For most gamers who are yet to take the plunge into PC gaming or upgrade their aging computers, cost is the most commonly cited reason they don't. Consoles, handhelds, or laptops can be a smaller investment, so I don't blame people. Black Friday gaming PC deals are upon us though, and this wonderful time of the year makes it much easier to build a desktop system of your own.
Buying one of the best gaming PCs, or assembling the parts for one, doesn't need to cost as much as it usually does when you know how to use November's sales. I fully appreciate that a gaming PC is still the most expensive type of platform to invest in, but it's almost always the most futureproofed as well, and will give you better performance than more affordable alternatives.
I'm a full-tme PC gamer these days, but I know it can be daunting getting to grips with this market. As a test, and to help you decide how much you'd need to spend for a decent PC at the moment, I decided to use the Black Friday deals that are already available to assemble the parts for a 1440p gaming rig.
Now, I had a few rules while shopping. I had to use discounted parts - while a few alternatives may be cheaper than what I recommend here, I'm trying to draw attention to the sorts of savings you can make on typically pricey components at the moment. I also wanted to use exclusively current-gen components where possible. Again, I appreciate that you could build an even more affordable gaming PC with older parts, but again, I'm trying to prove my point that even the most up-to-date parts aren't completely unaffordable at this time of year.
Let's build!
And there we have it! I haven't included the screwdriver, thermal paste, or the peripherals you might need for a desk setup, since that's not technically a part of the PC. I've focused on the things you actually need to build a gaming computer here, and because I expected the modern components to draw the price closer to $2,000, I'm actually pretty happy with the budget result.
All in all, for this full system, you'll spend $1,230.94 - which, for a very up-to-date, futureproofed, and capable 1440p gaming rig, is not bad at all. Keep in mind, you could swap out parts where you feel it's necessary, and you don't need to stick to the modern components I have here.
It's hard to draw a direct comparison to a prebuilt PC here to see which would cost you less, but from the deals I've been looking at this year, that fits somewhere between an RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 gaming PC if you were to buy prebuilt. That said, prebuilts tend to skimp on some of the other components, and in this you're getting a futureproofed motherboard, an AIO cooler (which you don't usually get in a prebuilt of this price), and you're getting a decent SSD (which again, can be slower in prebuilds).
Keep in mind that if the RAM and overall specs you're looking for aren't fitting your budget right now, then take a look at the prebuilt deals. Newegg especially has some great offers available, and with the cost of RAM and SSDs as high as they are, you can get surprisingly good deals on PCs that so far, seem unaffected by those components seeing AI inflation.
There are more deals to check out at the moment. We've found some decent Black Friday VR headset deals, Black Friday gaming chair deals, and Black Friday Secretlab deals.
