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It's getting harder each week to find great gaming PCs on the right side of $2,000. I'm not just saying that as opening filler, either; I've been keeping my eye on different retailer gaming PC deals at least once a week for the last couple of years, and each passing week the pickings seem to get slimmer.
That being said, we've still been lucky enough to have at least some high-end rigs going for under $2,000 even in this RAMpocalyptic market. A year ago these might have included the occasional RTX 5080 build, but now they're exclusively RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT ones.
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There's still a surprising amount of variation in prices for these gaming PCs between $1,500 and $2,000, and there's no clear winner when it comes to value. Obviously if you've got a strict budget then this might decide things for you, but if not, you'll need some discernment.
Here are the three best ones I've spotted.
Quick links
- Skytech Rampage - RX 9070 XT | Ryzen 7 7700X - $1,700 @ Newegg
- MSI Aegis Z2 - RTX 5070 Ti | Ryzen 7 8700F - $1,850 @ B&H Photo
- Skytech Gaming Chronos 3 - RX 9070 XT | Ryzen 7 7700 - $1,900 @ Amazon
Let's get the most important thing out of the way: When it comes to pure rasterisation performance, the following three gaming PCs will perform roughly the same on average. The differences between GPUs, CPUs, and even between 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM, shouldn't make a massive difference on average for gaming performance—though that will depend on the game, of course (some games prefer AMD GPUs, some Nvidia ones).
If you can spare the extra $150+, the extra 16 GB of RAM will be worth it for one of the latter two gaming PCs, however. That's because you will get some extra performance out of the additional memory, and you'll have a much better time opening multiple apps and even just browsing the internet using Chrome, for instance.
The decision you'll have to make then is between a PC with a worse CPU but an Nvidia card, or one with a better CPU but an AMD card. In the former case, you'll get the benefits of slightly better upscaling, ray tracing, and frame gen with wider DLSS game support, and you'll also be able to upgrade the CPU to a Ryzen 7 9800X3D down the line, for instance, because you'll already have an AM5 socket for it.
In the latter case, you won't get the widespread support for the better upscaling and frame gen technologies, and you won't get quite the level of the RTX 5070 Ti's ray tracing performance, but you will get the better CPU. If you know you play CPU-intensive games—competitive shooters or strategy games, for instance—it might be a better shout. Similarly, it will be a better shout if you're looking to do any kind of productivity work such as editing, streaming, rendering, compiling, and all kinds of other -ings.
The deals
👉Here are all of Newegg's gaming PC deals👈
👉Here are B&H Photo's👈
👉And here are Amazon's👈
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
