I've checked gaming PC deals every week for two years and I'm not exaggerating when I say there isn't a single well-priced PC left

Welcome to your daily dose of doomcore, and no, I don't mean that peculiar genre of music. I mean the state of the PC gaming market. Not to be too much of a negative Nelly but things are not looking great out there.

You probably didn't need me to tell you that, but given I've been keeping my eye on the best deals for gaming PCs every week (minus holidays) for the past couple of years, I thought I'd share with you some more specific, cheerfully glum context. You're welcome.

Let's take a nice trip down memory lane to check out a couple of the deals I spotted for gaming PCs around this time last year.

Here we are: In an assortment I highlighted last September, an RTX 5060 Ti rig for just $1,000. Today, the cheapest we see any just-about-decent RTX 5060 Ti gaming PC retailing for, is about $1,200—this AVGPC Max for $1,209 at Newegg, for instance.

But that's not even half of it, because you'll notice the RAM in that $1,200 rig is DDR4, not DDR5. And if it wasn't DDR4, you could almost certainly expect such an RTX 5060 Ti rig to have just a single 16 GB stick of DDR5 in single-channel mode.

How about at the higher end? Well, there's this RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC I also highlighted last September. That was $1,900 for the whole package: RTX 5070 Ti, Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, and even a full 2 TB of storage. Y'know, back when we could recommend 2 TB of storage as a baseline for mid-range and higher rigs, while keeping a straight face.

And now? I think you know the deal. I actually struggle to find RTX 5070 Ti gaming PCs worth highlighting anymore—the GPU seems to be more lightly stocked than others. Currently, I've got a PC with the same base specs listed (on sale!) on our deals hub for $2,400 at Newegg. If you're okay opting for an RX 9070 XT instead, you can lower that to $2,099 at Walmart, which does net you a more recent X3D chip—our favourite, in fact—but you're also sacrificing 1 TB of storage.

More generally, I can tell you that after looking at gaming PC deals week-in, week-out for the past couple of years, pretty much every last bastion of hope for reasonable prices has now slipped away.

For quite a while and even until very recently, RX 9070 XT PCs held on to lower price tags while Nvidia PCs slipped out of stock, presumably because pre-shortage stocks were lasting longer as fewer AMD PCs tend to be scooped up by PC gamers than Nvidia ones. But recently I've noticed even the best deals on those seem to have slipped away. On the rare occasion there is one for a decent sub-$2,000 price, you're very lucky if it has more than 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.

The lower end of the market is particularly dire. Before the memory crisis, there was quite an abundance of RTX 5060 gaming PCs going on sale for under $1,000, sometimes actually for well under this. This one I highlighted last October, for instance, cost just $749. It seemed to come with just a single 16 GB stick of DDR5 memory, but these days you're looking at almost $1,000 for the same thing, and that's if you're lucky (even deals like that are getting quite rare).

Lowest price per GPU

We've been measuring the lowest available price of each current-gen GPU since August 14, 2025.

Lowest pricing (Price, $)

Week

Nvidia RTX 5080 Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti Nvidia RTX 5070 Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB Nvidia RTX 5060 Nvidia RTX 5050 AMD RX 9070 XT AMD RX 9070 AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB Intel Arc B580 Intel Arc B570

Lowest pricing Data

Timestamp (Week)	Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price, $)	Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 XT (Price, $)	AMD RX 9070 (Price, $)	AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price, $)	AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price, $)	Intel Arc B580 (Price, $)	Intel Arc B570 (Price, $)
1	1100	780	550	430	368	300	250	700	600	N/A	370	280	260	230
2	1099	750	550	430	340	300	250	700	600	N/A	370	270	260	230
3	1000	750	524	430	370	291	250	700	550	N/A	370	280	250	230
4	1000	750	546	430	345	296	250	695	550	N/A	370	280	250	230
5	1000	749	481	430	340	300	250	670	600	N/A	350	270	250	230
6	929	749	499	379	340	289	240	670	600	N/A	350	270	250	230
7	999	750	520	430	350	299	240	650	550	N/A	350	270	250	230
8	980	749	500	430	342	299	250	650	550	N/A	350	270	250	200
9	999	750	500	430	323	299	250	650	560	N/A	350	270	250	220
10	989	730	480	430	340	299	250	600	550	N/A	360	270	250	210
11	990	699	489	400	320	280	230	600	550	N/A	340	250	250	200
12	989	730	500	400	320	279	220	600	530	N/A	350	275	250	200
13	1000	750	527	420	342	279	220	600	530	N/A	350	280	250	200
14	1000	750	540	420	313	279	220	600	530	N/A	370	280	250	202
15	1000	749	499	430	350	279	200	600	530	N/A	380	288	240	202
16	1100	750	499	430	350	270	200	620	530	N/A	380	288	240	202
17	1230	750	549	430	330	260	235	660	580	N/A	390	310	250	200
18	1268	829	540	450	330	290	240	700	580	N/A	390	310	250	200
19	1380	899	549	450	330	299	240	720	580	N/A	400	310	260	200
20	1350	1000	620	520	330	299	240	720	600	N/A	440	310	290	200
21	1365	950	620	520	351	299	260	730	590	N/A	440	350	290	250
22	1365	950	620	520	360	299	260	730	630	N/A	400	346	300	250
23	1290	950	630	520	360	340	260	730	630	N/A	440	346	300	250
24	1290	950	625	520	360	340	260	730	620	N/A	440	346	300	250
25	1250	950	630	550	360	349	260	730	610	N/A	440	346	300	250
26	1260	950	604	550	360	349	290	730	610	N/A	440	340	300	250
27	1290	950	640	570	360	349	290	730	630	N/A	440	340	300	250
28	1250	900	630	515	390	349	290	720	620	N/A	440	346	290	250
29	1290	990	636	500	390	349	290	710	620	N/A	449	350	290	250
30	1290	990	630	500	390	330	290	710	620	N/A	440	350	290	260
31	1290	990	599	500	380	330	290	670	620	N/A	440	350	290	260
32	1290	990	599	515	380	310	290	710	620	N/A	430	360	290	260
33	1290	980	599	490	400	349	290	710	600	N/A	430	360	290	260
34	1270	980	599	550	380	349	290	710	620	N/A	440	360	290	260
35	1290	900	599	550	380	350	290	700	600	N/A	430	360	304	260
36	1250	980	599	550	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	360	300	260
37	1250	980	599	570	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	350	304	250
38	1250	980	599	570	370	340	290	700	600	550	440	350	304	250
39	1250	920	599	570	330	340	290	700	600	500	400	360	298	250
40	1250	955	599	565	330	340	290	700	600	500	430	360	291	260
41	1250	900	560	560	330	339	290	700	600	500	430	360	290	250
42	1250	950	550	570	380	350	290	690	635	550	450	360	290	260
43	1290	1030	755	650	420	359	299	720	650	500	470	370	310	260
44	1479	1088	763	780	420	N/A	299	720	650	500	470	400	310	260
45	1550	1150	800	773	389	359	299	730	630	530	460	360	310	260

There is no area of the gaming PC market that isn't now feeling the impact of the global memory shortage. That much I am now certain of. Pre-shortage stocks seem to have run thoroughly dry and system builders and manufacturers are having to up their prices to keep up with ever-increasing memory and storage costs. Not to mention climbing GPU costs (which do themselves, after all, contain memory).

The thing is, people are still going to want to buy gaming PCs. Which means that apart from the most budget-constrained people who will be priced out of the market completely, prospective PC gamers are unfortunately going to have to start adjusting their pricing expectations.

I often witness the sentiment that gaming PC deals these days—say, $1,500 for a decent RTX 5070 gaming PC, or $1,200 for a decent RTX 5060 Ti one—are not good ones. And obviously this is true considering the historical market. But those are unfortunately 'good' deals given the market today. It sucks, but it is the reality of the market right now.

And there doesn't seem to be a lick of difference we can make, at least not while the AI boom rages on and continues to hoard computing silicon in its servers. Happy 2026, everyone.

Best gaming PC 2026

1. Best overall:
iBuyPower RDY Element 9 Pro

2. Best budget:
ABS Cyclone Aqua

3. Best high-end:
Corsair Vengeance A7500

4. Alienware:
Alienware Area-51

5. Best mini PC:
Minisforum AtomMan G1 Pro

6. Best for local AI:
Framework Desktop

👉Check out our full gaming PC guide👈