Best Gaming PC Build Under $700 in 2021 (Ultra 1080p): Custom & Prebuilt Systems

As mentioned, the $700 custom gaming PC sits at the lower end of our mid-level builds. An important area for your consideration is the budget, as a gamer, you need to ensure that the PC meets your requirements. This gaming PC excels at 1080p resolutions and despite what some may think, won’t be smashing 4K any time soon. That being said there is going to be some 1440p ability, but for anything higher you may want to think about our $800 PC and above. It is worth noting that due to Amazon’s price fluctuations, the build price can sometimes change. We do our best to ensure we keep this build as close to the budget as possible with regular updates.

Future upgrades are always going to be in the back of a PC builder’s mind. How easily upgradeable a PC is, makes things cheaper and easier when the time finally comes. While making compromises to get this PC within budget, you leave room for future improvement. We have carefully selected components that we feel can handle future upgrades. While these components may not be the newest releases, they still offer excellent gaming performance that will last you for years. If you were to upgrade anything on this build it would be to a larger storage solution. Remember, any upgrade will enhance performance but it will bring extra costs too.

Overclocking your PC can give you a free increase in performance. Boosting your clock speed or overclocking RAM has been shown to give you that little extra. Both the AMD and Intel processors have room for overclocking and the other components in the build will support such tweaks. Of course, when overclocking a CPU you bring about extra heat, so consider adding in a CPU cooler to your basket to keep things chilled. This $700 gaming PC features fast RAM that is capable of running at 3600MHz. Unfortunately, RAM kits don’t come at these speeds out of the box, so you will need to overclock them in the BIOS. Luckily motherboard manufacturers have made the RAM overclocking process significantly easier to do in the BIOS.

First-time builders out there should always consider how difficult the PC build will be. With this in mind, we carefully selected a PC case that simplifies the whole process. The case is from a manufacturer you can trust and one that has building and cable management as a primary concern. The case does a good job of hiding cables with little fuss on your end, however, for those that wish to spend time on it, there is plenty of room to create something excellent. Both of our recommended CPUs come with stock coolers as standard. These stock coolers will handle your cooling efficiently and reliably. The stock coolers come with thermal paste pre-applied, saving you a job. That being said, we recommend you purchase a tube of aftermarket thermal paste to replace what is already on your cooler. Replacing the thermal paste will often bring better thermal performance and provide you with lower temps, plus you will need to replace it in future intervals.

Gaming performance on the $700 build is a given, after all, it is a gaming PC. Regardless if you chose AMD or Intel, you are going to get joy out of those game titles, but how does this PC do in other areas? This is where the AMD build path starts to shine the most and this is largely down to its multithreading capabilities. The extra threads (virtual cores) enhance this PC’s ability to tackle multitasking, streaming, and video editing. It is worth noting that the RAM kit in this build goes a long way when paired with the AMD CPU, giving you a well-rounded PC for every occasion.

While some gamers and enthusiasts tend not to bother themselves with aesthetics, it can be important to some. With this in mind, we wanted to include a case that features a tempered glass panel, just in case you fancied pimping the PC out. For those that would like to improve the aesthetics, this is only an RGB fan or light strip away from looking even more pleasing to the eye.

Making sure your PSU provides the correct amount of wattage to your custom build PC is an essential part of the build process. For that reason, we’ve created a handy PSU calculator which will work out exactly what PSU wattage your components require – no matter how many changes you make.