Gaming7.12.2023

Nvidia GeForce Now much cheaper than building a PC

Gaming on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service can save you almost R12,000 in the long run compared to building an equivalent gaming PC, a MyBroadband analysis has revealed.

We compared the price of building GeForce Now Priority and Ultimate equivalent gaming rigs to the cost of paying the respective subscriptions for a typical gaming PC’s lifespan.

According to Device Tests, the average gaming PC has a lifespan of approximately five years, but this can be extended to up to eight years with good maintenance and a bit of luck.

While it is possible to upgrade specific components to extend a gaming PC’s lifespan and play more demanding titles as they release, this can be expensive, especially when upgrading costly components like the graphics card, CPU, or motherboard.

This cost could be avoided on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service, with the company updating its streaming rigs as it launches new products.

For example, the Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate subscription was previously called “GeForce NOW RTX 3080”.

However, when the manufacturer released its 40-series GPUs — including the powerful GeForce RTX 4080 — the name changed to “Ultimate”. Nvidia upgraded the GPU offering for the plan to the RTX 4080 without implementing a price increase.

“Priority members have access to Premium rigs up to GeForce NOW RTX 3060- or RTX 2080-equivalent GPU servers. GeForce NOW Ultimate members have exclusive access to RTX 4080 gaming rigs,” Nvidia says on its FAQ page for GeForce Now.

Rain launched its Nvidia GeForce Now beta in late September 2023, allowing those who received an invitation to test it and provide feedback.

The beta closed on Monday, 4 December 2023, with Rain telling customers to look out for an official launch announcement in the near future.

South African pricing isn’t currently available as the service hasn’t officially launched. Therefore, the subscription fees we used for our calculations are converted from US dollar prices.

US subscribers pay $9.99 (R188) per month for Nvidia GeForce Now Priority and $19.99 (R376) for the Ultimate plan.

This works out to R11,280 over five years and R18,048 over eight years for the Priority plan.

Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate subscribers will pay R22,560 if they use the service for five years and R36,096 if they subscribe for eight years.

In comparison, our Priority-equivalent rig worked out to R18,785 — R7,505 more than paying for the service for five years and R737 more if the subscription remains active for eight years.

The Ultimate-equivalent rig, which includes an RTX 4080 GPU, worked out to R47,744.

Therefore, paying for Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate for five or eight years will save you R25,184 or R11,678, respectively.

More details on each of our theoretical builds are provided below.

The builds

We built two separate theoretical rigs — one that is Priority-equivalent and a second that matches what’s offered with the Ultimate plan — for our comparison.

The first, Priority-equivalent, rig features an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 X, MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12GB, and 16GB of DDR4 memory.

The build comes in at R18,785 — around R700 more than it would cost to pay for Nvidia’s GeForce Now Priority plan for eight years.

The second rig features an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition 16GB, and 32GB of DDR4 memory.

Most of the other components remained unchanged, excluding the power supply.

The Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate equivalent rig totals R47,744, with the primary contributor to the significantly higher price being the R32,279 graphics card.

The components used for each build, with prices, are summarised in the table below. We didn’t include the cost of a monitor or other peripherals.

Nvidia GeForce Now equivalent PC builds
Component Model Price Component Model Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600X R3,799 CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor R4,499
CPU Cooler Deepcool AG400 75.89 CFM R499 CPU Cooler Deepcool AG400 75.89 CFM CPU Cooler R499
Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Gen3 ATX AM4 R3,336 Motherboard MSI B550 Gaming Gen3 ATX AM4 R3,336
Memory Kingston FURY Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200MHz R1,860 Memory Crucial CT2k 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 CL22 R2,223
Storage Lexar NM620 512GB R769 Storage Lexar NM620 512GB R769
GPU MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12GB R5,999 GPU ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition 16GB R32,279
Case DeepCool CC560 ATX Mid-Tower R999 Case DeepCool CC560 ATX Mid-Tower R999
Power supply EVGA 500 W1 500 W 80+ ATX power supply R825 Power supply Corsair CX750M 750W R2,441
OS Windows 10 Home R699 Operating system Windows 10 Home R699
Total R18,785 Total R47,744

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