Happy new year, everyone, and by 'happy' I of course mean 'tentative'. Y'know, given the still worsening memory shortage and resultant skyrocketing component prices. All that cheery stuff. You'd be forgiven for not knowing the market was in such a dire condition judging by the price tag on this gaming PC I spotted earlier today, though. An RTX 5070 gaming PC for $1,300 at Best Buy is no joke.
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To emphasise the point a little, it seems we are in a different market than even two months ago, right now. I did a broad sweep of some of the best cheap gaming PC deals from different retailers this morning, and many RTX 5060 Ti gaming PCs are going for more than this right now. That's not great, but it's the world an AI-induced shortage is leaving us in.
The 32 GB of memory, in particular, is a veritable goldmine given RAM prices, and that more than makes up for the admittedly slightly underwhelming Intel Core Ultra 7 265F. Most similar kits are north of $300 on Amazon right now, and those prices are still climbing with no sign of stopping.
Turning to actual performance, though, I'd probably call this gaming PC a veritable archetype of 'midrange' builds. It's just very solidly in the centre. It's capable of great performance at 1080p and 1440p in most games on high or max settings, but it's not quite capable of pushing up to 4K in many modern titles, or nailing high frame rates in more demanding modern titles at 1440p, even with upscaling enabled.
Of course, that changes somewhat if you're willing to enable Multi Frame Gen, but if you're starting from a low frame rate, enabling it will generate some pretty bad latency in addition to those frames.
For the vast majority of games, though, an RTX 5070 gaming PC like this with a Core Ultra 7 265F is more than enough for gaming at 1080p and 1440p. Especially if you're willing to tinker with your settings a little. For $1,300 it's well worth it in the current market, I reckon.
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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