Retailers had me concerned, for a while. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, we had a couple of RTX 4080 Super gaming PCs going for under $2,000. This year, I was hoping the same would be true of RTX 5080 rigs, but as the days came and went, there was nary a sub-$2,000 RTX 5080 rig to be found.
- We're curating all the best Cyber Monday PC gaming deals over here
The RTX 5080, of course, is the second-fastest graphics card of this generation, and realistically, it's the best GPU you'll get your hands on unless you have Bruce Wayne's budget and can fork over a Gringotts vault-worth of currency for an RTX 5090 (and yes, that was a mixed Batman and Harry Potter reference, you can't stop me). It can handle any game at 1440p and 4K, and can run even demanding games mighty smooth on max settings when upscaling and frame gen is enabled.
The other side to this iBuyPower coin is the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, one of the previous generation's absolute best CPUs. An X3D chip will be a bit better for gaming in CPU-bound titles, but you're not exactly going far wrong with a 12-core chip that boosts up to 5.6 GHz. Especially if you're going to be hitting some CPU-intensive productivity tasks such as encoding or decompressing. The 360 mm AIO makes for a nice pairing with that, too.
The PC's RAM speed is a slight let-down, but it's hardly a dealbreaker, as 32 GB of 5,200 MT/s DDR5 memory won't be too much of a bottleneck for the 7900X, especially in GPU-intensive games, and it's not bad considering the rising cost of RAM at the moment.
The final touch on this rig is the vertical GPU mount, in my opinion. But I might be a little biased, as I do love how they look, and they might not be for everyone. The fish tank-style chassis is pretty sweet, too, and it can kind of trick you into thinking you're looking at a small build because the PSU is tucked away nicely in its shrouded area.
For under $2,000, this is simply a wonderful choice if you're in the market for a high-end gaming PC.
👉 All of Best Buy's gaming PC deals 👈
1. Best overall:
HP Omen 35L
2. Best budget:
Lenovo Legion Tower 5i
3. Best high-end:
Corsair Vengeance A7500
4. Best compact:
Velocity Micro Raptor ES40
5. Alienware:
Alienware Area-51
6. Best mini PC:
Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT
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