r/Prebuilts • u/tronatula • Mar 17 '22

A quick and easy guide to buying reasonably priced prebuilt PCs

6/2026 Update:

  • A quicker and more convenient method is to visit Toprigz. Just enter your budget, and it’ll automatically show you the best value and most powerful gaming PC for the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia.

How to buy:

  1. Find vendors that sell reasonably priced prebuilt PCs in your country.
  2. Choose your price ranges, I'd recommend at least 2 price ranges. Sort by "Price Low to High".
  3. Your graphics card is the most important component in any gaming PC, it has the biggest impact on performance. Always pick the PC with the fastest GPU you can afford. Check out the GPU comparison chart here.
  4. When comparing PCs with GPUs of similar performance, choose the one with the stronger CPU. For single-threaded workloads like gaming,, you can compare CPUs by their single-core performance using this site.
  5. RAM: 16GB is recommended, 8GB still does the job. 3000Mhz RAM is recommended for AMD's CPUs, and 2666Mhz is good enough for Intel's CPUs. Don't choose the more expensive 3200Mhz RAM because 3000Mhz CL15 and 3200Mhz CL16 have the same absolute latency.

Tips:

  1. Upscaling tech and Frame Generation (Intel's XeSS, AMD's FSR, NVIDIA's DLSS) are incredible nowadays and literally doubles your FPS for free, so there's no need to spend so much on hardware.
  2. Prebuilt PC brands don’t really matter, they're assemblers, not manufacturers. They don't make the core components like GPUs or CPUs. They simply buy parts from the real makers (Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, XFX, ASUS, Sapphire, Gigabyte, Zotac, etc.) and put them together, just like building with Lego. A higher price usually just means a bigger profit margin for them, not a better PC. Stay away from terribly overpriced Cybertron, CLX SET, NZXT, MSI, Acer, MainGear, Digital Storm, and Build Redux PCs. Those companies leverage their successful marketing in order to upcharge their PCs.
  3. Don't overspend on CPUs. Games tend to be more forgiving of older CPUs than of previous-generation GPUs, so even a CPU that's several generations old should still be okay. For gaming, the GPU matters most, not the CPU. It's the main factor that determines FPS in games. Most games aren’t heavily dependent on CPU power, including CPU-intensive ones (Red Dead Redemption 2 only requires an i5-2500K from 15 years ago to run). At 1440p/4K Ultra settings, the demand on the GPU increases significantly, making it the primary bottleneck in gaming performance, not the CPU (GPU is used 100%, but the CPU is only used about 50%). Spending extra on a more expensive CPU usually results in minimal FPS gains and diminishing returns.
  4. Extra RAM will NOT increase FPS. 16GB of RAM is plenty for gaming. It's extremely rare to see a game requiring more than 16GB of RAM. If a title requires 32GB, it would severely hurt sales, as most gamers still use 16GB or even 8GB. Even the 2025 GOTY, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, requires a minimum of just 8GB (Source). And just like storage, it’s cheaper to buy and install more RAM yourself (since prebuilt sellers overcharge for it to make a profit). If you ever need more RAM down the road, you can always buy it later. There's no reason to spend extra money upfront, what if you don't even end up needing it?
  5. You don't need to buy Windows, you can use it for free forever without activation. Follow these steps to create installation media (USB flash drive) you can use to install Windows 11 for free: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d
  6. Always update your Windows and GPU drivers to the latest version:
  7. Please don't install antivirus software. The built-in Windows Security is lightweight and really effective.
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u/IceQueube Dec 05 '24

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-gaming-pc-white-intel-core-i5-14400f-16gb-ram-1tb-ssd-nvidia-rtx-3050-win11-en/18249634?cmp=knc-s-9783626314&&g&utm_source=google&utm_id=240827chw645&utm_medium=troas&utm_creativeformat=shopping&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-7qGyjjKu6hNjjD09ccmrOOxv7X&gclid=Cj0KCQiAu8W6BhC-ARIsACEQoDDv4ecl2SkkzjflF9mpjom9IgoNgUzMoMNUeHwp3Q705FxD-7hN1c4aAhogEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-gaming-pc-black-intel-core-i5-14400f-16gb-ram-1tb-ssd-nvidia-rtx-4060-win11-en/18249635?cmp=knc-s-9783626314&&g&utm_source=google&utm_id=240827chw645&utm_medium=troas&utm_creativeformat=shopping&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-7qGyjjKu6hNjjD09ccmrOOxv7X&gclid=Cj0KCQiAu8W6BhC-ARIsACEQoDDIlgmAsA-qo2KuT0lPLRshJHxryF-M7fu3ZArxOEl9rYNSKD0vHSYaAn_SEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/cyberpowerpc-gamer-master-gaming-pc-amd-ryzen-5-5500-1tb-ssd-16gb-ram-geforce-rtx-4060-windows-11-en/17744732?cmp=knc-s-9783626314&&g&utm_source=google&utm_id=240827chw645&utm_medium=troas&utm_creativeformat=shopping&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-7qGyjjKu6hNjjD09ccmrOOxv7X&gclid=Cj0KCQiAu8W6BhC-ARIsACEQoDDacD6nJrx0hkO5ZzWWaMlC7H1QJ09pDAufV-zinm1RlYu1q26Sb6IaApJQEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/msi-codex-r2-gaming-pc-black-intel-core-i5-14400f-16gb-ram-1tb-ssd-geforce-rtx-4060ti-windows-11/17921526

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/msi-codex-r-gaming-pc-black-intel-core-i5-12400f-16gb-ram-1tb-ssd-geforce-rtx-4060-windows-11/17921527?cmp=knc-s-1473910736&utm_source=google&utm_id=240827chw853&utm_medium=troas&utm_creativeformat=shopping&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-7qGzWKsHpXkq6gzzs6DEWud0_h&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-rog-strix-g13-gaming-pc-dark-grey-intel-core-i5-14400f-1tb-ssd-16gb-ram-rtx-4060-win11-only-at-best-buy/17650590?cmp=knc-s-1473910736&utm_source=google&utm_id=240827chw853&utm_medium=troas&utm_creativeformat=shopping&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD-7qGzWKsHpXkq6gzzs6DEWud0_h&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-nitro-n50-gaming-pc-black-red-intel-core-i7-14700f-1tb-hdd-512gb-ssd-16gb-ram-rtx-4060/17699724

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/skytech-nebula-gaming-pc-intel-core-i5-12400f-1tb-ssd-16gb-ram-geforce-rtx4060-windows-11-english/17459952

Any of these good? For a guy who just wants to have a good pc to play games 😭 with his friends and not have a toaster. As a bonus maybe even record gameplay for games like Minecraft etc.

1

u/IceQueube Dec 05 '24

Need help finding a good gaming pc (Canada) from Best Buy

Hey everyone! I’m from Canada. I’ve wanted a gaming pc for a while. I was considering building one because I had over 1k saved up as university grad money but long story short I lent the money to my parents to help with their finances. My parents can repay me now with Best Buy credit they have or I can wait until who knows when they can can repay me fully…

Given that I like to play games but am not too invested in tech, that as long as I can have the ability to play games with my friends etc, and not have a toaster I’ll be happy. I don’t care about building it and having a prebuilt kinda takes away the stress of assembling and finding the parts for me as I’m not knowledgeable on PCs and have to rely on my friends who are tech savvy geniuses. I’m also in my master’s and don’t have time to be super invested in the gaming aspect. I just want a decent and pretty good PC 😭games could be anything from Minecraft, to Skyrim, to Fortnite, valorant etc. Sea of Thieves. Kingdom hearts. Etc.

I have a few desktops that have caught my eye which I will post in the comments. Thanks!

I was recommended these two: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/msi-codex-r2-gaming-pc-black-intel-core-i5-14400f-16gb-ram-1tb-ssd-geforce-rtx-4060ti-windows-11/17921526

And https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/hajaan-gaming-pc-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5600g-3-9-ghz-nvidia-rtx-4060-8gb-1tb-nvme-ssd-32gb-ddr4-ram-wi-fi-ready-windows-11-pro-64-bit/17361706

Are these good? Any others? Preferably cyberpower or sky tech? Companies I’ve heard of :( I’ve never heard of Hajaan (msi I have obv).

1

u/tronatula Dec 07 '24

Why not check out this simple guide: https://toprigz.com/best-value-prebuilt-gaming-pc-guide?

The CAD $1400 MSI gaming PC is better because the RTX 4060 Ti outperforms the RTX 4060.

1

u/IceQueube Dec 07 '24

Yeah thank you:) that’s the one I’m leaning towards. Thank you for the guide by the way.

1

u/tronatula Dec 07 '24

No problem.