Building a budget-friendly 1080p Gaming PC – October 2025

Components

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor with a base clock of 3.8GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.1GHz. This makes it a strong performer in single-threaded tasks and a reliable workhorse for modern gaming. It delivers excellent value for money, striking a balance between affordability and future-ready features. With native support for PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory, the 7600 is built to handle faster data transfer rates for both your GPU and RAM, ensuring smoother performance and better future upgrade potential.

For CPU-bound titles or scenarios where frame rates are heavily influenced by processor speed, especially at 1080p, this chip holds its own remarkably well. While this particular build doesn’t yet take full advantage of PCIe 5.0 (nor does it need to), upgrading the PSU and GPU down the line will unlock that headroom, making the 7600 a smart, future-ready foundation for your system.

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X 120 Refined SE

The ThermalRight Assassin X is consistently one of the cheapest tower coolers on the market, delivering extraordinary value for money with performance that punches well above its weight class. As AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600 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.

Motherboard: ASRock B850M PRO RS WIFI

This stylish motherboard looks modern and futuristic and is equipped with attractive specifications. The Race Sport (RS) Edition is the evolution of the most popular PRO series motherboard. It supports the AM5 socket that our CPU uses and can accommodate up to the AMD Ryzen 9000 series processors. It can support up to 192GB of DDR5 RAM and has the potential to support RAM frequencies of up to 8000 MT/s with overclocking for dual-channel configurations like this build. The ASRock B850M PRO RS WIFI is a budget-friendly motherboard that offers some future-ready features, and we love that!

RAM: TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan DDR5

For this PC build, we’ve opted for the TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan DDR5 RAM kit in their standard, sleek black. It’s one of the most affordable DDR5 kits on the market, and as we’re not chasing aesthetics, this RAM is a strong pick. We’re seeking reliable performance at a sensible price. RGB might look nice, but it also inflates the cost unnecessarily. With current market conditions, intelligent compromises are key, or sacrifices have to be made.

This kit delivers solid latency and speed, making it a dependable choice for competitive gaming and general multitasking. If you spot a 32GB (2 x 16GB) with a 6000MHz frequency variant at a price you can justify, grab it while you can.

SSD: TeamGroup MP44L 1TB

For storage, we’ve picked out a solid Gen4 drive, the MP44L from TeamGroup. Again, this is another component you’ll likely be familiar with if you’ve followed our content over the past few years. This is a reliable Gen4 SSD with read speeds up to 5000MB/s, while write speeds sit around 4500MB/s. This Gen4 drive is an excellent choice for gaming, and its 1TB capacity provides some space for a range of modern titles. However, we recommend considering future storage expansion or opting for a larger drive, like the 2TB storage capacity, if you have the budget.

GPU: Gigabyte RX 9060 XT

For your GPU, we’re recommending two variants of the Gigabyte RX 9060 XT: the 8GB and the 16GB models. Both offer the same core architecture and performance at 1080p, but the 16GB version doubles the VRAM, which can make a noticeable difference in certain scenarios. Opting for the 16GB model gives you more breathing room at 1440p, better handling of high-resolution textures, and a longer runway for future titles that demand more memory. If your budget allows, the extra VRAM is a smart investment for smoother gameplay and broader longevity; overall, it’s our preferred pick.

Case: Montech XR Wood

This PC chassis by Montech has an airflow-focused design and is relatively easy to build in. In fact, the Montech XR Wood case is a favourite of our in-house team here at GeekaWhat for these reasons, and you can read up on our review for a more in-depth look.

Montech XR Wood Case Review – By Jay Harris

It’s a gorgeous case that seamlessly blends the elegance of American Walnut wood with a high-performance gaming design. This pairing presents a unique fusion of craftsmanship and technology to complement any Scandi-style or minimalistic setup. It comes pre-installed with four fans: three 120mm intake fans on the front panel and one 120mm exhaust fan on the rear – saving you from buying extra fans unless you want to.

PSU: MSI MAG A650BN

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 A650BN does a great job of achieving the right balance for this build, providing about 200 watts more of output 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. It is non-modular, meaning that all of the wires are connected already, saving you half the hassle of cable management. The XR Wood’s cable management channels and PSU shroud help keep things tidy.

As suggested in the CPU section, this PSU isn’t PCIe 5.0 ready, so if you feel like you might be upgrading your GPU in the coming years and want to spend more now to pay less later, we recommend the MSI MAG A750BN PCIE5 power supply instead, costing you roughly $10 to $20 more.

Gallery

Performance

The table below shows the frame rates for the Gigabyte RX 9060 XT graphics card with 8GB of VRAM. In 1080p, titles like Fortnite and Apex Legends push well beyond 250 FPS on average, which is ideal for high refresh rate monitors and latency-sensitive gameplay. Even in more demanding or less optimised titles like Marvel Rivals, the graphics card holds steady above 100 FPS, with 1% and 0.1% lows remaining playable.

At 1440p, the RX 9060 XT 8GB still performs admirably. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077 (both graphically intensive) remain smooth and responsive, especially with settings tuned for performance. F1 25 stands out with a strong showing above 100 FPS, making it an excellent match for sim racers who value fluid motion and input precision.

While the 8GB of VRAM is sufficient for most current titles, users planning to game at 1440p long-term or dabble in texture-heavy mods may benefit from the 16GB variant. That said, for pure 1080p competitive gaming, the 8GB model offers exceptional value and performance. These results show that the Gigabyte RX 9060 XT 8GB is more than capable of handling competitive 1080p gaming with ease.

The table below shows the frame rates for the Gigabyte RX 9060 XT graphics card with 16GB of VRAM. Unsurprisingly, the competitive games in 1080p receive flawless frame rates and even add around 20 FPS more per game on average for this resolution.

In 1440p, the RX 9060 XT 16GB performs better. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077 again remain smooth and responsive. F1 25 receives around 30 extra frames per second, and with this being a newer game, this is brilliant to see; a sign of how current optimisations will affect the performance of this card for the better. Most surprisingly, Cyberpunk 2077 threw a spanner in the works, and it appears that this 16GB card didn’t handle the game quite as well as the 8GB version at 1% and 0.1% Lows, but gave us a slight increase in frames on average, taking us from 84 FPS to 87 FPS.

As we can see, the RX 9060 XT 16GB of VRAM provides a significant performance uplift overall, sometimes almost doubling the output framerate in even the 0.1% Lows. This is truly amazing to see, and we hope you can understand why we recommend the 16GB model more.