Best Gaming PC under $700 in 2023
Our $700 AMD Custom Gaming PC Build
Our custom $700 build will provide you with a huge amount of bang for your buck, putting out some insanely decent performance at 1080p and below. You won’t find a better build in this price range, and the great pairing between a solid CPU and GPU means you’re getting both performance and value.
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With a $700 budget, this build is firmly taking steps into the mid-range category for gaming PCs. If you’re happy to play in 1080p, this sort of PC will give you an excellent gaming experience and can handle almost any triple-A game without chugging or dropping frames.
If you want a solid gaming PC but don’t want to remortgage your home then you’ve found the perfect build for your budget range.
What You Get For $700
With a budget of $700 you’re just breaking out of the realms of a low-end gaming PC, but you still need to know where to make compromises. If you want to really get your money’s worth for gaming reasons, there are certain components that need a bigger chunk of the budget. For instance, we’ve aimed at less SSD space to save some money and included a better GPU and CPU, as these are the primary components that affect gaming performance.
With this setup, you can expect to be playing your favorite games at 1080p with no issue at all, even on higher settings. You can also deal with 1440p under some circumstances, but you may have to drop some of the high-intensity graphical settings to get a smooth experience.
While we did have to aim at a slightly smaller SSD than we’d like, the 500GB model included here should get your OS booting quickly, and reduce load times in any games you install on the thing. In some rare cases, you might actually see some increases in FPS with an SSD as well, but with the 8GB of VRAM available on our GPU, those cases will be few and far between.
How We Made This Build
As with all of our builds, we used our team’s cumulative decades of experience to pick out the best components needed within our budget. We rigorously research, build, and test each of the builds on our site so that you can be sure you’re getting the absolute best PC you can for the price.
We run the PCs we build in our offices every day to ensure that they’re capable of anything you could throw at them. From the cheeky lunch break gaming session to the rigors of day-to-day work, these builds are put through their paces in every situation imaginable.
You can be sure that if this PC can do it, we’ve tested it. That includes the PC gamer’s gold standard of overclocking the hardware. Just make sure you know what you’re doing before attempting it yourself.
Our Recommended Custom Build Details
Looking for your best possible PC for only $700? Well, you’ve found it. Now let’s take a look at this gaming PC.
Our $700 AMD Custom Gaming PC Build
Our custom $700 build will provide you with a huge amount of bang for your buck, putting out some insanely decent performance at 1080p and below. You won’t find a better build in this price range, and the great pairing between a solid CPU and GPU means you’re getting both performance and value.
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
AMD’s Ryzen series of processors are excellent in terms of performance, and since the release of the 5000 series, these 3rd gen processors have hit rock-bottom prices. This little baby comes with 6 cores and 12 threads, and a maximum clock speed of 4.2GHz
Thanks to those impressive specs you can be sure of some great gaming performance, even in CPU-intensive games like Total War: Warhammer 2. Even running the stock cooler that comes with the CPU should prevent too much thermal throttling even on a boosted processor, partially thanks to the great airflow in the case we’ve chosen.
ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0
Even with a great CPU and GPU, you need a great motherboard to bring them all together. The ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 is a great choice as it supports a wide variety of CPUs, so upgrading your to a Ryzen 5000 series in the future isn’t out of the question. You also get ASRock’s great build quality and a slew of other great features that make this a no-brainer.
Patriot Viper Steel Series DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3200MHz
When it comes to memory, more is typically better, but most gaming rigs only really need 16GB at most. With that in mind, this 16GB kit from Patriot was created with gaming in mind and has a maximum clock speed of 3.2GHz so you can be sure you’ll get excellent performance out of these sticks. Even outside of gaming, you’ll find this excellent memory kit also helps improve system-wide performance, especially in terms of multitasking.
MSI Gaming RADEON RX 580 8GB
If you want decent 1080p gaming performance without breaking the bank, the Radeon RX 580 should be one of your top choices. Not only will you get a great FPS count in most modern games at 1080p, but you’ll also be able to enjoy the world of PC VR, albeit possibly not in its most advanced forms at this level.
Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
Although we were trying to save some of our budget by aiming for a lower capacity SSD on this build, it’s still worth getting an SSD over an HDD. Not only will it make the PC boot much faster, but it’ll also mean that any games installed on the drive will load faster. The Samsung 860 EVO 500GB is a great SSD with read/write speeds of 550mb/s and 520mb/s respectively.
SilverStone ET550-B
Your PSU supplies power to everything in your PC, so not only do you need to ensure it’s supplying enough power, but you also need to make sure that the supply isn’t going to cause damage to your components. The SilverStone ET550-B gives you 550 watts of bronze-certified power that you can be sure won’t cause problems with your parts and gives you more than enough power to run them effectively.
Phanteks Eclipse P300
When it comes to a case you want something that is going to give all your components room to breathe, and ideally, something that doesn’t look terrible while doing it. Luckily, the
Phanteks Eclipse P300 managed to pull both of those off without costing you a fortune either. The case is spacious, so airflow keeps everything chill even under a heavy load, and you should have plenty of room left over for easy cable management.
Things to Consider
Budget & Upgradability
If you’re getting your foot in the door of PC gaming but don’t want to invest quadruple digits, this build is your perfect fit. With this level of investment, you’re getting top-notch 1080p gaming in pretty much every AAA title on the market, without having to worry about dropping any frames. However, if you’re into high-end VR or want to run your games at 1440p or 4K then you’re going to consider a more expensive build.
With the $700 build, you do have some room for improvement if you decide to upgrade in the future. The motherboard can handle up to a Ryzen 9 5950X, so you can fit pretty much any 5000 series AM4 processor in an upgraded version of this build.
You can also invest some money in a more powerful graphics card if you’re aiming for 4K gaming and next-gen VR systems, but if that’s the case you’ll probably also want to consider getting a more powerful PSU. Having said that, if you’re going for more modest upgrades, you do have around 150 watts to spare with the default PSU if you’re not planning on overclocking.
Overclocking Capabilities
Overclocking is a trial by fire for your gaming rig, and if you do it wrong, it could be a literal trial by fire. Jokes aside, overclocking is great for squeezing extra performance out of your PC without having to incur any extra costs, other than a minor increase to your electricity bill.
With this build, you should be able to squeeze extra power out of your CPU and RAM thanks to the help of the motherboard. Just remember, extra performance from your CPU will kick off a decent amount of extra heat, so you may want to consider a more extreme cooling solution to prevent your rig from going into meltdown.
Ease of Building
It can be tough for a first-timer to put together a custom build, so with that in mind, we selected a case that will make the build as simple as possible. The Phantek Eclipse P300 has plenty of space for you to work with, meaning you won’t be struggling to fit everything in and should be able to manage your cables nice and easily. You can also just stick your CPU and stock coolers in the build without extra fuss thanks to the pre-applied thermal paste, and they should handle cooling your rig pretty efficiently. Having said that, if you plan to overclock your rig or run your components at the upper limit of their ability, you should probably purchase some premium-quality thermal paste to improve your thermal efficiency.
Non-Gaming Performance
As much as you’re buying a gaming PC to play games, you need to know that your PC can handle some other task as well if they’re called for. Thanks to the 3600’s excellent multi-core performance you can be sure that this build will handle pretty much whatever you plan on throwing at it. From video editing to streaming, you can be sure that you’ll be well prepared no matter what. You should also find multi-tasking a simple feat as well.
Prebuilt Gaming PC Under $700
If you’ve gone through all of the options and you decide that the concept of building for yourself is just too overwhelming then we have you covered. Below is the best option for you to get your hands on a pre-built gaming PC in a similar price range to our custom build above.
Just bear in mind, you pay for the convenience of someone else building your PC for you. That means you either need to spend more money or you can expect a drop in the performance you’ll get for your budget.
iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Computer Desktop Trace 4 9310
If you want a great gaming experience and don’t mind spending a little bit more than the custom build, the iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Computer Desktop Trace 4 9310 is a great choice. It features the same Ryzen 5 3600 processor found in the custom build and also comes with an RX 5500XT GPU so you won’t miss out on any of the custom build’s performance.
Upgrade Path for Custom Build
AMD Ryzen 3600X
If you’re hoping for a slight improvement for your CPU then you may want to choose the 3600X over the regular 3600. That extra letter on the end may not seem like much, but you can expect a decent bump in performance, especially when it comes to CPU-intensive games.
Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L RGB
When it comes to cooling, you pretty much can’t get more efficient heat dissipation than water cooling. The Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L RGB will not only mean you can run your CPU at full capacity without worrying about overheating, but you also get some of that pretty RGB into the bargain too.
ASUS ROG Strix NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming
Of course, you can’t talk about upgrading a gaming rig without talking about an upgraded GPU. The RTX 3070 is insanely popular right now for a reason so it’s a no-brainer as an inclusion here. With a card this fancy and new you’ll be able to run games in 4K and almost no VR titles will even phase your hardware anymore, assuming you’ve also upgraded your CPU while you’re splashing the cash.
Operating System & Peripherals
Now that you’ve decided what you’ll be getting your hands-on, it’s time to think about some of the extras that you might need to get the most out of your new rig.
Windows 10 Home USB
When it comes to running the largest library of software, you pretty much cannot beat Windows 10. For decades, Microsoft has made backward compatibility a big part of their design philosophy, so not only do you have modern software to work with but 30+ years of legacy software too. This USB option makes installing Windows 10 easier than ever, and you can save a bit of money by purchasing the OEM version if you only want to install it on a single machine.
Razer DeathAdder V2
If you’re looking for a really well-made, entry-level gaming mouse, then Razer’s DeathAdder V2 is a perfect choice. This updated version of the DeathAdder has an excellent sensor and feels incredibly comfortable to use, all without the increased price tag you usually expect from a quality product.
Corsair K68 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
The Corsair K68 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard is a really solid mid-range gaming keyboard, featuring Cherry MX mechanical switches, you can be sure that this keyboard feels great to use even in those high-intensity gaming moments. As you can also expect from a gaming keyboard, it’s got more RGB than it knows what to do with, so your PC area will shine brighter than the sun.
SteelSeries QcK Gaming Surface
Since time immemorial a mouse has required a mouse pad, and these days you’re best off with an entire desk cover if you want to keep your desk looking top-tier. SteelSeries offers a great selection in their QcK gaming surface range, coming in a slew of different sizes. We recommend the XL mat, as it will protect both your keyboard and mouse and should keep either from scratching your desk surface.
ASUS VG278Q Gaming Monitor
The ASUS VG278Q Gaming Monitor is a great blend of low response time and high refresh rate that ensures you’ll actually be able to enjoy the extra power your components are giving you. However, the monitor is only 1080p, so if you end up trying to push your resolution a little higher, it may be worth going for a more high-end 4K monitor instead.
Mackie CR3-X 3-Inch Creative Reference Multimedia Monitors
When it comes to decent sound reproduction without breaking the bank, you can’t go wrong with Mackie CR3-X 3 Inch Monitors. If you’re used to listening to your games through tinny TV speakers then you’re going to have your mind blown by the massive leap in quality these provide.
Sennheiser GAME ONE Gaming Headset
Sennheiser has been a big name in professional audio equipment for a long time, and turning their hands to gaming has produced one of the best, affordable gaming headsets in a long time. If you prefer listening to your games using headphones and want a nice, clear mic for team chat, then you can’t go wrong with the GAME ONE.
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