I want to buy my friend a gaming PC so we can play Overwatch together. He currently uses a 60 Hz gaming laptop, but after trying 120 Hz and 320 Hz displays, he noticed a huge difference in smoothness and feels that the laptop may be holding back his improvement. I'd like a PC that can ideally maintain around 300 FPS in Overwatch, especially at 1080p competitive settings. Other games are not a major concern, and the $400–500 budget is only for the PC itself. Is that realistic, and what kind of build or used hardware should I look for?
4 Answers
You don’t need a $2,500 PC for this target. Overwatch is relatively easy to run, and a much more reasonably priced modern gaming PC can exceed 300 FPS at low settings. The issue is fitting all the required parts into $400–500; that budget is possible mainly with a good used prebuilt or carefully selected used components, not a typical all-new build.
Used hardware is probably your best option. Check local listings for complete gaming PCs that have been sitting unsold and negotiate, since sellers may accept $500–600 for a system originally listed around $800–900. Test the computer in person and verify the temperatures, power supply, storage health, and actual in-game performance before buying.
You might be able to put together a used system with an older high-core-count platform and a graphics card such as a GTX 1080 Ti for around $300–500. However, older workstation platforms can have weaker gaming performance and upgrade paths, so make sure the processor can deliver the required frame rate rather than focusing only on the GPU. For 300 FPS in Overwatch, the CPU matters a lot.
A brand-new build at that price probably isn’t realistic. A modern CPU and graphics card combination capable of around 300 FPS can already cost roughly $600–650, before adding the motherboard, memory, storage, case, and power supply. For a new system, I’d expect the minimum to be closer to $800–900.
At competitive settings, the game is often CPU-limited at very high frame rates, so pairing a capable processor with a decent used GPU is more important than buying an expensive graphics card.