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If you’re curious about what the GPU equivalent to an Xbox Series S is – look no further.
The Series S offers a more affordable price in return for downscaled performance and functionality. It doesn’t quite reach 4K, only 2K resolution, and hasn’t got a disc drive. Though, it’s still capable of running up to 120Hz. The Series S is a great budget next-gen console, but if you were looking to build a PC with enough power to stand up to the Xbox Series S – what graphics card would you choose?
The Xbox Series S has the AMD Lockhart inside of it. This is a GPU designed with the RDNA 2.0 architecture, which already clues us in as to what generation of graphics card we should be looking for.
To give you a quick run-down of the Lockhart’s specs, process size, 7nm; memory, 8GB; shading units, 1536; GPU clock, 1565 MHz; Memory clock, 1750 MHz.
From the looks of things – the Xbox Series S doesn’t have a particularly powerful array of specs. Often is the case with games consoles that their hardware is actually not that impressive, though their efficient SoC (System on a Chip) design is incredibly well optimised alongside the software that they run. This enables consoles to run games with relative ease, where an equivalent gaming PC might have struggled.
The GPU most like the AMD Lockhart might be the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon 5500 XT, both of which are at the budget friendly end of their product ranges. This is entirely what we’d have expected from the Xbox Series S, as realistically it’s also on the budget friendly side of the next-generation games console spectrum.
The GTX 1650 was released in 2019, as was the Radeon 5500 XT. While both graphics cards were released in the generations preceding RDNA 2.0 – we can still look to them as technical equivalents.
The most notable similarities are the likenesses in shader modules, clock speeds, and VRAM.
While both of these graphics cards are now aging – they would certainly be capable of churning out 1080p and even 1440p gaming at reasonable frame-rates. If, however, you were looking for two graphics cards that were extremely comfortable at 1440p (as the Xbox Series S is), then you might be better off looking at the RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT. Both of these graphics cards are much better suited to this purpose, and both were a part of the same generation of GPUs.
Ultimately, whatever your reasons for looking for the GPU equivalent of the Xbox Series S, it’s true that there is no one true equivalent. Instead, there is a few graphics cards of extremely varying quality and price that will reliably live up to the standards of the Xbox Series S.
Xbox Series S
CPU
3.60 GHz, 8 cores
RAM
16GB
Storage
512 gigabytes
Storage Type
SSD
Frame Rate
120 FPS
How to build a gaming PC that’s better than the Xbox Series S
If you’re wanting to build a gaming PC that’s better than the Xbox Series S, or equivalent, you won’t have to try very hard.
AMD Ryzen 5 5600
You’re going to want an RDNA 2 graphics card at the very least, the Radeon RX 5500 XT as we’ve mentioned above. After that, you’re going to want a CPU that’s not going to bottleneck the graphics card. This won’t be a particularly hard ask considering the age and quality of the GPU.
We’d recommend an AMD Ryzen 5 5600, a budget CPU that’s going to fit most realistic gaming rigs. After that, you’re going to want to choose at least 16GB of DDR4 RAM, alongside a motherboard that fits an AM4 socket.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the GPU in the Xbox Series S?
The AMD Lockhart is the graphics processor used in the Xbox Series S.
