Mining PS5 'Motherboard' Reborn as Gaming PC, Tackles GTA 5 and Cyberpunk 2077

From Mining Rig to Gaming Marvel: The PS5's 'Video Card' Gets a Second Life

In a fascinating twist of fate, components originally designed for the cryptocurrency mining craze are resurfacing, offering unexpected gaming potential. Recently, YouTube channel Budget-Builds Official unearthed a peculiar device from China, marketed as the "AMD BC250." Far from a conventional graphics card, this is essentially a stripped-down, functional computer built around PlayStation 5 silicon, resurrected from the era when miners would repurpose almost anything with a processing unit.

These custom boards, like the BC250, were once the backbone of elaborate mining systems. Now, as the mining landscape shifts, these machines are being dismantled, and their individual components are finding new homes on platforms like eBay and AliExpress, often for a surprisingly accessible price point of around $100-$120. This is precisely how Budget-Builds Official acquired their "PS5 video card," with the ambitious goal of transforming it into a Linux-powered gaming PC running Bazzite.

Unpacking the 'BC250': More Than Just a GPU

Despite its misleading moniker, the BC250 is far more akin to a compact server motherboard than a standalone graphics card. It boasts its own power button, fan headers, and front-panel connectors, signifying its self-contained nature. Lacking a standard PCIe connector, it was designed for rack mounting or specialized enclosures, operating independently. These boards are typically sold as used, often arriving in a rather unceremonious state – sometimes just wrapped in bubble wrap, devoid of coolers, documentation, or any accessories.

At its heart lies the AMD BC250, a central processor with integrated graphics. This is a cut-down version of the PS5's formidable chip, featuring six Zen 2 cores and twelve threads humming at approximately 3.5 GHz. The integrated RDNA 2 GPU is equipped with 24 Compute Units, a reduction from the 36 found in the full PS5 console. The memory configuration is also distinctly console-like: 16GB of GDDR6 on a unified bus, cleverly partitioned by firmware into 8GB for system use and another 8GB dedicated to graphics. Performance-wise, it hovers around the capabilities of a Radeon RX 6500 XT or RX 6600.

Booting Up and Gaming On

To bring this repurposed silicon to life, a robust 1000W ATX power supply, a CMOS battery, an SSD, and a fan for its passive heatsink were essential. Thankfully, schematics for 3D-printed cooling solutions are readily available, making the assembly process manageable for enthusiasts. The resulting gaming performance, while not surpassing the original PS5, is commendably respectable.

In Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced Edition, played on high settings without ray tracing, the BC-250 delivered a smooth approximately 65 FPS. When ray tracing was enabled – yes, it supports this demanding feature – the frame rate dipped to a still playable 25-30 FPS. Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p, with a mix of medium and high graphical settings, ran at around 40 FPS. For esports titles, the BC250 shined: Counter-Strike 2 hit about 130 FPS on high settings in 1440p within the game's benchmark, while Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord achieved a solid 80 FPS at 1080p on very high settings. Even graphically intensive titles like Hitman 3 and Fallout 4 proved playable with high to ultra presets.

Performance Pains and Future Possibilities

For an outlay of roughly $120, plus the costs of storage and cooling, the BC250 offers performance comparable to a budget RDNA 2 gaming PC. However, the unique memory allocation isn't without its quirks. In particularly demanding titles, such as an Oblivion Remastered, the system's memory could become a bottleneck, leading to issues. Stability saw a marked improvement after implementing an SSD swap file, yet some games continued to exhibit limitations.

The experimenter also encountered intermittent Wi-Fi driver drops on Linux and noted the board running quite warm under load – hardly surprising given its original design within high-airflow mining enclosures. This situation prompts a thought: what if Microsoft and Sony had embraced broader OS support, like full Linux or even Windows compatibility, allowing gamers to repurpose their aging consoles? While a tantalizing prospect for consumers, it's unlikely to align with the profit-driven strategies of console manufacturers.