What Is The Best Gaming Pc You Can Buy
When you're in the market for a gaming PC, there's a lot to consider: power, size, components and what resolution you want to play at. If all you need is to play a few AAA titles at 1080p, you won't need a high-end CPU and graphics card.
what is the best gaming pc you can buy
But if you want to play at 1440p or 4K, then you need to start thinking about saving more for your rig. CPU horsepower is also tied to gaming acumen, but branching out into anything much over a quad-core processor will primarily see performance gains in multi-threaded workloads such as video processing, rendering and encoding, not games.Because component shortages have become less of a problem, you may now be able to get a prebuilt gaming PC with one of the best graphics cards for gaming without paying a hefty premium or having to wait weeks or months for you system to arrive.
It's that time of year where new CPUs are starting to come out. AMD recently launched its Ryzen 7000 processors, which have proven to be their strongest gaming chips yet. Not to be outdone, Intel's 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" chips, have generally been more impressive for the price.
On the graphics front, Nvidia is in the process of rolling out its latest RTX 40-series cards, starting with the RTX 4090. Those will coexist with the current RTX 30-series, and presumably mid-range 40-series cards will come out sometime soon. Intel launched its Arc A770 and A750, providing power on the low-end and mid-range, and AMD's high-end 7900 XT and 7900 XTX are also recent powerful performers in the mix.We'll jump into our tested picks for best prebuilt gaming PCs directly below. But if you want more advice about how to shop and specific things to look for, our buying advice follows our top gaming PC picks.
If you're looking for the best of the best, the MSI Infinite RS 13th delivers top-of-the-line performance, as long as you're willing to pay for it. Between the 13th Gen Intel Core i9 and a liquid-cooled Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, this system delivers awesome performance, while still being quiet and upgradeable down the line.All of the parts are standard, and the case (the MSI Prospect 700RL) is roomy. In fact, for some it may be too roomy! But it can fit the two radiators and nine fans that made this system all but silent in our testing.A keyboard and mouse are included, though you'll likely want to get something a bit nicer.In our testing, we got some incredible performance out of the Infinite. If you value smooth gameplay and upgradeability out of your prebuilt and will sacrifice room on or under your desk, this is the one to consider.Read: MSI Infinite RS 13th review
The Alienware Aurora R15's biggest updates are all about cooling. Alienware parent Dell has added in a 240 mm radiator, finally moving on from a 120 mm cooler, which should allow for much better CPU performance. There is also more ventilation on the side, and this all made for a quieter PC to our ears.It's not much of a surprise that with an Intel Core i9-13900KF and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, the Aurora plowed through our benchmarks measuring gaming and productivity performance.On the one hand, we really like how many ports are accessible on the front of the Aurora, including three USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The downside is that Alienware is using a proprietary motherboard to achieve that, making it difficult to fully upgrade the system in the future.The GPU, RAM and CPU are accessible on our model, and there's room for additional storage. (Our review unit was maxed out, so there wouldn't be much of a reason to make many changes outside of storage anytime soon).Read: Alienware Aurora R15 Review
No intense lighting, no glass windows, just a small tower packed with gaming power. The iBuypower Revolt 3 has steel panels, black mesh and a largely subtle design. It's clever, though, with two headset hangers and a built-in handle to carry it to your next LAN party.At $2,599 as tested with an Intel Core i7-11700KF and an RTX 3080, it's not listed at a crazy price considering today's component shortage. And those components offer excellent performance in this tiny chassis.Small form factor PCs can bring some oddities. This one has the motherboard I/O on the bottom of the case, so you have to lift it up to plug in or remove peripherals. Additionally, there is limited room in this case for when you want to make upgrades.We also happen to like this case this system comes in on its own, if you're looking to build your own PC.
The Lenovo Legion Tower 7i isn't the flashiest prebuilt gaming PC, but with standardized parts, it's upgradeable for the future. We're fans of the board's four M.2 slots, which allow room for lots of storage (though one is taken up by the Wi-Fi card).
There are four USB Type-A ports on the front, which is a nice amount for a gaming desktop, and it means you won't have to reach behind the system just to plug in some accessories or external storage.The combination of the Intel Core i9-13900KF and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 provided strong gaming scores across our benchmarks. Those should also make for a powerful workhorse, though our system wasn't running at advertised RAM speeds. While it includes DDR5-5600 RAM in the system, the sticks ran at 4,400 MHz, which may have an effect, particularly in productivity applications.
If you're looking for a system that's among our best gaming PCs or something similar, you may find savings by checking out the latest Newegg promo codes, Corsair coupon codes, Dell coupon codes, HP coupon codes, Lenovo coupon codes or Razer promo codes.
One of the most significant advantages of building your PC is the ability to hand-pick every single component in the system. This enables you to shop around for deals and find the best combination of parts to fit your budget and performance needs. The downside for most inexperienced builders is that this process can take some time and cause quite a headache if something goes wrong. You only get warranties on the individual components, not your finished build, and this is where the best prebuilt gaming PCs shine.
When you pay the premium to configure or purchase a prebuilt PC, you pay for more than just the parts. You pay for warranty service, support, and peace of mind that professionals put your system together. These are some of the things we value highly when considering what the best gaming PC is. We also look at other selling points, like design, upgradability, and anything you wouldn't be able to do when building it yourself.
When we set out to choose our top choices of prebuilt gaming PCs, we look at almost every major manufacturer and system integrator to find the best combination of value, reliability, customer feedback, design, and performance for various budgets and needs.
The best gaming PC is meant to bring you hours and hours of joy. It's more than a collection of fancy bits stuffed in a case. That's why what we look out for in our testing is a complete system built with care by professionals and tailored to gaming performance. We also want to see that the manufacturer has put thought and care into selecting its components to fit your budget without cutting corners. And after all our testing, the best gaming PC is the NZXT BLD Kit (opens in new tab). The range offers the perfect mix of affordability, power, and sheer joy. You don't have to put it together yourself, you get to, and it's genuinely fun.
We've all seen how hard it's been to get components like the best graphics cards throughout the last couple of years. And if finding them wasn't difficult enough, they often sell well above MSRP to the point where it feels like a rip-off. There has been some improvement in product availability and pricing in 2023. Still, it remains true that the buying power of system builders means they generally have a better chance of getting hold of a new piece of hardware than you do on your own. That means it's easier and often cheaper to chase down that desirable new GPU by buying the best gaming PC and, for the most part, passing those savings onto you. I get it; nothing is better than building your own gaming rig, but not everyone has the know-how or the patience to make it happen.
But with so many different configurations, how can you tell the best gaming PC? We've switched up how we test prebuilt PCs and are focusing less on exact configurations and more on what different system builders will prioritize in terms of specs and what they offer regarding the quality of build and warranty.
The NZXT Streaming Plus BLD Kit (opens in new tab) isn't your typical off-the-shelf gaming PC. You end up with an absolute monster of a machine, but you have to put most of it together yourself. NZXT offers more traditional builds for would-be buyers, but this doesn't feel too much for most PC gamers to handle.
The RTX 3070 is the star of the show with the Streaming Plus kit. With most similarly priced machines shipping with an RTX 3060 Ti at best, this NZXT system is just simply the better option for gamers. The lead may be subtle at times, but it's absolutely the smoothest experience in every game we tested with.
Essentially, you're going to be able to play pretty much any game at the top settings at 1440p without issue. And with DLSS on hand to help out in ray tracing heavy titles, you can easily show off what the best games are capable of with this machine and not feel like you're missing out. 4K isn't too much of an ask either, making this a versatile option for plenty of gaming setups.
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 16GB DDR4 1TB SSD (opens in new tab)This combination of RTX 4070 Ti and AMD's eight-core Zen 4 CPU makes for a mighty powerful gaming PC that will outperform pretty much any $3K RTX 3090-based gaming PC you could have bought last year. Coming with a 1TB PCIe SSD is absolutely vital at this level, too. 041b061a72