Build An Affordable 1440p Gaming PC For Under $1000 With These Cyber Monday Deals

Alright, here's the scenario: you, a friend, or a family member want to move their gaming experience from console to PC, but you're looking at popular builds and balking at the prices. Who has $200 for a CPU cooler or $35 apiece for ARGB fans? Well good news: that stuff is for enthusiasts, and isn't necessarily required to build a baller gaming PC.

In fact, you can get away with an amazingly-powerful PC for a surprisingly-small stack of cash. We're talking about a machine that will play any game you want on the highest settings in 1080p, or even higher resolutions if you pull the settings back a bit. A desktop system that will demolish eSports titles, render ray-traced graphics, and best of all, remains expandable for future hardware releases. Check it out:

• AMD Ryzen 5 7600 Six-core Desktop CPU (includes CPU cooler): $199.99 at Amazon
• Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX ATX Socket AM5 Motherboard: $159.99 at Amazon
• Klevv BOLT V 2×16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory: $92.99 at Amazon
• Mushkin Vortex Redline 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with DRAM cache: $94.99 at Amazon

• Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB Video Card: $309.99 at Amazon
• Cougar MX331 MESH-X ATX Mid-tower Case: $46.99 at Amazon
• Thermaltake Toughpower GF-A3 750W Modular ATX Power Supply: $89.99 at Amazon

All told, these parts come out to around $995 by our reckoning, which doesn't include tax but does include free Prime shipping. This machine will run most games in 2560×1440 with high settings at 60 FPS, while 1080p gamers will enjoy very high framerates on this system. Some games are playable with smooth performance at 4K, even. It also gets you set up for future upgrades with the Socket AM5 platform and a pair of empty M.2 sockets.

If you're willing to spend a little more, the most obvious upgrade is to a Ryzen 7 7700X. The extra two cores and 300MHz of boost clock will run you just $80 over the Ryzen 5 7600 right now thanks to a hefty Cyber Monday discount. Keep in mind you'll need a CPU cooler too, though, as the 7700X doesn't include one. We recommend the Thermalright Assassin X 120R SE Plus for just $19.50, although really just about any of the Thermalright Assassin line will work well.



Speaking of that powerful GPU, it's the most expensive thing in the original build, but if you need to come in a little under budget (or account for taxes), we have some alternative GPU options for you that are also quite nicely priced:

• Sparkle Intel Arc A750 Titan OC 8GB Graphics Card: $199.99 at Amazon
• MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X 12GB Graphics Card: $269.99 at Amazon
• ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 8GB Solo Graphics Card: $289.99 at Amazon

All three of these cards are excellent choices for different reasons; the Arc A750 punches above its price class and is fairly competitive with the RTX 3060 and RTX 4060. The GeForce RTX 3060 brings its big 12GB of video RAM to the table, allowing you to turn up texture settings willy-nilly, and then the GeForce RTX 4060 is the smallest card, power-efficient, quiet, and also the best at ray-tracing with DLSS Frame Generation support.

As usual, while we're very pleased with our part selections, let us know if you find any problems, or if you have any suggestions. Also, make sure to tell us if you find a better deal!

^{Top image by Timur Kozmenko at Pixabay.}