If you're in the market for a new gaming rig, you might be asking if you should buy a gaming PC this Prime Day. Computer's don't exactly come cheap these days, especially if you want something that can play 2023's biggest titles that are getting more and more demanding on their recommended specs sheets.
Black Friday is admittedly when we see the biggest discounts on computers and their components throughout the year, if the Adobe shopping report is to be believed, anyway. But outside of that, there aren't that many obvious points on the calendar you can point to as great times to budget for when it comes to PC deals. Luckily, Amazon Prime Day PC deals are actually pretty reliable, whether you're looking for a new GPU or a whole new rig.
Amazon is, however, the world's largest retailer, and when Prime Day kicks in, there are an unholy number of deals and products to sort through. Luckily, we have a list of the best gaming PCs that can keep you on the straight and narrow, although there will be plenty of configurations we'll be able to recommend you this Prime Day based on our time with each brand and the parts that make up a build.
There's a lot to think about when asking if you should buy a gaming PC this Prime Day, and while we can certainly recommend you good deals when we spot them, we've added some reasoning, analysis, and thoughts about who should be buying what, and how much you should be paying down below.
Budget gaming PCs (Under $1,000)
My goal when covering gaming PC deals during big sales events like this, is to try to find the best rig under, or as close to a grand as possible. It's always more than possible, even if the rigs themselves aren't the absolute best. That said, you might not need to make as much compromises on power as you might expect. Even this past month, we spotted an HP Omen 25L with an RTX 3060 inside it for well under a grand. When Prime Day kicks in, we might see some very capable 1080p/1440p machines come down to the $700 mark.
Even if the rig in question doesn't have one of the best graphics cards, it might be all you need to get started. I have a sneaky suspicion that there will be plenty of PS5 owners shopping around for a Starfield machine this Prime Day, and I wouldn't blame you. The minimum GPU required for Starfield is a Nvidia 1070i, which means there are so many gaming PC deals that would easily exceed that.
For processors, you're looking at 6th Gen Intel being the absolute minimum. I'd bet that 11th and 12th gen Intel CPUs will be cheap as chips this Prime Day, so you're absolutely in luck there. For even an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 and an RTX 3060, I'd expect to see prices of between $650-$850 this Prime Day.
Buy a budget gaming PC this Prime Day if:
Which budget gaming PCs should you buy on Prime Day?
There is a wide selection of budget gaming PCs that we typically see for under the $1,000 mark in most instances. This includes cheap configurations from iBuyPower, the HP Omen 25L, Acer Predator Orion 3000, CyberPowerPC, Gamer Master, and various Skytech Gaming.
Mid range gaming PCs (under $1,500)
If you're after a machine that can comfortable sit at 1440p in today's games, then it's likely you're going to be aiming for $1,000, but likely under $1,500. Mid-range gaming PC hardware is beginning to be priced a little better these days (he says tentatively), depending on the brand you go for. For example, from our early tests with the Intel Arc A770, we can say it's absolutely worth going for if you don't have the money for a a higher-end Nvidia or AMD GPU, but still have ambitions for 1440p and 4K/60. There's a lot that can be done with rigs well under the $1,500 mark, many of which will feature faster processors, far more storage space, and much more capable video cards.
This is the price range that we normally see the RTX 3070 reside in, especially now with the 40 series equivalents on the shelves. Whether it's the standard or Ti variants, which are engineered for high performance without breaking the bank too badly, we'd say the 70 family is what to aim for here. What's more, 12th Gen Intel Core i7 CPUs and AMD Ryzen 7 processors are common in builds of this spec. We'd also look at ensuring you have at least 16GB of DDR4, (although aim for DDR5), and lots of storage space. You want NVMe SSDs here, not SATAs ideally.
These machines arguably offer the best price-to-performance ratio for the vast majority of PC gamers, making gaming PCs under $1,500 some of the most sought after on Prime Day at least in our experience. What's more, there's much more representation from boutique builders and specified manufacturer-made models for the asking price, too.
Buy a mid-range gaming PC on Prime Day if:
Which mid-range gaming PCs should you buy on Prime Day?
In terms of which mid-range gaming PCs are available, you've got configurations of the Alienware Aurora R10, as well as the HP Omen 30L, and various Skytech and iBuyPower models just to name a few.
High-end gaming PCs
For those wanting high-end options with their next rig on Prime Day, you'll most likely find the likes of RTX 3080 machines well under the $2,000 mark on the day. For last-gen GPUs, aim to spend between $1,500 and $2,000. Hopefully we'll see things for cheaper than that, but always good to plan to spend more and be pleasantly surprised.
For these rigs, definitely aim for DDR5 as this will give you futureproofing, and adequate performance for the money. To prevent bottle-necking, you really want a "9" processor from AMD or Intel, but 7s could work too. The biggest strength of these computers is their capacity for 4K gaming above the 60 FPS mark, with also making use of some of the best SSDs for gaming, too. Definitely, definitely keep an eye on the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX, as we expect AMD to make these as cheap as possible to continue being a thorn in Nvidia's paw.
If you can catch an RTX 4090 rig with one of the best CPUs for gaming in it, it might be worth a buy if you can handle the price. It'd be big news to see these rigs drop in price, but it isn't out of the realms of possibility.
Buy a high-end gaming PC this Prime Day if:
Which high-end gaming PCs should you buy on Prime Day?
We can genuinely recommend the Alienware Aurora R13 and the Acer Predator Orion 7000 as two of the best high-end machines that you can buy right now. In terms of other machines that are available upwards of the $2,000 mark, you've got the HP Omen 45L, as well as the Corsair One i300 for more premium options as well.
We're also gearing up for the Prime Day gaming laptop deals. And for console gamers, we're bringing you everything you need to know about the Prime Day Xbox deals and Prime Day PS5 deals.
