So you can get this for £1429: Ryzen 5 plus 3060
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-rtx-amd-ryzen-7-5800x-16gb-ddr4-12gb-evga-rtx-3060-1tb-m2-ssd-win-10-see-info
Then it’s only £200 extra for Ryzen 7 plus 3070
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/scan-gamer-rtx-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-16gb-ddr4-8gb-asus-rtx-3070-1tb-m2-ssd-win-10-see-info
Then you start looking at the 3070 Ti 
Bah, 3080.
I9/3070ti for £1729.
Get Gang Beasts. Very silly and great fun when there are a few of you.
It’s to make sure that the GPUs are used for actual computers rather than mining.
Its always worth a look on hotukdeals
We got a Scan 3XS machine last year - Ryzen 7, 3080, NVMe boot and 32GB ram, fancy Corsair RGB case etc. Just north of 2K but Scan have a good rep for support, if you can get to Bolton you can see them in the flesh too. The RAM was for Photoshop which can NEVER have enough. But it is fast, quiet and was well assembled and packed.
So my wife very kindly offered to get me a PS5 or Xbox for my birthday. For reference the last console I played on was the N64!
Common advice for choosing between them seems to be to look at the exclusive games they each have and go for the one with the games you want the most. The problem is the PS5 ones so far don’t seem to have great reviews and the Xbox ones haven’t really been released yet.
I feel like with the Game Pass and access to the catalogue, the Xbox is probably worth it, but I don’t really want to commit myself to be spending £15/month or however much it is for a subscription.
Does anyone have any pointers on what the key exclusive games are for each? Different sites give me different titles and most of them I’m unfamiliar with. Games I know I want to play (Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed) are available on both.
If it helps, I do want to play some racing/combat flight sims (I used to love Colin McRae Rally on the PC and had a steering wheel/pedals set up. Also MS Combat Flight Sim and F22 Raptor). I feel like PS has better games like that, as opposed to more arcade style (Forza) on the Xbox. Is that true?
Thanks in advance!
Most choose what their friends have to play online together. You can also swap games.
Cross play makes this less of an issue.
You’d be happy with either I expect, and you will tend to find any answer you want as recs are usually based on what people have.
Thanks. Don’t have any friends with either!
Sounds like I may as well go for the Xbox S as it’s cheapest then.
I bought one a while back and am delighted with it. I have game pass but don’t actually use it that much, but it does mean I can play Forza or whatever if I fancy it. Flight simulator as well. Better than spending £50+ on games I might not play much.
For the price it’s impossible to complain really. The only really annoying thing was spunking a fortune on the extra controllers!
Do you know how much better the graphics are with the X model over the S? I don’t know where I can see them in action side by side and have no idea how much better 4k resolution is (i.e. if it’s worth paying the extra for).
The S is fine on my 65" TV from fairly close, for casual gaming. For me the S made sense, as it’s all fairly casual, the first console I’ve had in ages and it’s priced as an impulse buy. Which it was.
I would quite like the higher resolution of the X, and also the extra storage space (you lose a fair bit of the 500gb to the operating system), but twice the price would have made it need some thought for purchase.
Ultimately this is the first console I’ve had since the N64. If you’re like that, get the S. More serious, then the storage and 4k might well be worth it.
assuming you have a 4k tv
Lol hard to buy one that isn’t! I would have thought that anyone thinking of buying a console above base spec would have one.
Oh the one thing to look out for is whether the TV does 100-120Hz. Many are limited to 60Hz. Even some 100Hz TVs can’t actually accept a 100Hz signal, they just double the 50Hz one. Much of the benefit of a decent console is lost if you don’t have the TV for it.
So I was actually going to ask as a follow-up whether it’s better playing one on a TV or a gaming monitor? I actually don’t own a TV so would plan to buy one, but was thinking that monitors might be better due to having higher refresh rates (I was going to say ‘cheaper’ too but 4k monitors with higher refresh rates are quite expensive still it seems.
How big a monitor do you want?
https://www.ebuyer.com/981965-exdisplay-asus-tuf-gaming-vg289q-28in-4k-ultra-hd-ips-gaming-monitor-ebr2-vg289q?wgu=267255_162949_1641332079959_3d0e1b78bd&wgexpiry=1649108079&utm_source=webgains&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=60869&utm_campaign=Future%20Publishing%20Ltd_162949
I think it depends on what size you want. I play on s big TV and I’m quite close; this is actually really cool.
When buying the TV I spoke to the people at Richer Sounds and they mentioned about the refresh rate thing. My 65" TV was about £800 I think - the cheap ones don’t have the fast refresh, so the console has to run at 60Hz.
I don’t need a huge TV. Tbh a 28" monitor is probably fine. @catcando 's looks good, although it doesn’t say what the refresh rate is.