I'm considering buying or building my first gaming PC and have heard that building one can be noticeably cheaper. I'm still learning, so I'd appreciate advice on choosing compatible parts, avoiding common mistakes, and knowing which components or brands are worth considering or avoiding. My budget is around $2,500 AUD, although I'm not planning to buy immediately because hardware prices are unusually high and I'm waiting for them to settle. I mainly play Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, Valorant, and ARC Raiders.
My current parts list is:
- AMD Ryzen 7 9700X 8-core processor
- ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III 240 A-RGB liquid cooler
- Gigabyte B850 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 ATX motherboard
- Crucial T500 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
- Lian Li LANCOOL 216 RGB case
- Montech Century II 850W 80+ Gold fully modular power supply
- Windows 11 Home
I still need to choose the RAM and graphics card. This is my first serious attempt at planning a build, so constructive feedback and explanations would be appreciated.
3 Answers
Use a PC-part compatibility and price-checking tool to make sure everything fits together and to compare prices across stores. It’s especially useful for checking motherboard, memory, case, power supply, and graphics-card compatibility before buying.
That budget should be enough for a strong gaming system. AMD is a good direction at the moment because the AM5 platform offers solid performance and a better upgrade path than Intel’s current platform. AMD graphics cards can also offer better value than similarly priced Nvidia cards, particularly if you’re focused on standard gaming performance rather than specific Nvidia features. Since RAM, storage, and graphics cards are expensive right now, waiting for sales on those parts makes sense.
If gaming performance is the priority, consider a Ryzen X3D processor if you can find one at a reasonable price. The extra 3D cache can improve frame rates in many games, especially at high refresh rates. For memory, 32GB is the practical target for a new gaming build, though RAM pricing is currently high, so it may be worth waiting for a good deal.
I’ll look into the X3D processors. Could you explain what makes them better for gaming? I’ve also noticed that 32GB memory is unusually expensive right now.
A system built around something like a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and a Radeon RX 9070 XT, with 32GB of memory, could be worth comparing against the current list if the prices fit your budget.