My financial aid refund finally came through, and I'm ready to build my first gaming PC. I'm aiming for about $1,500–$1,600, with an absolute ceiling of roughly $1,750 after tax. I'm in the US and already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so the budget is just for the computer itself. I'll mainly play Fortnite, Valorant, and modded Minecraft, with possible content creation later. I'm open to either an all-black or all-white build and would appreciate a complete parts list since I'm new to choosing components.
4 Answers
Before choosing parts, it’s good to know whether the budget includes peripherals. Since those are already covered, the full amount can go toward the tower, which makes a strong gaming build much more realistic.
One possible build uses a Ryzen 5 7600X3D, a budget-friendly dual-tower air cooler, a B650E Wi-Fi motherboard, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, and a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB. Add an airflow-focused case and an 850W Gold-rated modular power supply. The listed parts come to around $1,524 before any price changes, so it fits the target reasonably well.
Be careful with the memory price in that list. The 16GB kit is unusually expensive, and 32GB is preferable for modded Minecraft and content creation. Check current prices and swap in a reasonably priced 32GB DDR5-6000 kit.
A Ryzen 5 7500F or Ryzen 5 7600 paired with a current midrange graphics card would be a sensible starting point. Use an AM5 motherboard with Wi-Fi, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and a quality 750W power supply. That combination should handle competitive games at very high frame rates while leaving room for future upgrades.
A high-end graphics card such as a 4070 Ti Super alongside an X3D processor sounds appealing, but it probably doesn’t fit this budget once memory, storage, the motherboard, power supply, and the rest of the system are included. A balanced midrange GPU and 32GB of RAM will give better value for the games listed.
I already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so I only need the PC itself.