The "$60 Gaming PC" – AMD BC-250 (2025)

Sep 05, 2026 08:36 PM - 1 week ago 8

Ok it’s not precisely $60 but you tin get the committee itself for that magnitude of money connected eBay if you’re lucky, but connected mean the value is astir $70-$100 (as of November 2025) which is still very inexpensive considering you tin play Cyberpunk 2077 connected this.

What is this?

The BC-250 began life not arsenic a gaming board, but arsenic portion of a crypto-mining rig.

The “trick” down it: the BC-250 uses a cut-down type of the APU from a PlayStation 5 (PS5) — a repurposed SoC (system-on-chip).
Specifically: galore PS5 APUs that didn’t meet console spec (“binned” aliases “defective” for console use) sewage repurposed. Instead of being discarded, these chips were re-used for mining/higher-density hardware.
The original deployment: location was a rack-mount mining “server” build from ASRock that utilized 12 BC-250 cards, targeted astatine miners — sold arsenic a “barebone” 4U server chassis.
As mainstream GPU mining mislaid favor, galore BC-250 units started circulating second-hand — offering hardware enthusiasts an opportunity to experiment.
“BC-250 is fundamentally a Playstation 5 spot that didn’t make the cut, and was released arsenic a crypto-mining board.”

Key Specs & Hardware Details

From nationalist teardowns, benchmarks, and organization experiments, BC-250 hardware specs are roughly:

CPU: 6 × Zen 2 cores (12 threads) — a cut-down PS5 APU.
GPU / iGPU: RDNA 2 architecture, 24 Compute Units (CUs) — reduced from the 36 CUs of a afloat PS5 APU.
Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 representation shared betwixt CPU and GPU — location are no DDR4/DDR5 slots successful a emblematic BC-250 board.
I/O & connectivity: Even though it looks for illustration a “GPU card,” it useful arsenic a single-board PC — includes DisplayPort, USB (2.0/3.0), Ethernet, M.2 NVMe slot (for storage), powerfulness header (8-pin PCIe), CMOS battery, and backplate I/O shield.

Performance benchmarks & real-world behavior

Earlier reports suggested immoderate instability pinch drivers, but caller organization patches and updated drivers person improved support.
Community tests showed astonishing results: e.g. 1 trial rig moving BC-250 reportedly ran games for illustration Cyberpunk 2077, GTA V, Counter-Strike 2, Hitman 3 — astatine playable framerates (not high-end, but capable for a fund build).
Given capable powerfulness (cooling + PSUs) and tuning (BIOS tweaks, Linux driver config), immoderate group study a gaming acquisition “close to an entry-level modern GPU.”

Here’s my existent life Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark:

How tin you execute this?

You person to get your hands soiled to execute this — it’s not an out-of-the-box setup. You’ll request to execute some hardware and firmware modifications. Additionally, if you want it to look for illustration the image above, that requires moreover much work.

Cooling

The BC-250 comes pinch a server-style closed finstack. It’s imaginable to usage a blower instrumentality to cool it, and location are moreover 3D-printed lawsuit designs that support the original heatsink untouched (you’ll find these successful my how-to repo linked below).

However, for bully cooling performance, you’ll request to modify the finstack and unfastened it up. This allows you to usage 1 aliases 2 120 mm fans for due airflow. Be alert that this is simply a destructive modification — I’ve explained 1 method for doing it successful the how-to repository.

Additionally, I refreshed the thermal pads and thermal paste for optimal cooling performance.

The unified memory

The BC-250 has 16 GB of unified memory, but by default it’s divided betwixt the CPU and GPU—typically 8 GB/8 GB (or successful immoderate cases 4 GB/12 GB). To usage the instrumentality for gaming, you request to modify this and unit a 512 MB allocation arsenic VRAM. This whitethorn sound counterintuitive, but retrieve that this is an APU, not a accepted CPU/GPU setup.

To alteration these settings, the BIOS must beryllium flashed to a civilization 3.00 BIOS type that unlocks the Chipset configuration menu. This utilized to require an EEPROM programmer—at slightest according to archiving from astir a twelvemonth ago. Fortunately, location is now a bootable BIOS Flasher image that tin grip the occupation overmuch much easily.

You tin instal Windows, but because this isn’t emblematic hardware, you won’t person due graphics drivers. Most users tally Arch-based Linux distributions instead. I went pinch Manjaro Linux, which useful flawlessly. The Linux type of Steam useful retired of the box.

Case

You tin find aggregate designs online. I looked for compact cases that besides enclose the PSU. I’ve built 2 versions: 1 is an ultra-portable format, and the different is much for illustration a mini-PC.