I'm considering two used or prebuilt gaming PCs and would like advice on value and performance. The first costs £299 and includes an unspecified Intel Core i7, a GTX 980 Ti, 16GB RAM, 500GB total storage with an SSD, a 600W power supply, and Windows 11 Pro. The second costs £699 and has an Intel Core i5-12500, an RTX 4060 8GB, 16GB dual-channel RAM, 1TB storage with an SSD, a 650W power supply, a 360mm liquid cooler, and six ARGB fans.
I mainly play Valorant and other FPS games, use Discord calls, and occasionally edit videos in Premiere Pro. My current gaming laptop has a Core i9-13900HX, 16GB RAM, an RTX 4060 laptop GPU with 8GB VRAM, and about 1TB of storage. Would either desktop be a meaningful upgrade, and if so, is the £699 model worth choosing over the £299 one?
3 Answers
The best answer may be to keep the laptop and save for a more substantial desktop upgrade. The £299 machine is effectively old hardware, while the £699 machine is decent but could be more of a sidegrade than an upgrade from your current system. If you do buy the second one, verify the exact motherboard, RAM configuration, SSD model, and power-supply brand, and make sure the liquid cooler has no signs of leakage or pump failure.
The £699 PC is much better than the £299 one for modern gaming. The RTX 4060 should provide good 1080p performance, and the newer processor, larger SSD, and newer platform make it a safer long-term purchase. However, compared with your laptop, it may not be a major upgrade: your 13900HX is a very strong CPU, and an RTX 4060 desktop is only moderately faster than an RTX 4060 laptop depending on the laptop’s power limit. For Premiere Pro, 16GB of RAM is also the minimum, so upgrading to 32GB would be worthwhile.
The £299 system is very hard to recommend. The GTX 980 Ti is an old graphics card, and the listing does not even identify which Core i7 it uses. It should handle Valorant and lighter esports games, but it could be a downgrade in several ways and may have limited upgrade potential. Also, check the exact power-supply brand and condition rather than trusting the wattage alone.
I’d compare actual benchmarks and confirm the laptop’s GPU wattage before buying. If the goal is noticeably better gaming performance, neither machine may justify replacing the laptop, especially at £699.