To build a Gaming PC that will be more than capable of handling pretty much any game you can throw at it with little to no issue, you will need to spend between $700-800. This is the sweet spot to get you the most bang for your buck.
I’m an IT Tech professional, and an avid PC gamer. I have built many PC’s in my day with varying budgets, from extremely tight to having much more wiggle room.
What you are looking to play on your Gaming PC will heavily impact the budget. Nonetheless, a decent gaming PC that will be more than ready for anything within the next few years will only be about $700. I’ll go into what makes up that build!
Let’s get started.
Contents
Key Takeaways
- The most important gaming PC parts are the GPU, CPU, and RAM.
- Future-proofing your PC with better parts now will keep you from spending money on upgrades.
- Gaming becomes more hardware and software intensive as time goes on.
Crucial PC Parts for a Decent Gaming Experience
While every part of a PC is integral to its functioning properly. The parts that you want to focus on for performance, are the graphics card, RAM, and CPU. About 30-50% of your budget should be allocated just for the Graphics card if constraints allow.
Go through the list below when purchasing your PC parts to make sure you have everything you need.
- GPU
- CPU
- Motherboard
- RAM
- Storage
- Power Supply Unit (PSU)
- Computer Case
- Operating System
CPU
CPU or Central Processing Unit is the brain of the entire operation, you need to make sure the brain is powerful enough for the tasks you have set out for it. CPUs handle every single one of our system’s processes, this includes gaming.
Mid Range CPU prices are about $125-$300.
GPU
GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit. The GPU is the powerhouse and main component when it comes to gaming.
It works in tandem with the CPU to get you the best performance. The graphics card takes care of the video output and needs to be strong enough to handle the games you throw at it.
Your GPU and CPU need to be close in performance so that one does not bottleneck the other. In other words, getting an expensive graphics card, but going cheap on the CPU, won’t give you the performance you desire since the CPU can’t keep up with your Graphics Card.
GPU prices can vary greatly depending on the kind that you are looking into. Some of the mid-range ones cost about $250-$500.
RAM
RAM or Random-Accessed-Memory is where all of our applications store and access data. This is only for a short time though, as once we shut down the computer, the RAM is flushed of all the temporary data it was holding onto.
Games these days have become even more taxing on our hardware as their graphical prowess of them improves at an exponential rate.
16GB of RAM will cost between $45-$60.
Motherboard
The Motherboard is the hub for all of your PC parts. It handles the power distribution and allows all of the different components that make up the computer, to communicate with one another.
When purchasing your motherboard, you must make sure you purchase one that is compatible with the CPU you are getting. Whether it be Intel or AMD, you need to make sure that they will work together.
Motherboards can cost between $80-$300.
Storage
The storage is your hard drive or solid-state drive. This is where all of your data, files, applications, and games are stored permanently.
SSDs have become commonplace in gaming PCs as of late. With the price of them becoming more and more reasonable, there is no reason to choose an alternative.
1TB of storage space is necessary for a gaming PC so that you have enough room to install plenty of games. With game sizes increasing constantly, it would not be in your best interest to purchase one of a smaller storage size.
PCIe SSDs cut out the middle man and plug directly into the motherboard. This direct connection improves the read and writes speeds since there is no downtime communicating through the SATA data cable. The increased speeds bring increased prices though.
You can purchase a SATA SSD for $50-$150 but if you’re enticed by the prospect of faster speeds in the PCIe option, the price is $70-$200.
PSU
The PSU, or Power Supply Unit, powers our entire computer. This component is the one you can thank for bringing your entire build to life.
A decent gaming PC should have at least a 500w-650w power supply unit to power everything up. The 650w would simply leave a little bit of headroom for future upgrades you might want to implement.
PSUs normally cost between $40-$100.
Operating System
The operating system of choice for a gamer would have to be Windows 10. Windows 10 is perfectly optimized. Windows 10 can range from $80-$120.
The Decent Gaming PC
I put together a build that will net you excellent performance on every single recent triple-A title that has been released that someone could want to play. To look at the pricing and parts that went into it, follow this link.
The GPU in this build is the RX 6650XT, a cost-effective, and powerful unit utilizing RDNA 2 architecture. This allows for light Ray-Tracing, like the 20 series cards from NVIDIA. With this GPU, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a game that it can not run at 1080p on high settings.
In the image below, I will show you the average frame rate performance that this GPU gets on some of the most popular recent titles.
The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is an extremely good price to performance CPU, that pairs exquisitely with our GPU.
The CPU and motherboard can support up to 3200mhz memory speed. So that is exactly what we are getting with the 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM.
Final Thoughts
It will cost $800-900 to build a decent Gaming PC that will last you a few years and has an excellent upgrade path. If you choose to grab your parts and not follow the list in this article, make sure that your motherboard and CPU are compatible, and you are all set to start gaming!
