by Cyber Monday is a great time to buy components for an affordable gaming PC build. Normally, if you want to put together a desktop that can play games at 1080p very high or Ultra settings and smooth (60+ fps) frame rates, you’ll use a fair amount of changes. And if you want to increase the resolution to 1440p, you can expect to spend closer to $1000 or even more.
But right now, with Cyber Monday sales on PC parts bringing CPUs, graphics cards, SSDs, and even cases and power supplies down in price, you can build a very serviceable 1080p gaming rig for $600 and a 1440p compatible for under $750. And no matter what you build, you’ll likely save hundreds of dollars off the price of a prebuilt desktop with similar features.
Below, we’ve put together parts lists for both a sub-$600 Cyber Monday 1080p PC build and a sub-$750, 1440p gaming PC build. These prices are based on Cyber Monday sales in effect at the time of publication, so your mileage may vary slightly depending on when you read this. Also note that we don’t include the price of the operating system (you can get Windows for free or cheap) nor any accessories.
Cyber Monday Sub-$600, 1080 Gaming PC Build
| Component | Model | Sale price | Old price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| processor | Ryzen 5 5500 | $94 | $99 | Row 0 – Cell 4 |
| GPU | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 Radeon RX 6600 | $229 | $239 | Row 1 – Cell 4 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte B550M DS3H AM4 | $99 | $109 | Row 2 – Cell 4 |
| RAM | TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 | $42 | $47 | Row 3 – Cell 4 |
| SSD | Solidigm P41 Plus | $59 | $89 | Row 4 – Cell 4 |
| Case | Gamdia’s Argus M1 | $39 | $48 | Row 5 – Cell 4 |
| PSU | Enermax Cyberbron 500W, 80+ bronze | $34 | $39 | Row 6 – Cell 4 |
| Row 7 – Cell 1 | $596 | Row 7 – Cell 3 | Row 7 – Cell 4 |
Granted, Black Friday sales were a bit better and more items were in stock, so we had to cut some corners to get to a $600 price point and still deliver smooth 1080p gaming. Here are all the parts we chose and the reasoning behind each.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500 ($94 at B&H (opens in a new tab)) – The Ryzen 5 5500 isn’t one of the fastest CPUs out there, but it gives you 6 cores, 12 threads, and a 4.2GHz boost clock for less than $100. In the chart below, you’ll see that the 5500 delivered a solid 129 fps on our 1080p gaming, Windows 11 gaming suite. We benchmark the CPUs with a premium graphics card so that the GPU is not a bottleneck; you can obviously expect lower numbers with the GPU in this build.
However, you can see that the 5500 can deliver solid frame rates that put it well ahead of AMD’s previous generation processors like the Ryzen 5 3600X. There’s no doubt that the Ryzen 5 5600, which costs about $40 more right now, is much faster, and we recommend going with the 5600 (opens in a new tab) instead if you can afford it.
- GPU: XFX Speedster SWFT 210 Radeon RX 6600 ($229 at Amazon (opens in a new tab)) – At one point this Cyber Monday deal season you could get an RX 6600 card for as little as $189, but at the time of writing this was the cheapest we could find. The card has 8 GB of GDDR6 RAM and a boost clock of 2491 MHz.
As you can see in the chart below, the RX 6600 averaged 72.3 fps running a series of 8 games at 1080p Ultra settings. While that puts the GPU below more expensive competitors like the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 XT, it’s still a very playable frame rate and a fantastic value.
- Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H AM4 ($99 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), was $109). In theory, any motherboard with a B550 or X570 chipset would be fine. However, many AMD boards require a BIOS update (see How to enter the BIOS) before they will recognize a Ryzen 5000 chip, and you can’t tell which BIOS version your motherboard will ship with.
If you have an old BIOS that doesn’t recognize your new CPU, you’ll need to upgrade the firmware before booting with the new CPU, but what if you don’t have an older CPU to use for the update? The Gigabyte B550M DS3H AM4 has a feature called Q Flash Plus (on other boards known as BIOS Flashback) which allows you to update the firmware without a processor by connecting a USB Flash drive with the update and holding down a button on the motherboard.
If you don’t mind waiting a few weeks for delivery, consider buying the Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC, which costs $99 at Amazon (opens in a new tab) and is the same card but with built-in Wi-Fi 5. However, it won’t ship for another two weeks.
- RAM: TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 ($42 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), was $47). You need no less than 16 GB of RAM and you want a dual-channel set with two 8 GB sticks of DDR4 running at up to 3200 Mhz. This is the cheapest kit we could find and comes from a reputable brand.
- SSD: Solidigm P41 Plus 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD ($59 at Newegg (opens in a new tab)) – To keep our costs around $600, saving every penny counts, which is why we’re going with the cheapest 1TB NVMe SSD we could find that comes from a reputable brand. Haven’t you heard of Solidigm? It’s the company that bought Intel’s SSD division, so they’re pretty good bonifiers.
This drive uses the modern PCIe 4.0 interface, so it’s automatically a step up from most PCIe 3.0 SSDs. It is rated for sequential read and write speeds of 4125 MBps and 2950 MBps. We reviewed the Solidigm P41 and found it to have modest but acceptable performance. As you can see, it scored quite a few points below more powerful drives like the WD Black SN770 and SK hynix Platinum P41 on the 3DMark SSD gaming test, but these competitors cost more. It’s definitely faster than most PCIe 3.0 SSDs.
- Case: Gamdias Argus M1 ($39 at Newegg (opens in a new tab)was $48): This case has a lot going for it for less than $40. It’s very attractive considering its budget status, with a tempered glass side panel, a front RGB light strip, and three illuminated front panel USB ports. There is an RGB rear fan included and room for a radiator up to 280mm (two 140mm fans or two 120mm fans) on top or in front.
- PSU: Enermax Cyberbron 500W, 80+ bronze ($34 at Amazon (opens in a new tab)) – To keep costs low we need a reliable but very affordable CPU. Enermax is a well-known brand, and this capacity of 500W will be more than sufficient to power the components of this construction. We even get 80+ Bronze power efficiency, which not all cheap PSUs offer.
The only real downside is that the PSU isn’t even partially modular. However, there is no great harm in having all the cables built into the power supply. You’ll never lose them that way.
Cyber Monday Sub-$750, 1440p Gaming PC Build
| Component | Model | Sale price | Old price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| processor | Ryzen 5 5600 | $137 | $135 | Row 0 – Cell 4 |
| GPU | XFX Speedster Radeon RX 6700 | $319 | $349 | Row 1 – Cell 4 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte B550M DS3H AM4 | $99 | $109 | Row 2 – Cell 4 |
| RAM | TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 | $42 | $47 | Row 3 – Cell 4 |
| SSD | Solidigm P41 Plus | $59 | $89 | Row 4 – Cell 4 |
| Case | Cooler Master MasterBox MB511 | $39 | $74 | after submission discount |
| PSU | Thermaltake Smart BM2 650W 80+ Bronze | $39 | $ | use promo code BFDBY2A335 to get it at this price |
| Total | Row 7 – Cell 1 | $734 | Row 7 – Cell 3 | Row 7 – Cell 4 |
So let’s talk about why we chose the parts we did and what you can expect from each.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 ($137 on Newegg (opens in a new tab)) – As we have said elsewhere (opens in a new tab), the price of AMD Ryzen 5000 series chips is incredibly low right now because the new 7000 series, which is way too expensive, just came out. The Ryzen 5 5600 has 6 cores, 12 threads and a maximum boost clock of 4.4GHz, which is more than adequate for gaming at 2K, especially when you have a strong graphics card to pair it with. It comes with a cooler in the box, so there is no need to buy one. Note that Newegg has this part on backorder, but it is currently scheduled to ship by December 2nd.
When we reviewed the Ryzen 5 5600, it averaged 156 fps on our series of 1440p games, and that number jumped to 159 fps when we enabled Precision Boost overdrive (which is like overclocking). To see what the CPU is capable of, we tested with a high-end GPU in the form of an RTX 3090, so you won’t get these frame rates with our suggested graphics card for this build, but you can rest assured that the Ryzen 5 5600 will don’t be the bottleneck holding you back.
- GPU: XFX Speedster Radeon RX 6700 ($319 at Amazon (opens in a new tab), was $349) – In this price range, AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 offers more performance for the money than Nvidia’s RTX 3060 which costs more than $350 and is usually closer to $400.
In our GPU benchmark hierarchy, the RX 6700 is actually 8 places ahead of the RTX 3060, delivering an average frame rate of 87.7 fps on our 1080p Ultra settings test suite compared to 70.2 fps for Nvidia’s card. At 1440p Ultra settings, the RX 6700 averages 63.5fps, which is very smooth, and compares favorably to the 3060’s 52.6fps.
- Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H AM4 ($99 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), was $109). We’re sticking with the Gigabyte B550M from our $600, 1080p Cyber Monday gaming PC build, because there’s nothing wrong with it. We’d probably wait the extra two weeks of shipping delay to get the version with Wi-Fi 5 built in, which is $99 at Amazon (opens in a new tab).
- RAM: TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 ($42 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), was $47). We’re sticking with the RAM from the $600 build here, since there’s no need to go faster than DDR4-3200, and we can’t reasonably afford to go up to 32GB and keep the price within reach.
- SSD: Solidigm P41 Plus 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD ($59 at Newegg (opens in a new tab)) – If we want to keep our costs below $750, we need to skimp on the SSD and stick with the Solidigm P41 from our 1080p build. But if you’re willing to spend just $17 more (which will take us just over the $750 mark in total cost), get the WD Black SN770 for $79 at Amazon (opens in a new tab).
The WD Black SN770 promises sequential read and write speeds of 5000 and 4000 MBps respectively. It also had much lower game lag on our tests.
- Case: Cooler Master MasterBox MB511 ($39 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), after discount) – This case doesn’t have the built-in RGB bling of the case we chose for our 1080p gaming rig build, but it has better cooling potential with a mesh front panel. It has room for three 120mm fans in the front (or one 360mm radiator) and two 120mm fans (or one 240mm radiator) on top. There is a tempered glass side panel so you can see everything inside.
- PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 600W 80 Plus Gold ($38 at Newegg (opens in a new tab), was $69). A branded, 600-watt gold-rated power supply for under $40? What’s not to love? Thermaltake’s PSU is non-modular, but it has a 120mm silent fan and can deliver 90% or higher efficiency.
As you can see, we’ve only made a few compromises to get a 1080p gaming rig for $600 and a 1440p gaming rig for less than $750. If you want to step things up and spend more, you can go for a more expensive CPU, GPU and SSD, but hopefully this parts list gives you some ideas. We have a more complete set of parts lists on our Best PC Builds page.
