$500 – $1,000: Entry-level machines
$1,000 – $2,000: The sweet spot
$2,000+: The luxury end
UK Deals: PC penny savers
GPU hierarchy: How the graphics cards match up
The search for the best cheap gaming PC becomes crucial in the quest for the ultimate PC gaming experience without breaking the bank. Striking the right balance between affordability and top-notch performance is essential, whether you crave an entry-level setup for smooth 1080p gaming or a high-spec machine capable of pushing the boundaries to 4K and beyond.
Fear not, as we are here to assist you in navigating the vast array of options available, ensuring you get the most bang for your buck. With PC gaming becoming increasingly expensive, finding the right deal requires expert guidance. And that's where we come in, trawling through the systems on offer this week to give you the best idea of where you should spend your money. It's not easy because PC gaming has become a costly hobby in recent years. Unless you know where to look...
We've categorized our rigs into three distinct categories: Entry-level, Sweet spot, and Luxury. You'll discover a wide array of gaming systems in the price range of $1,000 to $2,000, making it the sweet spot for finding some of today's best gaming PC deals. However, regardless of where you stand on the price spectrum, ensuring you get the best gaming hardware for your investment remains paramount.
Drawing from our extensive expertise in PC gaming spanning several decades, we diligently assess each option to determine its worth. Only the most exceptional gaming PC deals make it to our recommendations. It's essential to recognize that a super cheap system might not necessarily translate to value for money; conversely, a $2,500 system can still offer incredible value. Trust in our evaluations to guide you toward the ideal choice for your gaming needs and budget.
Where are the best gaming PC deals?
- Amazon - Save hundreds of dollars on selected prebuilt PCs
- iBuypower - Fast shipping machines with up to $400 off
- Best Buy - RTX 3080 gaming desktops for under $3K
- Lenovo - Lenovo Legion gaming machines with up to $300 savings
- Newegg - Stellar savings on RTX 30-series gaming PCs
- Dell - Up to $750 saved on Alienware Aurora gaming PCs
- HP - Save over $500 on all-in-one PCs
- Corsair - Some ridiculous savings on compact gaming PCs
- NZXT - streaming-focussed gaming PCs with $100 off
Nvidia GeForce-powered gaming PCs - RTX 4090 - Cobratype |$3,399.99 (save $130)
- RTX 4080 - Thermaltake View 480 R4 |$2,699.99 (save $400)
- RTX 4070 Ti - Skytech Chronos Gaming PC | $1,749.99 (save $250)
- RTX 4060 Ti - Ipason Gaming Desktop | $1,125 (save $874.99)
AMD Radeon-powered gaming PCs - RX 7900 XT - CyberpowerPC Gamer Master | $2,089.99
In the UK - Scan - Gaming PCs with great discounts at every price range
- Overclockers UK - Prebuilts and bundles with up to £400 off
- Cyberpower PC - £200 off last-gen prebuilt gaming PCs
- Ebuyer - Up to £150 off RTX 3060 Ti gaming PCs
- Box - Save £400 on last-gen prebuilts
- CCL - genuine gaming PCs for less than £1,000
$500–$1,000
$1,000–$2,000
$2,000+
UK gaming PC deals
Graphics card hierarchy
The most important component for any gaming PC build will always be the graphics card. That will give you the best idea about how one machine matches up with another just in terms of raw gaming performance.
Below, we've listed the slew of GPUs we've had over the past couple of years listed in terms of their Time Spy Extreme index score as a way to put them in some consistent hierarchy.
Click the button in the top right to enhance!
Should I build my own gaming PC or buy a prebuilt?
One of the biggest advantages of putting together your own budget gaming PC build is the ability to choose every single component in the system. This allows you to shop around for deals and find the perfect combination of parts to fit your budget and performance needs. The downside for most inexperienced builders is that this whole process can take some time and has the potential to cause quite a headache if something goes wrong. This is where prebuilt gaming PCs really shine.
When you pay the premium to configure or purchase a prebuilt PC, you pay for more than just the parts. You are paying for warranty service, support, and the peace of mind that professionals put your system together. These are some of the things we value highly when considering the best budget gaming PCs. We also look at other unique selling points like design, upgradability, and anything you couldn't do when building it yourself.
Now that graphics cards are regularly available and the silicon shortage is starting to clear up, building your own PC is much easier than it was before. A prebuilt rig is still a reliable way to get your desired graphics card.
For most users that don't have the luxury of spending over $1000 on a prebuilt gaming PC, upgradability and performance per dollar are paramount. When we decided to choose our top choices for budget prebuilt gaming PCs, we looked at almost every major manufacturer and system integrator to find the best combination of value, reliability, customer feedback, design, and performance under $500 and under $1,000.
We still highly recommend the experience of building it yourself, but if you can't do that, one of the systems above will have you gaming in short order.
What is a decent price for a gaming PC
The $1,000 - $1,500 mark is probably around the sweet spot for a new gaming PC. That will get you a graphics card that can nail 1440p at solid frame rates and a really good supporting spec. That should mean a relatively sizeable NVMe SSD, around 500GB, as well as 16GB of speedy memory and a modern CPU.
Is PC gaming better than console?
Unquestionably. In real terms, it's more expensive in terms of hardware, but there is a games library stretching back decades that no other gaming platform can possibly match. Games are also regularly cheaper or free on PC, too.
The PC is also more capable of doing more things than a games console, too. Try browsing the web on your PlayStation, and you'll know what we mean. It can also be portable, in either laptop or Steam Deck style.
What PC is equivalent to a PS5?
We suggest that the AMD RX 6700 GPU will deliver around the same level of raw graphics performance as Sony's PS5. That's an OEM part, so you'll only find it in a prebuilt gaming PC, but it's an 11.3 TFLOP GPU versus the 10.3 TFLOP of the PS5.
Those numbers aren't wholly comparative, but you would also need an 8-core CPU, 16GB of memory (though the PS5's is spread between GPU and system), and a 500GB+ SSD.
