Best Gaming PC Build Under $1,000 for 2024

This $1,000 build is the perfect 1440P gaming machine.

Best $1,000 Gaming PC Build for 2024

Are you looking to hop into higher resolution gaming? With a budget of around ~$1,000, you can build a monster 1440P gaming computer.

With an AMD Ryzen 5 5600, a Radeon RX 7800 XT, and 16GB of RAM, this build will run any game on a 2K display and maintain a very high average framerate.

You will have to build it, though, as you’ll be hardpressed to find this kind of performance out of a similarly-priced prebuilt PC. Fortunately, that’s easy to do with our Step-By-Step PC Building Guide.

How We Choose

Tech Guided has been covering PC hardware for over a decade and has helped thousands of gamers build their first computers.

With years of hands-on experience building systems, we are always looking for the best parts at the best prices, so that you can get a part list that will give you the most gaming performance possible.

We’ve put together a Beginner’s Guide to Choosing Components on YouTube and you can also watch us build PCs on our channel.

Important: For help choosing parts or for any questions you might have, check the FAQ section below, or ask a question in the comment section.

You can also check out our guide on the Best Gaming PC Builds for more partlists at a variety of budgets.

Watch Us Build This PC

Or, watch it on YouTube here.

Part List for $1,000 PC Build

AMD Ryzen 5 5600 ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 XFX Speedster QICK319 RX 7800 XT Montech AIR 903 MAX
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600

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MOBO ASRock B550

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GPU XFX RX 7800 XT

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RAM TEAMGROUP 16GB

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SSD ADATA 1TB

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CASE Montech AIR 903

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PSU Thermaltake 750W

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Grand Total: $970-$1,030

PRICE ON AMAZON »

*Prices on PC components change on a daily basis. Click ‘Price on Amazon’ to see the most-up-to-date price.

**The ‘Grand Total’ price includes the parts that make up the computer only. You’ll need an operating system and Windows costs ~$125 for an activation key. However, you can still install Windows for free and it will work indefinitely without activating it with no problems—there will just be a watermark at the bottom left of your screen asking you to activate it.

Next Option: $1,500 Gaming PC Build »

$1,000 PC Build Overview

You’re not messing around anymore. No more consoles. No more cheap laptops. No more older desktops that can barely run Minecraft. It’s finally time to ascend.

This $1,000 build is no joke. This thing is ready to handle anything you throw at.

For specs, this $1,000 build comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 processor, an XFX RX 7800 XT 16GB graphics card, 16GB of TEAMFORCE Vulcan-Z RAM, an ADATA 1TB NVME SSD, a tempered glass case from Montech, and a Thermaltake 750W 80 PLUS Gold fully modular power supply.

Benchmarks

Want to hook this build up and never have to think about your framerates again? Well, sorry, that won’t happen with this build. You will be thinking about your framerates…

…and, how ridiculously high they are.

As mentioned in the intro, this build can handle gaming on a 1440P 240Hz+ monitor and will serve as a nice entry point into 4K gaming as well. So, even if you do start out with a 1080P monitor, this build can easily accommodate a monitor upgrade in the future, too.

For 1080P gaming, it would be best to pair this build with a 360Hz+ display. Anything less and you’ll likely be wasting the power of the 7800 XT. If you do just want to game at 1080P, you could save some money and opt for something like an RX 7600 instead, or you could bump up from the odler Ryzen 5 5600 to the newer Ryzen 5 7600.

Here are some benchmarks at 1440P resolution of this  $1,000 gaming PC build:

Starfield

Starfield Benchmark

Palworld

Palworld Benchmark

Fortnite

Fortnite Benchmark

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmark

Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3 Benchmark

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

AC Valhalla Benchmark

Other Components

To hold the components in this system, we’ve chosen the Montech AIR 903 Max. This Montech case is a fairly affordable E-ATX case that will give you more than enough room to house the parts in this build. It also comes with four preinstalled fans—three of which are RGB fans. Those fans alone would cost ~$45 extra. Most cases only come with a single non-RGB fan—so the AIR 903 Max is an incredible steal for ~$75.

For the power supply, you get an 80 Plus Gold-rated Tier A fully-modular power supply from Thermaltake. This unit has enough capacity to accommodate the 7800 XT as well as allow for some overclocking.

Ultimately, this build is a powerful machine that will allow you to max out your favorite games for years to come.

Build FAQ

We chose each of these components for a reason—but there are viable alternatives. Below, we discuss why we chose the components listed above for this build and what other alternatives there are…

1. How Do I Build This PC?

You will need to assemble all of the individual components you have purchased into a working PC. Fortunately, this process is not difficult! And, it’s a lot of fun. If you’ve never built a PC before, use our Step-by-Step PC building guide to walk you through the process.

How to Build A Gaming PC: Step-by-Step

2. AMD or Intel Processor?

In my opinion, you have a bunch of viable CPU options with a $1,000 PC build. We decided to try and max out the GPU performance we could get with this $1,000 part list and, to do so, we chose an affordable CPU that would not bottleneck RX 7800 XT.

That CPU is the AMD Ryzen 5 5600.

It would be worth it to check and see what the price of the Ryzen 5 5600X or Intel Core i5-12400F or 13400F are before you decide. But at the time of updating this guide the Ryzen 5 5600 was priced significantly cheaper than those other three options.

Any of these options would be good choices for this build, though. And, if you don’t need as much GPU performance as the 7800 XT offers, you could always drop down to something like an RX 6650 XT or RX 7600 and get a higher-end CPU.

3. Is 16GB Enough for Gaming?

While the growing consensus among gamers is that “you need at least 16GB of RAM,” the truth is that it really depends on what games you are playing and whether or not you are running other games while you play your games.

Some of today’s most-played titles are games that still don’t use over 8GB of RAM (League of Legends, Rocket League, CS:GO, etc.) However, for the AAA titles that are being released, games like Elden Ring, Starfield, and the Tomb Raider series (as examples) are starting to utilize well over 8GB of RAM (and, in some instances, even over 16GB of RAM).

Fortunately, getting 16GB of RAM into a $1,000 PC build will be fairly easy. You could opt for more RAM in this build as well, but if you have a strict $1,000 budget, you’d likely have to downgrade your graphics card in order to accommodate the extra memory—and, that wouldn’t be worth it. Of course, if you can stretch your budget another ~$30-$40, you could opt for 32GB of RAM to future proof your system.

4. Plenty of Case Options

There are so many different gaming cases available in the ~$45-$75 price range that would work for this build. We chose the Montech AIR 903 Max E-ATX case, though, because of its affordable price, out-of-the-box cooling, RGB lighting, and aesthetics.

There are a lot of solid case options in the ~$50-$100 price range, though. You can check out some of our recommendations in our PC Case Buyer’s Guide.

5. How Big of A Power Supply?

We use Outervision’s PSU calculator to determine the power consumption for each of our builds. Accoding to Outervision, even in the most extreme scenarios, this $1,000 gaming PC will require a minimum ~550W power supply.

So, we went with a little bit of extra headroom with a 750-watt unit to ensure there would be no problems down the road. This will not only accommodate this build easily, but it will also allow for GPU upgrades in the future that won’t also require a power supply upgrade.

Check out our guide on How to Choose the Right Power Supply for Your Build.

Conclusion: A Build That Will Max Out Anything

Really, if I had to choose what the perfect budget was for building a gaming computer in terms of value, I would probably say right around the $1,000 mark. As you can see, in this price range you can afford a list of components that will allow you to play any game out there on the highest settings on a 1080P or 1440P monitor.

These parts are also good enough to handle most games at 4K resolution as well.

And, you also get plenty of storage, too. Finally, if you can get the cable management right on this build, and maybe throw in some RGB fans on the front and back of the case, this build will look really nice, too.

So, overall, for ~$1,000 this gaming PC build has everything most gamers could ever want or need.

If you have any questions about the build, or need help choosing components, leave a comment in the section below and we will help you out.

Get Help With Your Build: If you need help putting together a part list for your build post your questions in the comment section!

Hey, I’m Brent. I’ve been building PCs and writing about building PCs for a long time. Through TechGuided.com, I've helped thousands of people learn how to build their own computers. I’m an avid gamer and tech enthusiast, too. On YouTube, I build PCs, review laptops, components, and peripherals, and hold giveaways.

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