Building An Awesome Gaming PC for Under $1000

Not so long ago, building a PC capable of running the latest titles at anything above 1080p settings for under $1000 seemed nigh on impossible. However, a number of price drops to various components, partly thanks to the introduction of new tech, has made it easier than ever to put together a solid gaming rig at an affordable price point. Additionally, a lot of manufacturers have carried on supporting their older hardware by making them compatible with their latest components.

That being said, it is still quite easy to get caught out by overpriced parts, leading to a gaming PC that costs more than its worth. For example, plenty of the latest RTX 4000 and Radeon 7000 graphics cards may seem more appealing on paper, but a lot of them are priced higher than their previous-gen counterparts, despite only offering slight improvements when it comes to raw performance.

Starting with the brains of the operation, the Ryzen 5 7600 is one of the cheaper CPUs within AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series line-up. Like many of the Ryzen 7000 processors, the 7600 isn’t the best for those looking to complete demanding work-oriented tasks, but it does enough to tackle most gaming scenarios.

With 6 cores and 12 threads, this CPU has the firepower needed to handle the demands of the latest games at lower settings, making it a strong choice for a budget-friendly gaming PC.

As this particular build doesn’t include lots of power-hungry components, we’ve decided to use an air cooler. More specifically, we’ve selected AK400 WH from DeepCool. Not only is this one of the best air coolers you can find, it is also a great option for those on a tight budget, as it provides plenty of airflow for a price that even the cheapest liquid CPU coolers can’t compete with.

Looking at the AK400 WH, the all-white aesthetic is a perfect addition to the theming of this build, providing a clean look to the inside of our system.

Another affordable component enters our build with Gigabyte’s B650 Gaming X AX motherboard. As far as boards on the AM5 platform are concerned, the Gaming X AX is arguably the best B650 motherboard available. Despite being on the cheaper side, this motherboard includes plenty of Gen4 PCI-E lanes for graphics cards and M.2 storage. Unfortunately, our budget doesn’t stretch far enough to include multiple graphics cards or SSDs in this build, but this does open up the possibility for future upgrades.

On top of this, the Gaming X AX includes a number of USB ports for hooking up gaming peripherals, and WiFi 6E for a wireless and hassle-free network connection.

Speaking of RAM, we’ve managed to pick up a good deal with the white version of XPG’s Lancer RGB kit. Memory has been one of the biggest areas in which prices have plummeted in recent times, with DDR5 memory being very easy to pick up at a reasonable price point. RAM is one of the areas where the budget for this setup was slightly more lenient, as you can significantly improve the performance and longevity of a build by spending just a little bit more on high-quality memory.

The 2 x 16GB DDR5 kit of XPG’s Lancer RGB RAM is the perfect addition to this build, both in terms of performance and design.

It’s a double-whammy for XPG, as we’ve also included their Gammix S70 Blade SSD in our configuration. To be more specific, we picked up the 1TB version, as this will be more than enough to store a combination of AAA blockbusters and indies at once. However, there are other variants with different capacities for increase storage or cut costs.

This isn’t the cheapest 1TB Gen4 SSD on the market, but the Gammix S70 Blade is competitively priced when you take performance into account. Boasting read and write speeds of up to 7.4GB/s and 6.8GB/s respectively, this SSD is very fast, leading to minimal load times when booting up games from this drive.

The GPU is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects of a gaming PC due to its major influence on gaming performance. Whilst AMD and NVIDIA have released a number of new Radeon 7000 and RTX 4000 series cards in 2023, we’ve chosen the RX 6700 XT from AMD’s Radeon 6000 series. Simply put, this is one of the best GPUs to pick up for budget-friendly 1440p gaming.

The main reason for this is due to the 12GB of VRAM, which is significantly better than the 8GB VRAM found on most of the current-gen offerings at a similar price point.

To house all of the components within our build, we’ve chosen the Montech AIR 903 Max, which is one of the best white PC cases catering for builders on a variety of budgets. Featuring a design that offers a strong balance of appearance and convenience, this case will elevate our build in various ways.

The all-white aesthetic coincides with the majority of parts included in this configuration, contributing to the clean and minimalistic look.

Additionally, this case puts a heavy emphasis on airflow, which is important for any gaming PC using an air cooler, as their limited efficiency requires assistance to maximise airflow.

Last but not least, the powerhouse of this build is Corsair’s CX750F RGB. Admittedly, this isn’t the CX750M used in our video tutorial of this build, but the CX750F RGB is arguably a better choice that is available for a similar price. With one of the few power supplies to include RGB lighting and a white colour-scheme, this is a natural fit with the chassis and accompanying parts in this build.