What’s a sensible budget for a first gaming PC in Canada?

Use a compatibility and price-checking tool while choosing parts, and check benchmarks for the specific games and resolution you care about. For 1080p gaming, a current midrange GPU is more than enough for League and CS2, while games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 benefit from stepping up to a stronger card. AMD graphics cards often offer better traditional gaming value, while Nvidia is generally the safer choice if you specifically want ray tracing or certain upscaling features. Don’t cut costs on the power supply—buy a reputable new unit, ideally with an efficient rating such as Gold.

A prebuilt is also worth comparing against a DIY build, especially if you’re nervous about assembling your first PC. Systems with a Ryzen 5 7600-class processor or Core i5 equivalent, 32 GB of memory, a 1 TB NVMe SSD, and a midrange card such as an RTX 5060-class model should run all of your listed games well. Be careful with very cheap prebuilts, since they may use poor power supplies, limited cooling, or proprietary parts. For peripherals, a basic 1080p high-refresh-rate monitor and an inexpensive mechanical or quality membrane keyboard should be fine; you don’t need to spend heavily there.

Around $1,000 CAD for the tower is a reasonable starting point, though current new-part pricing may push a complete system closer to $1,200–$1,300 CAD before tax. Your games don’t require an extreme build. A midrange graphics card paired with a recent six-core-or-better CPU and 32 GB of RAM should handle them comfortably. AM5 with DDR5 is preferable if you find a good deal because it gives you a better future upgrade path; older AM4 or LGA1700 systems can still make sense if they’re substantially cheaper.

GTA 6 is impossible to plan around right now because the PC requirements and eventual port quality aren’t known. I’d build for the games you actually play instead of paying a premium for speculative future-proofing. Also, Intel graphics cards can be good value, but CS2 has had more reported compatibility and driver quirks with them, so I’d lean AMD or Nvidia for a first build focused on that game.