I'm already a fan of iBuyPower—so much so that I went out and picked up my current prebuilt machine soon after Jacob filed his iBuyPower RDY Y40 Valorant VCTA R003 review. Though pricey, it's a well-built machine offering everything I wanted in a very swish case. That said, there's no use ignoring the fact that not everyone's budget can breach the $1,500+ sound barrier.
I say 'sound barrier' because price points crossing the threshold of a grand often encourage piercing, pained gasps of dismay. So, let's keep the screeching to a minimum and look for something a little cheaper in the prebuilt arena—like, say, iBuyPower's Element SE gaming desktop PC, now only $780 from Best Buy.
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The first major compromise at this price point is the graphics card, though here you're still getting an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060. Though second from the bottom rung of Nvidia's 50-series of cards, you're still getting a very respectable performance for the money, to say nothing of the boost you're getting from DLSS 4's Multi Frame Gen.
Couple that with a decent CPU in the form of the Intel Core i5 14400F, plus 16GB of DDR5 RAM and 1 TB of SSD storage, and you really can't go far wrong. Sure, it's not necessarily the upgrade some might be looking for. However, as someone's first proper gaming PC—tricked out with plenty of RGB lighting and everything—it's going to be hard to find something similar so reasonably priced.
Okay, yes, it would be nice if it came with a bit more RAM, but that's easy enough to upgrade down the line…though, given that memory prices have massively risen of late and shortages are predicted to last throughout 2026, you may want to think about that upgrade later rather than sooner. Either that or see if you can push the budget boat out just a little further for a prebuilt machine already packing all the RAM you want.
At the very least, this offer from Best Buy comes with a membrane keyboard and a wired mouse, so that's two fewer things to worry about. However, if you're picky about peripherals and know just by looking at these freebies that you're never going to touch them, I'd definitely recommend taking a look at our best gaming keyboard and best gaming mouse guides—we've got plenty of picks for a variety of budgets.
Tricky peripherals aside, the iBuyPower's Element SE gaming desktop PC is a well-balanced package at a reasonable price. As for whether it's well-proportioned enough to fit under the tree this year, well, that's up to you to decide.
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