You can still build a great $1000 budget gaming PC with Amazon Prime Day parts — 32GB of RAM and RTX 5060 Ti power beats out the Steam Machine and cheap prebuilts

PC building during the RAMpocalypse and NANDpocalypse is challenging, to be sure, but you can still put together a great and relatively affordable box that will last during Prime Day thanks to abundant deals on core components. Yes, memory and SSDs are pricey, but we can dull some of the pain with deep discounts elsewhere.

For a $1000 budget, we've put together a great 1080p gaming PC with a 10-core Core i5-12600KF CPU and an RTX 5060 Ti 8GB graphics card for the best 1080p bang-for-the-buck you can find (and an RX 9060 XT 16GB alternative for $100 more if 8GB is a bridge too far).

Yes, the Core i5-12600KF is getting up there in years, and its P-cores lack the extra L2 of 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, but it boasts higher clocks and a higher TDP than non-K 13th and 14th-gen parts for better multi-threaded performance. For this low price, we'll deal.

$1,000 Prime Day gaming PC: Quick list

Intel Core i5-12600K 10-Core Processor: $179.97 at Newegg
Thermalright Assassin X 120 Refined SE CPU cooler: $17.89 at Amazon
ASUS B760M-AYW WIFI D4 II Intel B760 (LGA 1700) mATX motherboard: $89 at Newegg
Silicon Power 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3600 kit: $198 at Newegg
Silicon Power UD90 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen4x4 M.2: $144.99 at Silicon Power
MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB: $309 at Newegg with promos
(Upgrade) XFX Swift AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT: $419 at Woot
Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L Micro-ATX PC Case: $32.99 at Amazon
ASRock PRO Series PRO-750G 750 W PSU: $54.99 at Newegg

Crucially, this PC still features 32GB of RAM for no-worries gaming with the latest titles and 1TB of storage for adequate room for files and games. Cheaper prebuilts might include just 16GB of RAM and a claustrophobia-inducing 512GB SSD. This is a PC that will last, and that matters in today's tight market.

The RTX 5060 Ti 8GB is selling for less than the slower RTX 5060 8GB right now, so you may as well take the free performance boost if you were only going with an 8GB card to begin with. The 5060 Ti gives you access to leading DLSS 4.5 upscaling across a huge swath of games, as well as MFG in titles that don't overrun its VRAM.

On top of the 5060 Ti 8GB's much higher baseline performance than the Steam Machine's GPU, DLSS 4.5 is a secret weapon for this build, thanks to its far superior image quality versus FSR on top of its AI-powered performance boost.

A quality Cooler Master case and 80 Plus Gold power supply make this a 1080p gaming build you (or a lucky kid or family member) can depend on for a long time to come.

$1,000 Prime Day gaming PC

All those parts should add up to about $1029.76. If you're seeing higher totals in your cart, make sure to apply every available promo code and redeem every mail-in rebate you see to get the lowest possible prices during these Prime Day sales. Happy building!

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As the Senior Analyst, Graphics at Tom's Hardware, Jeff Kampman covers everything that has to do with graphics cards, gaming performance, and more. From integrated graphics processors to discrete graphics cards to the hyperscale installations powering our AI future, if it's got a GPU in it, Jeff is on it.