1. Quick Links
2. Best Gaming PC Deals
3. Gaming PC Specifications To Look For
There are two ways to get into PC gaming: buying the individual parts and building your own rig, or purchasing a prebuilt system from a system integrator or big box store. Purchasing a ready-made gaming PC can save you the time and labor of building your own rig from scratch. In a world of expensive GPUs, it can also be a great way to get your hands on a brand-new graphics card at cheaper than MSRP prices.
Best Gaming PC Deals: Quick Links
- Amazon: The best gaming PC deals
Best Gaming PC deals
Gaming PC Specifications to look for
When looking for a new gaming PC, you need to pay special attention to specs. More recent and more powerful components are better, but this increases the overall price of the system. You can sometimes find gaming rigs that have last-generation parts that will still play games well and save some cash.
GPU: A choice between Nvidia, AMD, or Intel in your system will determine how well the computer game graphics are displayed on your monitor. Nvidia has the most powerful GPUs, with the likes of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, but AMD's RX 9070 XT is also a great mid-range card. See our GPU hierarchy for an idea of GPU performance.
CPU: Either AMD or Intel will get the job done, but AMD currently rules the roost in pure gaming benchmarks, with the 9000-series X3D processors providing the best performance.
Memory: At a minimum, you'll want 16GB of RAM. Operating systems and browsers can swallow a huge chunk of your available system RAM before you even boot your game. Having 32GB of memory is ideal for gaming if you can splurge.
Storage: With the size of AAA games constantly expanding, you ideally want a minimum of 1TB of storage, preferably in the form of a fast M.2 SSD. You can do better than a spinning hard drive.
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