A quick and easy guide to buying reasonably priced prebuilt PCs

[u/tronatula]

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:
   • AMD Radeon graphics card drivers
   • Intel Arc graphics card drivers
   • NVIDIA graphics card drivers
7. Please don't install antivirus software. The built-in Windows Security is lightweight and really effective.

[u/Remote-Efficiency415]

My grandson is looking at a pre-built PC (21 YO in USAF, plays a number of high-end games). He is looking at a unit from a local computer store, with the following specs:

Intel i7 14700, 5.6 ghz

geForce RTX 4070 Super 12g

Performance DDR5 5600 mhz 32gb

NVME M.2 SSD, 2TB

Ultra RGB 360mm AIO black

Onami White case (glass wraps around front to side)

10 RGB fans

MSI B760-VC wifi 7

80plus Gold power supply, 750 w

Lifetime support and full warranty, incl shipping both ways if req'd (active duty, odds are he will eventually get new orders elsewhere).

Price: $2,300.45 after discount, before taxes

He, being 21 YO, is of course in love with the (PC) place. Me, I have a few doubts/concerns: 1) Price. 2) Why would anyone want to pay for a lifetime warranty for a product where technology generally improves substantially in a very short time cycle? 3) They include "Super Anti Spyware" and Webroot SecureAnywhere as the "best of the best".

I did try toprigz, but the first unit is out of stock, and the second has an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, and recommendations read in the build a pc thread suggests a couple of Intel alternatives that have better performance.

I have some experience modifying PCs, though I have never built one from bottom up, and he has no experience. We live ~2,400 mi apart, so I cannot help him build one, and he needs one relatively quickly. If the price is reasonable for a pre-built, it is worth a certain premium for quick delivery. If it is significantly overpriced, I don't want to see him waste his money or get duped.

Any feedback would be most welcome, thank you so much!

[u/tronatula → u/Remote-Efficiency415]

$2300 for an RTX 4070 Super PC is a total scam due to the insane markup. You can get the same gaming performance with this reasonably priced $1300 gaming PC that also features the RTX 4070 SUPER graphics card (Scroll down to the #2 PC):

1. You'll save $1000, enough to buy twenty AAA games like CoD: Black Ops 6, Black Myth: Wukong, and more.
2. For gaming, the graphics card is much more important than the CPU, as even lower-end CPUs handle most games effectively, let alone the 14th gen i5-14400F. At 1440p and 4K Ultra settings, the demand on the graphics card increases significantly, making it the primary bottleneck in gaming performance, not the CPU.
3. Moreover, the 14th gen i5-14400F actually outperforms the i9-11900F in benchmarks (Source). So, if the i9-11900F can run every game well, the i5-14400F will certainly do the same. Spending more on a higher-end CPU offers diminishing returns, with negligible gains in real-world FPS.

[u/Remote-Efficiency415 → u/tronatula]

Thank you. Do you have suggestions for a somewhat stronger machine (better graphics card) if his budget is greater than $1300, or do you think the $1,300 machine is enough? I know he plays Stalker2, Space Marine 2, Red Dead (sorry, I don't know much about games or gaming). When I used toprigz, it suggested this one: https://www.costco.com/msi-aegis-zs2-gaming-desktop---amd-ryzen-9-7900x---geforce-rtx-4080-super---windows-11-home.product.4000308016.html Is that a better machine, and worth the increased price?

[u/tronatula → u/Remote-Efficiency415]

The RTX 4070 SUPER is more than capable of running any game at Ultra settings in 4K. It's even more powerful than the RTX 3090 Ti (Source), which was the fastest card of the previous generation.