With an RX 7800 XT 16GB graphics card, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X processor, the sky is the limit with this $1,000 gaming PC build.
If you have right around $1,000 to spend on a new gaming PC build, you have enough to build a really solid system. This budget will land you components that will also allow you to max out most games on a 1440P monitor as well as provide a solid 4K gaming experience. But, in order to get such a powerful system for the amount you have to spend, you’re going to have to take on the challenge of building your own PC in order to get such a powerful build.
You could opt for a $1,000 prebuilt gaming PC. But you’ll be leaving a lot of performance on the table. Fortunately, building a PC is easy. (Check out our Step-By-Step PC Building Guide to get an idea of what the process is like.)
In this guide, we’ve listed all of the components and parts you’ll need to build a powerful PC for $1,000.
Table of Contents
You can also check out our guide on the Best Gaming PC Builds for more partlists at a variety of budgets.
Part List for $1,000 PC Build
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| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 5600X | |
| MOBO | ASRock B550 | |
| GPU | GIGABYTE RX 7800 XT | |
| RAM | TEAMGROUP 16GB | |
| SSD | ADATA 1TB | |
| CASE | Phanteks P400A | |
| PSU | XPG 750W |
Grand Total: $970-$1,030
*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 5600X processor, a GIGABYTE RX 7800 XT 16GB graphics card, 16GB of TEAMFORCE Vulcan-Z RAM, an ADATA 1TB NVME SSD, a tempered glass case from Phanteks, and an XPG 750W 80 PLUS Gold fully modular power supply.
Performance
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.
Check out the benchmarks below for a better idea of what this build is capable of.
Other Components
To hold the components in this system, we’ve chosen the Phanteks P400A. This Phanteks case is a fairly affordable mid tower case that will give you more than enough room to house the parts in this build. It also comes with three preinstalled RGB fans—which on their own would cost ~$45 extra. Most cases only come with a single non-RGB fan—so the P400A is an incredible steal for ~$80.
For the power supply, you get an 80 Plus Gold-rated Tier A fully-modular power supply from XPG (ADATA). 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.
Note: If you’re not up for building your own computer, click the “Shop Pre-Builts” button in the section above to see a similarly priced pre-built gaming computer.
5600x + RX 7800 XT Benchmark
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…
FAQ
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 5600X.
You could save even more money and opt for something like an Intel Core i5-12400F. But we felt the slightly more expensive 5600X offered the better platform to build on thanks to the fact that it can be overclocked and that it comes with a decent stock cooler.
You could also go even lower and get the non-X variant Ryzen 5 5600. And, in fact that would probably be the cheapest route you could go without causing a bottleneck on the 7800 XT.
But, the 5600X fits in this budget easily, will perform on par with the i5-12400F, will outperform the 5600, will allow for overclocking, and comes with a decent stock cooler.
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 in 2023,” 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 Phanteks P400A mid tower case, though, because of its affordable price, out-of-the-box cooling, RGB lighting, and aesthetics.
The Phanteks P400A comes with a tempered glass side panel, a full length PSU shroud, a mesh front panel, and three pre-installed RGB fans.
And, really, that’s where the P400A really stands out…
Most cases in this price range only come with a single non-RGB fan preinstalled. And, RGB case fans usually cost about ~$20 a piece. So, really, the P400A is saving you a ton of money, not only in its base price, but in RGB fans as well.
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.
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