To help you find the right machine for your needs and to save you some money, we’ve smoked out the best cheap gaming PC deals available online right now.
If you need a new desktop gaming rig and have been thinking about building a PC, you’re probably out of luck in the GPU deals department due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage. But there’s hope: Buying a pre-made gaming desktop still gives you a lot of the advantages of building a computer (such as the ability to upgrade components in the future), and it’s about the only way you’re going to find a good graphics card at a good price right now. To save you the trouble of having to scour the internet to find a good bargain, we’ve already smoked out the six best gaming PC deals available this week and gathered them right here. Our budget limit for most of these is $1,000 (although most are much cheaper than that), but we’ve also included one high-end pick for the enthusiasts out there. If you just need a solid gaming PC and aren’t married to a desktop, though, then consider checking out these gaming laptop deals as well. Years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find any sort of gaming-capable rig for less than $600 owing to the cost of discrete graphics cards. AMD crafted a unique solution to that problem in its APUs, or accelerated processing units, which are basically CPUs that pack built-in graphics processing capabilities. This cheap desktop PC from Acer features an AMD Ryzen 3 CPU with Radeon Vega 8 graphics that allows for some light gaming. Don’t expect to run the latest AAA games at high settings, but it’ll get the job done for those with modest needs. Along with the Ryzen APU, this desktop PC comes with a full 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512 GB solid-state system drive — and like most of our other picks, it includes a wired mouse and keyboard. This cheap work and (light) gaming PC can be yours for just $450. AMD’s CPU-integrated Radeon Vega graphics are a fine entry point for basic gaming, but if your needs are modest and you still want a dedicated graphics card (perhaps for tasks like video editing along with light gaming), this Kepler Systems Genesis gaming desktop is a cost-effective and very attractive option. This tower features an Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 graphics card, which, while a very basic GPU with 2GB VRAM, is one of the cheapest discrete GPUs on the market right now. That card works with a Core i5 CPU and 8GB of RAM to deliver sufficient performance for work and for less resource-heavy games like Fornite and Minecraft. For storage, you’ve got a 500GB SSD, which is a nice amount of space for your games and other digital goodies. Its mod-friendly case design allows you to upgrade components in the future, as well. You can grab this high-value gaming PC for a cheap $520 right now. The Allied Gaming brand has some nice desktops for folks on a budget, and this Stinger gaming PC offers a lot of bang for the buck. While not the beefiest tower on our list, it’s still got a respectable AMD Ryzen 5 CPU,8GB DDR4 RAM, and a Radeon RX 550 dedicated GPU (with 4GB VRAM) for some added graphical juice. That isn’t quite as muscular as newer video cards, but it’ll get the job done for basic gaming while also making this the perfect budget workstation for things like video editing and graphic design. You’ve also got a nice fast 240GB solid-state drive for storage. A gaming mouse and keyboard are included as well. This gaming PC deal rings in at $599, hitting our budget limit well below the mark.