I'm putting together a gaming PC and trying to stay near a $2,000 budget for the computer, plus around $400 for a monitor. Prices are unusually high where I live, and some of these estimates may not be perfectly accurate.
My current parts list is:
- Antec AX20 case — $50
- MSI 750W Gold PSU — $150
- Arctic Freezer 36 A-RGB cooler — $75
- Kingston NV3 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD — $200
- AMD Ryzen 5 9600X — $300
- ASUS Dual RTX 5060 Ti 8GB OC — $630
- Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36 — $660
- ASUS Prime B850M-A WiFi motherboard — $270
- Samsung Odyssey G5 monitor — $400
After applying an estimated 18% reduction to the PC parts, excluding the monitor, I calculate about $1,914 for the PC and $2,314 total with the monitor. The RAM is obviously extremely overpriced, so I'm embarrassed by that part of the list. What components would you replace, and is there a better monitor I should consider?
2 Answers
The memory price is the biggest problem by far. If you can find a comparable 32GB DDR5-6000 kit for a normal price, that should free up a lot of your budget. I’d also double-check the SSD, graphics card, and motherboard prices, since all three look expensive compared with their usual market positioning. Local pricing may limit your choices, but compare several retailers before committing.
For roughly $400, don’t automatically settle for that particular gaming monitor. Depending on availability in your country, you may be able to find a 1440p mini-LED display or possibly an OLED around that price. If OLED models are much more expensive locally, choose the best 1440p display you can realistically find, but it’s worth checking more options instead of buying the first discounted model.
I haven’t researched monitors very much yet; I mainly picked this one because it was discounted. The discount is gone now, so I’ll probably look for another model, although OLED monitors seem to cost at least $500 here.