Best $1000 Gaming PC Build – August 2025

Components

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X

The best place to start in any gaming PC build is with the CPU and GPU combo. Getting this combination right from the beginning not only gives you a good idea of the performance on offer in a build, but also ensures you are maximising the key value for money metrics. For the CPU in this build, we recommend AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X chip – with 6 cores, 12 threads, and strong clock speeds that easily surpass the 5GHz mark, it’s a well-rounded, high-performing option. The Ryzen 5 9600X has the edge in single-core applications and games due to its exceptional boost clock speed and low power budget. Because it consumes little power, it can sustain its 5.4GHz boost speed in modern games, making it an excellent pickup for 4K or 1440p with the right graphics card.

Crucially, it also lives on the AMD AM5 socket, which does a huge amount for ensuring good upgrade paths, and keeps motherboard costs down with a huge range of options to choose from.

While the Ryzen 5 9600X offers excellent performance and efficiency, it’s worth noting that it is one of the more affordable options. At the time of writing, it’s available for nearly $200, making it a great pickup for those restricted by a budget.

CPU Cooler: ThermalRight Assassin X 120 Refined SE

As AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X is reasonably powerful, we can expect high temperatures, which is why we recommend this cooler. It is a single-fan-based cooler that is quieter than most fridges, reaching a noise level of just ≤44.9dB(A). At a height of 148mm, this slimmer profile cooler is perfect for compact, mid-tower builds, leaving room for your other components whilst delivering powerful air cooling direct to your CPU. 

The ThermalRight Assassin X is also consistently one of the cheapest tower coolers on the market, delivering extraordinary value for money with performance that punches well above its weight class.

Motherboard: Gigabyte B850 Eagle WiFi 6E

Speaking of the motherboard in this build, our recommendation is to go with the Gigabyte B850 Eagle WiFi 6E. This motherboard is one of the best value motherboards on the market right now, given its fairly expansive feature set and strong connectivity options. Not only do you get PCIe 5.0 support on both the x16 GPU slot, but also for one of the M.2 SSDs, alongside support for DDR5 RAM kits ranging up to speeds of 8200MT/s.

The Gigabyte B850 Eagle WiFi 6E has become a staple in our builds. Sitting at a solid price point, the B850 Eagle boasts a strong feature set, providing all of the necessary features and connectivity needed, without breaking the bank. Whilst not the flashiest of designs, the two-tone minimalistic detailing offers great versatility and helps the B850 Eagle slot in perfectly across a wide range of PC Builds.

RAM: TeamGroup T Force Vulcan 32GB DDR5

The TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan is a great kit of memory for those looking to combine the best of DDR5 at a competitive price point. Regularly tracing as the cheapest, well-reviewed kit on Newegg, we have only ever had positive experiences with this kit. We also use it in a lot of the prebuilt PCs we sell over on GeekaPC, our sister PC building company, and have called upon its services in a range of builds on the channel.

We always recommend you go for a 32GB kit of memory, with a speed of at least 6000MT/s to ensure good performance. 16GB of RAM is very quickly being phased out, with 32GB not only becoming the new norm but the new minimum too.

This particular RAM kit also acts as a fairly low profile option, allowing it to slot right into the motherboard in this build without any pesky CPU Cooler clearance issues. The lack of any visible RGB not only benefits the clearance for this RAM kit but also the price, allowing us to trim out some cost without sacrificing on performance.

SSD: Crucial P3 Plus 1TB

Storage is a component area that has seen immense progress in recent years on the value and capacity fronts. There is perhaps no better example of this than the Crucial P3 Plus – an awesome value, fast PCI-E Gen 4.0 drive that brings strong speeds of 5000MB/s to the masses.

This drive is also available in a 2TB (Amazon) or 4TB (Amazon) derivative, depending on how much storage you need.

GPU: Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT Gaming OC 16GB

For the graphics card in this build, there is only really one option that makes sense, based on our in-house benchmarking and testing. That option is the Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT Gaming OC 16GB. I should emphasise here that we are recommending specifically the 16GB model, and not the far inferior 8GB counterpart. 

This card offers great performance at both 1080p and 1440p gaming, and does so at a significantly reduced MSRP when compared to its RTX 5060 Ti competitor from NVIDIA. In Apex Legends, for example, we have seen this card produce frame averages of 299.6 at 1080p High graphics, and in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the 9060 XT delivered 70.4 FPS at 1440p High graphics.

The 16GB of video memory is also crucially important should you wish to game at 1440p, whereby the extra pixels and texture quality do a great job of eating up more of the frame buffer.

Case: Montech XR

Montech is a brand that has only gone from strength to strength in recent years, and the XR is a superb case for those shopping on a budget. This elegant case is appealing to the eye with an unobstructed panoramic view of the internals. It features an in-line I/O panel at the bottom of the front of the chassis, which is ideal for on-the-desk PC storage due to its ease of access.

As mentioned, this chassis is well equipped for ultimate cooling efficiency with support for a top-mounted AIO, as well as side and rear cooling, meaning that your PC can stay cool in any scenario. It comes pre-fitted with  2 x 120mm reverse blade intake fans, and you also get a single 120mm standard fan at the rear with all three controlled through an RGB header that you plug up to the motherboard’s top panel. This case is minimalistic, but it is sure to show off your components in style, whilst remaining quiet with the efficient, integrated cooling it offers.

PSU: MSI MAG A650BN 650W

A clever power supply choice can be a great way to trim out some cost in a build, but you should always be careful with how you go about this. Ensuring you select a unit with sufficient wattage and a strong efficiency rating is critical for a build. The MSI’s A650BN does a great job of getting this balance right for this build, with around 200 watts of output more than AMD’s minimum suggested amount for the RX 9060 XT. The A650BN is reliable with up to an 85% efficiency rating, meaning that power consumption remains low whilst playing a crucial part in delivering high-performance gaming experiences.

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Performance

To evaluate the gaming performance of this build, we tested the system at 1080p and 1440p with high graphics settings in a range of titles, including both the most popular and the newest AAA titles, to get a balanced picture of how this build will perform.

In Call of Duty Black Ops 6, we saw frames of up to 155 per second in 1080p. In Fortnite at 1080p, it reached 263 frames per second. Meanwhile, Apex Legends at 1440p averaged 232 FPS! This is great for reducing input lag, meaning you can play competitive games with more confidence in your kit. This was even better than Cyberpunk, with an average of 87 frames at 1440p. Our testing shows that even this lower-end PC has all the components you need to have a smooth gameplay experience without completely breaking the bank.

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