AMD BC250: ex-crypto mining and PS5-based board costs $120, runs Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V

AMD BC250 board was made for a PS5-class mining system: cut-down PS5 APU, 16GB GDDR6, RDNA 2 GPU, costs $120, runs Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p at 40FPS or so.

AMD BC250: ex-crypto mining and PS5-based board costs $120, runs Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V
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Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: The AMD BC250 board features a cut-down PlayStation 5 APU with 6 CPU cores, 24 RDNA 2 GPU CUs, and 16GB unified memory, priced around $120. It delivers solid gaming performance on titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V, making it a cost-effective option for budget gaming and crypto-mining setups.

This is something you don't see every day: an ex-PlayStation 5 APU that comes in the form of the AMD BC250 APU, a cut-down version from the PS5 chip, being sold for around $120. And get this, it's more than capable of gaming, running Cyberpunk 2077 at around 40FPS.

AMD BC250: ex-crypto mining and PS5-based board costs $120, runs Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V 71
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YouTuber "Budget-Builds Official" ordered one of the BC250 boards, arriving as a server-style motherboard that featured power headers, I/O ports, a gigantic passive heatsink, as these BC250 boards were made for PS5-powered crypto-mining rigs.

Inside, the BC250 features a cut-down PS5 APU that is made up from Zen 2 CPU cores and RDNA 2 GPU cores, with 16GB of GDDR6 of unified memory that is split between the CPU and GPU. The YouTuber made a custom system for the BC250 board to be installed into, with a 1000W Corsair PSU, adding a CMOS battery, connecting to external SSD storage, and hooking up a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

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The YouTuber then booted the BC250 board into a Linux environment, where it was identified almost immediately, identifying itself as the AMD BC250 board, recognizing the 6 cores and 12 threads of CPU, and an integrated Radeon GPU. The YouTuber tried to run the legendary Half-Life 2 on it, as well as 3DMark Time Spy and Fire Strike, but it failed because of Linux driver conflicts.

However, a bunch of other games did work, including Cyberpunk 2077, GTA V Enhanced Edition, Counter-Strike 2, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, and Hitman 3. He captured a bunch of performance numbers from the AMD BC250 board, and they're not bad considering this is a cut-down PS5 APU, and only cost $120.

AMD BC250: ex-crypto mining and PS5-based board costs $120, runs Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V 73
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AMD BC250 board benchmarks, cut-down PS5 APU which costs $120:

  • GTA V Enhanced Edition (1440p, high settings) = 65FPS without ray tracing; 25-30FPS with ray tracing enabled.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, medium/high) = 42FPS average.
  • Counter-Strike 2 (1440p, competitive settings) = 130FPS average.
  • Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (1080p, very high) = 79FPS average.
  • Hitman 3 (1080p, high) = 47FPS average.

In a specs breakdown comparing the AMD BC250 board with its cut-down PS5 APU, and the full PS5 APU, the full PS5 APU has 8C/16T of APU, while the cut-down BC250 has 6C/12T. There's also 36 CUs of RDNA 2 GPU on the full PS5 APU compared to just 24 CUs of GPU on the BC250 APU.

There's also 16GB of unified memory which can't be changed, or how the VRAM operates under loads as it's shared between the CPU and GPU, and no regular SATA ports so it's M.2 SSD all the way. The YouTuber did note that he had various issues with RAM-heavy titles like Oblivion Remastered, as well as Linux Wi-Fi driver issues.