Best Gaming PCs of 2026 — the top PCs we've benchmarked and reviewed

Gaming PCs are great because of the flexibility they offer. You can choose the parts you want to fit your needs and the type of games you play. While plenty of people like to put together their own PCs like the best PC builds, others prefer the simplicity of buying a rig that's ready to play out of the box.

If you're playing at 1080p, you may not need the highest-end CPU and graphics cards. But if you step up to 1440p or 4K, you'll want higher-end components. While a GPU is typically considered the gaming workhorse, a CPU is tied to gaming acumen and can help in multi-threaded workloads, including video processing, rendering, and encoding.

Intel's latest chips are its Core Ultra 200S series, which are more efficient but aren't great gaming performers compared to previous generations. For Intel loyalists, 13th and 14th Gen chips are still good choices. AMD's Ryzen 9000 processors are a bit more powerful, but the true gaming champion is the cache-heavy Ryzen 7 9800X3D. AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D, and Ryzen 9 9950X3D Dual Edition arrived in prebuilts this year.

Nvidia's RTX 50-series GPUs, including the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti are still the latest in graphics, as the company hasn't announced anything to replace them. AMD's RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 offer mainstream graphics with 16GB of VRAM. One other big component to look at is RAM, as the increasing price of memory is likely to lead to pricier builds; some boutique brands have options to find your own RAM and send it in to be included.

At Computex, we didn't see any major CPU or GPU announcements, suggesting that at least until the end of the year, we're likely to be looking at parts similar to what's out now. But AMD is re-releasing the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, so we'll have to wait and see if AM4 builds come back.

We'll jump into our tested picks for best prebuilt gaming PCs directly below. But if you want more advice about how to shop and specific things to look for, our buying advice follows our top gaming PC picks.

Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew is a Senior Editor on Tom's Hardware covering systems, including pre-built gaming PCs, laptops, consoles, and handhelds. He has been reviewing hardware for 10 years. While he loves his own DIY rig, Andrew appreciates pre-built gaming PCs because they let people easily step into PC gaming, and the best options give them the option to make customizations down the line.

Quick List

Best Prebuilt Gaming PCs You Can Buy Today

A powerful gaming PC with top-notch build quality

A great gaming PC feels like you could've built it yourself. Corsair's Vengeance a7500 uses a mix of its own components, an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti to make a premium system that runs fast and looks great.

In my testing, the Vengeance a7500 showed strong performance at 1080p, while most games, including Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2 were also playable at 4K.

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Typically, machines like Vengeance a7500 are pricier than the options that you also find from big box vendors. In the current environment, with pricey RAM and GPUs, the pricing here isn't as crazy as it used to be. And you get a two-year standard warranty that is better than what prebuilt buyers have come to expect.

If you dislike RGB, you may have some lighting to turn off, but between high-end components and strong build quality, the Vengeance is a great option.

Read: Corsair Vengeance a7500 review

Best Mid-range gaming PC

The Asus ROG G700 is a mainstream PC verging on the premium market, with its Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, and the fact that it's well put-together.

The glass case is quite nice, perhaps with the exception of a gamer manifesto printed on the PSU shroud, which I found to be a bit excessive, even for a gaming PC. In fact, I'd rather have more RGB customization options. But if you put your system on the floor, this won't matter so much.

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But beyond the aesthetics, you get solid gaming performance that should serve well both at 1080p and 1440p, and even 4K on less intensive games. At this price, you'd be surprised that you don't always get water cooling on the CPU, so I was very glad to see it here.

Some of the other specs should serve you well into the future. The system comes with 32GB of RAM and a roomy 2TB of storage. That's good, because the case doesn't have room for any 2.5- or 3.5-inch drives, just the SSDs on the motherboard.

If you game over Wi-Fi, you might be disappointed that this system has Wi-Fi 6 rather than Wi-Fi 7, but that can be updated down the line. If you can, we encourage you to play online games with an Ethernet connection.

Read: Asus ROG G700 review

Best Configurable gaming PC

While you can often get the best deals at big box stores, if you want something that truly feels like you built it yourself, going with a boutique shop is the answer. The Maingear MG-1 has a ton of configurable options, including both Intel and AMD processors and GPUs from AMD or Nvidia.

The biggest benefit to many will be the extremely clean cable management job. Maingear's new MK.II chassis supports backside motherboard connections, putting some cables out of sight and out of mind. If you like to personalize your system, the new chassis also has a replaceable front plate that you can pull off and swap out.

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Our review unit, with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edititon GPU and AMD Ryzen 9950X3D2, absolutely thrashed our benchmark suite, playing nearly everything in an excellent fashion at both 1080p and 4K resolutions.

Of course, to get the that configuration in this day and age costs a ton of money. Our review unit was over $7,000, but Maingear's systems start at $2,249 with its pre-configurd builds, so there's quite a range.This system doesn't have the hard tubing or automotive paint that some boutique builds have, but I'm OK with that. Perhaps its biggest issue int he build is that there aren't enough ports on the front of the case. I wish Maingear would include at least one more USB-A port.

Read: Maingear MG-1 review

A Powerful, Quiet PC with Room to Upgrade

Alienware's Area-51 has returned after a hiatus, and it's bringing standardized parts with it. Finally, we're getting back to an Alienware rig with an ATX motherboard and a PSU meant for a gaming rig, not a server.

What excited me the most about this PC was just how quiet it ran. I won't tell you the fans are silent, but between our stress tests and my playing games on it, I never felt the need to rush for a headset. And this was the case on both the Intel and AMD variants of this gamaing. PC. This surprised me, because there's no exhaust fan here — Alienware is using a series of large intakes to push cool air through the system and out the back.

While the RTX 5090 we tested the Alienware with is powerful, the Intel Core Ultra 285K isn't the best for gaming at 1080p. Surprisingly, the AMD version wasn't significantly better at 1080p in our testing, suggesting Alienware's implementation could be improved.

While the parts are standardized, you will need a $35 adapter kit to replace the motherboard, as it needs to attach to a special daughterboard for fans, RGB lighting, and the power button. For many parts of the system, you can scan QR codes with your phone to get detailed instructions on how to make the upgrade, which is a nice perk for PC builders getting into the space with the Area-51.

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The 80-liter chassis is massive, and takes up a ton of space on either a desk or a floor. While this leaves room for huge GPUs and plenty of uninterrupted airflow, you might want to consider other options if you prefer a mid-tower.

Read: Alienware Area-51 review

Best Budget Gaming PC

PC gaming is an expensive hobby, and prebuilt rigs can be expensive. That's why we were so impressed by the CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme, a budget PC that we tested at just $1,099.99 that's perfectly suitable for 1080p play.

That price also gets you 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD alongside the Intel Core Ultra 5 225F and MSI GeForce RTX 5060 Shadow 2X OC graphics cars. That SSD upgrade alone often costs a fortune from some competitors, but here you won't have to worry too much about installing a bunch of games.

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The Phanteks NV5 mid-tower case is stylish if you like fishbowl style. I particularly appreciate that this came without any bloatware — just stock Windows 11.

The only major issue we had with this machine at this price was the CPU cooler, which is very loud even when the system is at idle. You might want to make sure you have a good pair of headphones while you're gaming. Or you could use the cost savings from this PC to buy a better cooler down the line.

Read: CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme

A Small PC to Fit on Your Desk

It's not exactly a secret that many desktops end up sitting on the floor, not a desk. The Corsair One i500 is designed to fit on your desk, even if this version is a bit larger than previous iterations. The new model can fit large graphics cards, like the Nvidia RTX 4080 and RTX 4090, and also has a bit more room for upgradeability.

The One also follows another recent trend, offering wood paneling on the case. Corsair offers both dark and light wood, and in theory no two should look exactly the same. I'm a fan of the look, which mixes in some mid-century modern sensibilities with a bunch of metal and RGB.

Some of the cooling could use work, particularly on the CPU. There's a 120 mm radiator on the Core i9, but there's room for something bigger. That being said, performance didn't seem to suffer too much in my testing. It did great at 1080p and 4K, though it's not surprising that systems with RTX 4090 cards did even better.

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If you don't like bloatware, you'll like that the One comes largely clean. Corsair doesn't even use its own iCue software, instead opting for a minimalist app to control the RGB lighting. There's also a touch strip on the front to control the effects, but the software is more exact.

Read: Corsair One i500 review

Other Gaming PCs We Tested

👾CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop (GXi3800BSTV2)

This PC will turn hands with its MA-01 case that looks like nothing else. We were also impressed by its strong gaming performance, 360 mm liquid cooling, and relatively good value at the time we reviewed it. It's worth considering, but a lack of modern connectivity like USB4 and Wi-Fi 7 is unfortunate.

Read: CyberPowerPC Gaming Desktop (GXi3800BSTV2) review

👾Acer Nitro 65

This PC, combining a Ryzen 9 9900X and an RTX 5070 is positioned as an entry-level 4K system. While it looks nice and performs well, it's a bit pricey at over $2,000 and has louder fan noise than we'd like.

Read: Acer Nitro 65 review

How We Test Gaming PCs

How we test gaming PCs

We put prebuilt gaming PCs through a number of benchmarks and other tests as part of our review process.

Currently, games that we run and may include in our reviews are:

We also run a stress test, which currently consists of the Metro Exodus benchmark on the RTX preset, run 15 times in a loop while recording system statistics with HWInfo.

While productivity performance takes a backseat to gaming, we also run benchmarks such as Geekbench, Handbrake, and our proprietary file transfer test.

We also pore over a PC's build quality, components, cable management, and port selection. Ideally, we like to see a system that you can buy off the shelf, but upgrade or repair down the line if you need to. We prefer standardized parts and want to see clean cable management that makes it easy to swap out parts. In some more unique form-factors, we may give some of these a pass, but it has to provide benefits elsewhere.

If a test system includes a keyboard and mouse, we use them to evaluate if they add value or if you'll want to replace them. We don't typically penalize systems for not including peripherals.

Additionally, we spend time playing games and using systems on our own, playing games, listening for fan noise, and seeing how systems perform outside of benchmarks.

Gaming PC FAQs

GPU Hierarchy

The GPU is widely seen as the most important component in a gaming PC because it is the powerhouse behind graphics performance. In a pre-built, that's still the case, but you need to make sure you're getting a good value between the GPU, CPU, RAM, storage, motherboard, and other components.

Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy ranks current and past GPUs by performance so you can get an idea where your card stands. Here's a sampling of cards you may find in pre-built gaming PCs on the market now and how they rank:

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Discounts on the Best Gaming PCs

Discounts on the Best Gaming PCs

If you're looking for a system that's among our best gaming PCs or something similar, you may find savings by checking out the latest Newegg promo codes, Corsair coupon codes, Dell coupon codes, HP coupon codes, Lenovo coupon codes or Razer promo codes.