How much should a gaming PC cost?

Around $900 — the sweet spot for most people

This is where a modern gaming PC gets genuinely good without getting expensive. Our Spark S1 at $899 pairs a Core i5-13400F with an RTX 4060, 32GB of DDR5, and a 1TB NVMe SSD. It runs high-refresh 1080p comfortably — roughly 220 FPS in Fortnite and 300 in Valorant — and handles demanding single-player games with DLSS turned on. If you play on a 1080p monitor, this is the tier to buy. Spending more here mostly buys resolution you're not using.

$1,300–$1,350 — the 1440p step up

Move to a 1440p monitor and this is the range that keeps up. The Bolt P2 at $1,299 puts a 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X next to a 12GB RTX 4070 — high-refresh 1440p with plenty of cores for streaming and multitasking. The Nova P3 at $1,349 takes a different route to the same tier: a current-gen Ryzen 5 7600X on the AM5 platform with a 10GB RTX 3080 and a 2TB SSD, capable at 1440p and into entry 4K. Both are the “buy once, enjoy for years” pick for a serious gamer.

$1,999 — performance with nothing to apologize for

At the top of our lineup, the Vortex P1 at $1,999 is a 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D with AMD 3D V-Cache, a 12GB RTX 4070, 32GB of DDR5-6000, and a 2TB NVMe SSD. It's built for high-refresh 1440p, high-FPS esports (around 350 FPS in Valorant), and doubling as a streaming and content-creation machine. You buy this tier when you want a system that won't feel slow for a long time and can do more than game.

So what should you spend?

Match the money to the monitor and the games. Playing 1080p esports and story games? ~$900 is plenty. On a 1440p display, or streaming alongside your games? $1,300–$1,350 is the honest target. Want maximum headroom and creator-grade cores? ~$2,000. Every one of these ships assembled, cleaned, stress-tested, and under a 30-day warranty — so the money goes into the machine, not into fixing it later.