.84.
While comparing the teraflop rating of a closed console (that hasn't even been released) with that of a graphics card is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, it can at least give us an idea of what sort of GPU power level we need to aim for.
To completely dominate the Xbox Scorpio over a year from its release, you'll want one of the most powerful graphics card in the world: the Nvidia GTX 1080 . The GTX 1080 comes with 8GB of G5X memory, 2560 CUDA cores and an incredible nine teraflops of performance.
We've been provided with the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition , and in our tests it's clear that this is one hell of a beast, able to run graphically-demanding games such as Witcher III at 4K resolution.
Nvidia has also been making a big deal of the GTX 1080's VR Ready certification, which makes it the ideal graphics card for virtual reality. Our review machine running the GTX 1080 passed both Steam's virtual reality benchmark and the Heaven benchmark, so notwithstanding Project Scorpio's rumoured adoption of Oculus Rift-powered virtual reality, with the GTX 1080 you can build a VR-ready box right now.
Best of all, with Nvidia launching the GTX 1080 Ti , prices for the GTX 1080 are starting to go down. Of course, if you want even more power, then you can splash out on the more powerful, newer, card.
How to build a gaming PC more powerful than Xbox Project Scorpio
Buying the processor
It's widely assumed that Project Scorpio will ship with an eight-core CPU based on an AMD Jaguar, although we don't know what the clock speed will be. It's likely that the CPU in the Scorpio will be based on AMD's Zen architecture.
The new line of AMD Ryzen 7 CPUs has made getting an 8-core processor more affordable than ever, and they are likely based on similar architecture to the Scorpio's CPU.
The AMD Ryzen 7 1700 is an excellent CPU that balances performance with affordability, giving you eight cores clocked at 3.7GHz. If you want more raw power, or overclocking capabilities, then the pricier (but still competitive) AMD Ryzen 7 1700X and AMD Ryzen 7 1800X processors are well worth considering.
Buying the memory
How to build a gaming PC more powerful than Xbox Project Scorpio
Rumours abound that Microsoft will fit Project Scorpio with either 8GB or 12GB of GDDR5 memory, which comes with a bandwidth of over 320GB/s. This is an area where it's tricky to do a complete like-for-like replacement for our Project Scorpio-beating PC, as desktop PCs don't use GDDR5 memory for standard RAM – it's usually reserved for graphics card memory.
The GeForce GTX 1080 comes with 8GB of G5X memory, which is faster than standard GDDR5 and has a memory bandwidth of 320GB/s, which on paper looks similar to Project Scorpio's memory.
However, as we can't use that G5X memory as RAM we'll want some DDR4 memory, which is the latest and fastest desktop memory.
We've gone for 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 memory, which offers amazing performance and will keep this PC running extremely fast.
Buying the motherboard
Project Scorpio Gaming PC
With the CPU and RAM sorted we can narrow down our choices for a motherboard. We've gone for the MSI B350M Gaming Pro AMD B350 Micro ATX motherboard motherboard. MSI makes brilliant gaming PC motherboards, and this one is no exception.
Best of all, it fits all the technology and features we've come to expect from a gaming mobo into a micro ATX-sized board. This is a smaller size than usual motherboards, and means we'll be able to fit our PC into a more compact space – ideal for living room gaming.
Buying the case and PSU
As we want our gaming PC to be a replacement for Project Scorpio (not to mention the Xbox One and PS4), we want a case that's small and attractive enough to slot under a TV. Because the motherboard we've chosen is Micro ATX size, we've gone for the BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case, which is small, attractive and can accommodate all the components we need, including the GTX 1080 graphics card, as well as enough cooling fans to keep our rig running well.
With dimensions of 250 x 404 x 359mm, the PC we're building is not much bigger than an original Xbox One. Of course, if you think that such a svelte chassis will make the job of installing the PC components too fiddly, there are plenty of larger alternatives.
How to build a gaming PC more powerful than Xbox Project Scorpio
The case needs an SFX power supply, which will fit the small form factor of the PC we're building, so we suggest the Silverstone Strider 600W Modular SFX Power Supply. It's small enough to fit the chassis, and at 600W it's powerful enough to power the PC and all its components.
It's also a modular design, which means you only add the cables you need, and this will make installing and connecting the cables inside the smaller case much easier.
Buying the hard drive
We don't know how much storage space Project Scorpio will come with, but it's a safe bet that it will be at least 1TB. While we'd love to go SSD for our hard drive, that adds a lot of money, so we're going to compromise with an SSHD, which blends the best of SSD and traditional hard drives. That's why we've chosen the Seagate FireCuda 1 TB 2.5 inch Internal SSHD.
As this drive is 2.5-inch it'll easily fit in the chassis we've selected, and the 1TB storage space should be plenty for holding loads of games.
How to build a gaming PC more powerful than Xbox Project Scorpio
Everything else you'll need
How to build a gaming PC more powerful than Xbox Project Scorpio
For the full console experience you'll want a game controller so that you can play from your couch, and it's easy to use an Xbox One Controller with a PC. Most games will also display button prompts for the Xbox One controller when it's connected to the PC, which makes playing PC games in your living room even more of a joy.
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