The Best $800 Gaming PC Build for 2024

The perfect $800 build for 1080P or 1440P gaming.

$800 PC Build 2024

Do you want to max out games with an extreme average framerate? Or, do you want to start gaming on a 1440P display? Then, this $800 build is what you’re looking for.

With an RX 6750XT, an Ryzen 5 5600, and 16GB of RAM, this build is an excellent option for either 1080P or 1440P gaming. You won’t find this kind of performance available on a similarly-priced prebuilt system.

You’ll just need to build it yourself. But, that’s easy to do with our Step-By-Step PC Building guide.

How We Choose

Tech Guided has been putting together build part lists for over a decade. Over that time, we’ve helped thousands of gamers build their first PCs.

With nearly 20 years experience building PCs and testing PC hardware, we always look for the best components at the best prices, to offer you a set of parts that will deliver the most gaming performance possible for your budget.

Check out our Beginner’s Guide on Choosing Components series on YouTube for an idea of what we look for when choosing parts.

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.

For more affordable gaming PC builds at various price points, check out our Cheap Gaming PC Build guide.

Part List for $800 PC Build

AMD Ryzen 5 5600 GIGABYTE B550M K ASRock RX6750 XT Challenger Pro 12GB OC Zalman M3 Plus
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600

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MOBO Gigabyte B550M

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GPU ASRock RX 6750 XT

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RAM TEAMGROUP 16GB

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SSD Crucial P3 Plus

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CASE Zalman M3

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PSU Thermaltake 650W

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Grand Total: $770-$830

PRICE ON AMAZON »

*Component prices fluctuate daily. Click ‘Price on Amazon’ to see the most-up-to-date price.

**You’ll need an operating system. Windows 11 is free to download but a license costs ~$125. However, you can still install Windows for free and it will work indefinitely without activating it—there will just be a watermark at the bottom left of your desktop asking you to activate it.

$800 PC Build Overview

If you’ve read our guide on building a $700 gaming computer, then it might surprise you that this $800 gaming PC build isn’t that much different. For our $800 build, we’ve upgraded to an RX 6750 XT graphics card, though, and that will give you a solid jump in GPU performance.

For the full hardware configuration of this build, it comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 processor, ASRock’s Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB graphics card, 16GB of TEAMGROUP’s T-Force Vulcan Z 3600MHz memory, a 1TB NVME SSD from Crucial, Zalman’s M3 Plus micro-ATX case, and Thermaltake’s 650-watt power supply.

Performance

This $800 system will give you ideal performance on a 1080P monitor and, really, it should be paired with a higher refresh rate Freesync monitor to take full advantage of the RX 6750 XT.

You can even use this system as a decent 1440P gaming computer as it will be able to handle most games on at least medium settings on a 1440P monitor—if not higher. And, it does meet the requirements for both the Valve Index and HTC Vive. So, if you want to give tethered VR-gaming a go, this system will allow you to do so.

Check out the FAQ section for a better idea of what this build is capable of.

Roomy RGB Case

For the case, we opted for the Zalman M3 Plus. It’s a roomy micro-ATX case that can hold larger graphics cards, has a tempered glass side panel, a grilled front panel, and four preinstalled fans—all of which are RGB. Most cases in this price range only come with one fan preinstalled. So, the M3’s combination of the grilled front panel and the four fans will provide exceptional airflow.

Gold Modular PSU

And, for the power supply, we chose Thermaltake’s Toughpower 650W unit. It’s an 80PLUS Gold-rated unit that comes with full modularity. This power supply will be more than powerful enough to run this system and being fully modular, it will make the assembly process and cable management during the build a lot easier.

Ultimately, for just under $800, this gaming PC is going to be an excellent option for people who don’t have thousands of dollars to spend, but who want to do some serious gaming—whether that’s competitive gaming on a higher refresh rate monitor, or achieving better visuals on a 1440P display.

Build FAQ

While we try to put the best list of parts together as possible, the reality is that prices are always changing and different people having different needs. There are always other alternatives and different components you can go with.

So, in the section below we’ll highlight some of those different options you have, as well as go over some potential upgrades you might want to make down the road. We’ll also cover what kind of gaming performance you can expect out of this system at various resolutions and across different levels of games.

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. What Performance Can I Get Out of this Build?

This $800 build comes with an RX 6750 XT graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 processor, and 16GB of memory, all of which will help it run any game on a 1080P monitor on max settings with no problems. In terms of the types of games you can play at different resolutions, the following will give you a good idea of what you can expect out of this system:

  • Non-demanding games like Minecraft, Roblox, Rocket League, Apex Legends, and League of Legends, should run at ~200+ FPS on ultra settings on a 1080P monitor
  • Demanding games like Elden Ring, Halo Infinite, Call of Duty, God of War, Assassin’s Creed, etc. should run at ~100+ FPS on ultra settings on a 1080P monitor
  • Non-demanding games (see above for examples) should run at ~100+ FPS on higher settings on a 1440P monitor
  • Demanding games (see above for examples) should run at ~60FPS on medium-to-higher settings on a 1440P monitor
  • This system also meets the requirements for running both the HTC Vive and Valve Index–so it is a VR-ready gaming PC

These are rough estimates and will vary from game-to-game and scenario-to-scenario.

3. Why Not Upgrade to an RTX 4060 Ti or RX 6800?

At the time of writing this post, the system currently comes in pretty close to $800 and, unfortunately, the RTX 4060 Ti, and the RX 6800 are just expensive enough to where they won’t quite fit into the budget. However, if you can find one of these graphics cards in the low-to-mid ~$300s they would be worth bumping up to from the RX 6750 XT.

If you can stretch your budget ~$50-$100, though, by all means, opt for one of the more powerful GPUs listed above.

4. What About an Operating System? Don’t I Have to Pay for That?

We leave the price of Windows 11 out of our builds because there are different ways to get an operating system for less than the $100 that Windows 11 costs. Not all of these methods are ideal, but we figured we’d let you decide which operating system and/or method for getting a copy of Windows is the best option for you. Here are three alternatives to paying ~$100 for a copy of Windows 11:

First, you could install a free Linux-based operating system. This is probably the worst option as you won’t be able to play certain games that aren’t compatible with Linux, but you will save $100.

Second, you could buy a Windows 11 key from a third party marketplace for ~$30. I’ve had good success purchasing Windows keys from Kinguin.net and G2A.com in the past, but there is definitely some risk involved in purchasing a Windows license from a third party source, as it is not technically a method of purchasing Windows that is approved by Microsoft.

Finally, you could just install Windows 11 for free and not activate it with a license key. In my opinion, this is probably the best route to go if you’re working with a tight budget. The ~$125 that Windows 11 costs could be the difference between running your games at max settings and running them at medium-or-lower settings.

Essentially, though, Microsoft allows anyone to install Windows onto their computer without forcing them to activate it. And, for the most part, you can still use Windows normally even when it’s not activated. The only thing you will lose out on is some customization options like setting a custom background for your desktop and you also won’t be able to access Microsoft for support (although this isn’t that big of a deal—I’ve used Windows-based systems for nearly 20 years and I’ve never once called Microsoft to ask them for help with Windows).

But, I think in order to save ~$125, that is not a bad trade-off cost. And, at the very least, you could run the non-activated version of Windows for the time being until you can afford to purchase an activation key for it.

5. Upgrade Paths for This System

The reality is that, if you’re just looking for a computer that can easily max games out on a 1080P monitor, or even play games on a 144Hz monitor or a 1440P monitor, then this system will hold up just fine without needing to be upgraded. However, there are always upgrades that can be made. The first upgrades we would make would be to…

The first upgrade we’d make to this build would be to upgrade the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 to a Ryzen 7 5700X3D. This won’t make an enormous difference in terms of your average framerate, but with AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology, it will provide a noticeable boost to your 1% low framerate, which will help provide a much smoother experience.

And, while the RX 6750 XT graphics card should be perfectly fine for 1080P and 1440P gaming (and even some 4K gaming), if you want to jump up to serious 4K gaming, you’re going to need to upgrade your graphics card to a more extreme option.

It should be noted that all of the above listed GPU upgrades would likely require a PSU upgrade as well.

This build comes with a 1TB NVME SSD and, while that is a decent amount of storage capacity to start out with, it can run out quickly if you have a lot of games/files. So, if you want to beef of your storage capacity you can add an additional SSD.

Also Read: The Best SSDs for Gaming Right Now

Ultimately, though, this build is really solid as is and, if you’re just gaming on a 1080P  monitor, it shouldn’t require an upgrade for a long time.

Conclusion: For Just $800, You Get A Well-Rounded PC Build

In my opinion, if you’re looking for a solid all-around gaming computer that can handle anything on a 1080P monitor, run tethered virtual reality headsets, and serve as a nice entry-level 1440P system, this $800 build is an option worth considering. It should hold up just fine for 1080P gaming for at least the next 4-5 years (and probably well beyond that). And, the included SSD and extra RAM will help this system work pretty well for content creation, too.

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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