In recent years pre-built gaming rigs have really reached new levels. For $1000-$2000 you can actually buy something that’s impressively comparable to building your own. A lot of them can be customized from the manufacturer as well. Unfortunately you give up some things when going this route. Firstly are costs. Nearly everyone in the enthusiast community will chime in saying they could build one cheaper. Upgrade-ability is another concern since some rigs may not have many options for upgrading down the road due to parts the design used. Let’s not forget about the learning experience and pride of doing something yourself. Rock, Paper, Shotgun, has published their “The RPS Rig” guide for building a PC for around $1000. I’ve taken the liberty of finding U.S. Amazon prices for the parts and upgrading a few items which does increase the price slightly but should also increase the longevity of this system.
- ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 AM4 Motherboard-$59.99
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6c/12t CPU w/ cooler-$189.99
- Corsair Vengeance 16GB(2x8GB) DDR4 3200Mhz-$64.99
- Asus GeForce GTX 1660 Super Overclocked 6GB-$229.99
- Samsung 860 QVO 1TB SSD-$89.99
- darkFlash MicroAtx Case-$54.99 or Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L-$44.99
- Corsair RM650, 650 Watt, 80+ Gold-$99.99
- AOC G2590FX 25″ G-Sync/AdaptiveSync/96% sRGB/144hz/1ms-$159.99
- Corsair Harpoon Wireless Rechargeable RGB Gaming Mouse-$44.99
- Hyper X Alloy RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard-$88.99
- Logitech G432 DTS:X 7.1 Gaming Headset-$49.97
- Total Price-$1123.87
This should really be taken as suggestions and we welcome people to post what parts they would change out and why. Up until 4 or 5 years ago it was possible to still bill the $500 but games have evolved and performance demands have increased. PC building is about making something to meet your goals and what you can afford. We’re fortunate to live in a time where there’s more options than ever before and it looks like 2020 will continue to offer even more. It would be easy to make this build closer to or even under $1000 but as is most gamers could enjoy a 1080p rig capable of over 100fps for many demanding games. Let us know what you think in the forums.
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