Best PC hardware: budget, gaming, video editing, and more | digital trends

PC building is fun, but also a little scary. After all, it doesn’t come cheap—you’ll spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on something that will hopefully last you for years.

Therefore, you need to know exactly what kind of computer you are building and be realistic about what it will be capable of. It’s not as simple as buying a pre-built PC, and we can never make a recommendation for every budget and for every specific scenario. But hopefully, these mockup templates will give you a good place to start, especially if you’re not quite sure how everything will fit together.

Best budget computer

If you just want a reliable computer for everyday use, about $400 is all you need, and you don’t even need to buy a graphics card. You can take advantage of one of AMD’s Ryzen APUs to double its processing and GPU.

This particular build comes with the Ryzen 5 5600G. It’s a good CPU, though not quite as fast as its counterpart without the integrated graphics (Ryzen 5 5600). However, it’s good enough for work and leisure, and it can even handle some entry-level games.

If you already have a graphics card, you don’t need the Ryzen 5 5600G and can just replace it with the Ryzen 5 5600 (better). No GPU but want a better processor? Get the Ryzen 7 5700G, which is similarly priced but faster than this.

Aside from the lack of a discrete GPU, this is a solid PC. You’re getting 16GB of DDR4-3600 RAM, a 1TB M.2 PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, and a 500W power supply that can handle all the components with ease. It also leaves you some space for future upgrades.

If you think you might use a GPU with this in the future, get a better PSU to make sure your computer can handle the added wattage. Assuming you want to buy one right away, a decent cheap option for that is the RX 6600 XT or RTX 3060, but that’s a huge extra cost. You’ll also need to add a cooler (such as the Arctic Freezer i35 A-RGB) if you upgrade the CPU or buy a GPU.

The best gaming PC under $1,000

It is a common misconception these days that you need real PC power to run the latest games. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend $1,600 on an RTX 4090 in order to get a powerful gaming PC.

Spending just $1,000 on the desktop alone means you can play even the most demanding games on medium to maximum settings. Of course, this PC isn’t a total beast. You’ll need to compromise on settings sometimes, but you’ll also save a fair amount of money.

Let’s explore this build in more detail.

For this build, we chose the Intel Core i5-12400F, which is Intel’s best CPU at the moment. It only has six cores and 12 threads, but it’s powerful for gaming, and it’s cheap, so it saves you money for a good GPU.

If you’re happy with an AMD graphics card, the RX 6800 is a great option at this price point. You’ll be gaming at 1440p and it can even handle some 4K resolutions. The 6700 XT is an acceptable alternative that will save you about $170. That money could go toward a better screen or processor (such as the Core i5-13600K), more RAM, or a larger SSD.

If Nvidia’s more your style, the RTX 3070 costs about the same as the RX 6800, but isn’t quite as powerful as an AMD card.

Other than the expensive components, this is a pretty standard design. We opted for a 600W power supply to give you a little more breathing room if you upgrade or overclock, but you can downsize to 550W for some small savings. Keep your RAM at 16GB – you’ll probably need it in the future; 32GB isn’t a bad idea if you end up saving money on one of the other components, as more and more games are demanding.

One thing to keep in mind is that the motherboard doesn’t have Wi-Fi built in, so you’ll need an adapter or a more expensive model to include it, like this MSI option for $110.

The best 4K gaming PC

Moving to 4K gaming means you’ll spend more money, but the exact amount is kind of up to you. What we’re showing you here is the ultimate design – expensive but insanely sturdy. Let’s break it down a bit.

First, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is an obvious choice. Don’t waste your money on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D or the Intel Core i9-13900K – this processor is cheaper, however, and it’s the fastest gaming CPU right now, bar none. If you want to save, you can switch to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but you’re better off sticking with the AM5 platform that supports DDR5 memory.

The graphics card here is the RTX 4090, a true 4K gaming giant. It’s not cheap, and you won’t find it for less than $1,600. Conversely, spending a few hundred extra dollars on a more expensive model with faster clock speeds is not talked about. The performance gains won’t be worth it, so it’s best to stick to the $1,600 area with this one.

For the record, you can also use an RTX 4080 or RX 7900 XTX for 4K gaming purposes. The RTX 4090 is a better value than its predecessor. Ultimately, all three will handle 4K gaming just fine. In a more budget version than this one, you can even forgo the previous generation and get the RX 6950 XT.

The computer comes with 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM. You won’t be needing more anytime soon, so expanding to 64GB should only work if you have the money to spare. There’s also a fast 2TB SSD, and if you’d like, you can get another, smaller one, too.

The power supply must be powerful in order to handle this build, so don’t save money on this particular component. As for cooling, it is definitely required, and liquid cooling is the best option here. Understandably, not everyone is comfortable with liquid cooling. If so, just use the DeepCool AK620 and monitor the temperatures under heavy use.

The best computer for content creation

Buying a computer to create content isn’t easy. Your budget and use case play a role in which components you should choose.

The design we have here isn’t very cheap – it will cost you around $2,000. However, it is a premium PC designed to handle 8K video editing and rendering. Depending on what you need, there are a few changes you can make here to spend less (or more) money. We’ll go to it below.

For starters, we’re including a high-end motherboard. Players don’t benefit greatly from switching to a better board, but for a content creator the extra slots can be nice – and the price difference isn’t huge.

The processor is a kind of middle ground. We chose the Core i7-13700K because of its higher core count and better value than the Core i9-13900K. If your budget can stretch it, you can upgrade to the Core i9-13900K, but we don’t recommend the Core i9-13900KS because it’s overpriced. Alternatively, the Ryzen 7 7800X or Ryzen 9 7950X are solid options for an AMD build, but remember that this will also require a motherboard swap, and then the compatibility of other components will change as well.

A graphics card is weaker than a processor simply because many creative workflows don’t rely on the GPU as much. The RTX 4070 will suffice for the tasks we talked about above as well as some games at 1440p.

The upgrade path is obvious if you have the budget – the RTX 4070 Ti is a much more powerful card, and of course there’s the RTX 4090 if you don’t have the budget constraints. AMD’s RX 7900 XTX and RX 6950 XT are solid choices here, too. On the other hand, if you’re not doing anything heavy on the GPU, you can even get a budget model like the RX 6700 XT and call it a day.

We also packed in 64GB of DDR5-5600 RAM. However, not everyone will need that much, so cutting down to 32GB (2 x 16) will save you a little money. You also get two drives – a 2TB solid-state drive and an 8TB hard drive for storage purposes; The 8TB hard drive can be skipped if you are not using it.

A build like this doesn’t require water cooling and doesn’t even require power, so an 850-watt power supply is a bit of overkill. Depending on your upgrade path, you may still need to swap it out for the 1000W model, especially if you’re switching to an RTX 4090. When you do, liquid cooling becomes a real consideration, too.

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