Best Budget Gaming PC Builds for 2025

Build Overview

What if I told you that for ~$800, you could build a computer that could serve as an excellent 1080P gaming PC and even as a good option for 1440P gaming?

That’s what this $800 gaming PC build brings to the table. Thanks to an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU, a Gigabyte RTX 5060 8GB video card, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, this budget PC build is capable of playing most games on a 1440P monitor at medium-to-higher settings with an excellent average frame rate.

And, of course, if you want to play on a 1080P monitor, this budget build will easily handle that, as benchmarks for the RTX 5060 8GB show that it is more than enough to get ~100+ FPS in even the most demanding titles.

In fact, pairing this build with a cheap 144Hz+ gaming monitor would make it an excellent option for competitive gamers. Whether, you’re playing Fortnite, Call of Duty, GTA, Apex Legends, Rocket League, or any other highly competitive game, this build will be powerful enough to deliver a high enough framerate to utilize a fast refresh rate display.

The build also includes a 1TB KLEVV CRAS C910 NVME SSD and a Thermaltake Gold-rated fully-modular 750W power supply. This power supply will handle any upgrades or additions you might want to make in the future.

And, while there are a ton of different cases you can choose between that would work for this build, we’ve included the Okinos Cypress 5. It’s an affordable mid tower case that offers a PSU comparment, four preinstalled 120mm fans, and wood accents.

Ultimately, this is one of the best budget gaming PC builds available. It can easily handle 1080P gaming, it will serve well for 1440P gaming, and it can even run some less-demanding games on a 4K monitor on mediumish settings.

Build Overview

With an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU and an Intel Arc B570 graphics cards, this is currently one of the best budget gaming PCs you can build for around ~$700 without shopping the used market.

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600 and the Arc B570 won’t be quite as powerful as the 5600/5060 combo from the $800 build above. However, it will still run pretty much any game on a 1080P monitor on at least higher settings.

This $700 gaming PC also comes with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and the Okinos Cypress 5 mid tower case. The Cypress 5 will hold this build with no problems and it will also provide excellent airflow out-of-the-box, with four 120mm fans preinstalled.

For storage, this build opts for a 1TB Gen 4 NVME SSD from KLEVV.

You also get a 650W 80 PLUS Bronze semi-modular power supply that will give you enough headroom to accommodate another mid-range GPU upgrade in the future. Although, if you want to bump up to a higher-tier GPU down the road, you’ll need to replace it with some bigger.

Overall, this budget build will offer solid performance at 1080P resolution and even run some non-demanding titles well enough at 1440P resolution.

Build Overview

The main difference between this $600 gaming PC build and the $700 build, is that this build has a less powerful Ryzen 5 5500 CPU and less power RTX 6600 graphics card. We have been able to fit in much better GPUs in this price range in the past, but due to the ongoing issues with GPU supplies, the best graphics card we can currently fit into this budget without sacrificing too much elsewhere, is the RX 6600.

We’d recommend that you consider shopping the used market for a GPU for around ~$200 if possible, as you can probably find something much more powerful than the RX 6600. But, if you want all new parts, the6600 isn’t terrible and it will allow you play any game on a 1080P display on at least medium settings.

The same can be said for the Ryzen 5 5500. It’s fine for an entry-level system, but it should be considered as a placeholder until you can afford something a little more powerful. Again, you could always shop the used market and try and fit in a more powerful CPU for this budget.

But, for popular games like Marvel Rivals, Minecraft, Fortnite, Call of Duty, or Valorant, the combination of the Ryzen 5 5500 and RX 6600 will be able to handle them well enough.

To round out the part list, this build comes with 16GB of DDR4 memory, a 1TB NVME SSD, a micro-ATX case that has three preinstalled 120mm fans, a 650-watt Bronze-rated power supply from Corsair, and a micro-ATX motherboard from Gigabyte.

With the 650-watt power supply, you’ll be able to easily upgrade your GPU to a mid-range option when you can afford to do so.

The bottom line, though, is that this system is a good budget build for the money and it will allow you to jump into PC gaming.

Build Overview

If you’re looking to spend ~$500, this gaming PC build might be the option for you.

These parts are capable of producing an experience on par with a some custom PC builder’s $800+ prebuilt gaming PC.

Still, though, with the budget limitations, there will be a noticeable drop in performance between this system and the $600 PC build listed above. But, if you’re mainly playing non-demanding titles (like Fortnite, Marvel Rivals, League of Legends, Minecraft, Rocket League, etc.) this system will get the job done.

Thanks to an AMD Ryzen 5 5500 processor, an RTX 3050 graphics card, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, this cheap $500 gaming PC build can run pretty much any game on a budget 1080p monitor.

This build also comes with a 500GB NVME SSD and a 600-watt power supply.

The 600-watt Bronze-rated power supply in this system will make upgrading the graphics card to a mid-range option very easy.

Overall, this system is a good starter build for anyone looking to get into PC gaming or anyone who is looking for the best cheap gaming PC for $500.

NOTE: If you want to maximize the performance you get out of such a low budget, you might be better off shopping the used market for at least your GPU and CPU. Of course, there is always risk in buying used components, but with such a low budget, it might be worth it in order to get a more powerful system.