You don’t have to spend a ton of money in order to get a solid gaming PC for 1080P gaming. This $600 gaming PC build will run most games on higher settings on a 1080P monitor with excellent framerates.
No more Mr. Nice Gamer. It’s time to finally get a gaming computer that can run all of today’s top games on a 1080P monitor on higher-to-maximum settings. It won’t matter what game you throw at it, you’re going to get a computer that will deliver 60+ FPS with ease.
That’s because in this guide I’m going to show you how you can get a gaming PC for under $600 that will run any game at higher settings on a 1080P monitor with no problems.
Also, if you want to look at more budget-friendly part lists, check out more options on our Cheap Gaming PC Build guide.
4. What About the Cost of Windows?
While everybody would love to spend thousands of dollars on a new gaming computer that has liquid cooling, an insane graphics card and CPU combo, a ton of RGB lights, and an awesome-looking case, the reality is that you don’t have to have all of those things in order to play your favorite games on higher settings.
So, if your main goal is to simply have the ability to play today’s best PC games on high settings on a 1080P monitor, you can actually achieve that with a budget of just $600 (and, in reality, you could probably do it with $500, too—check out our $500 gaming PC build here).
That’s what the build listed below will give you. No, it doesn’t have an AIO cooler in it and it doesn’t come with a fancy RGB-laden case. But it will allow you to experience your favorite games at graphics-levels you never thought possible.
For $600, you get an Intel Core i3-8100 processor, an RX 590 8GB graphics card, 8GB of memory, and a semi-modular 550W power supply.
The combination of the i3-8100 and the RX 590 are good enough to where this build will be able to run demanding games like The Division 2 and PUBG on higher settings. And, for non-demanding popular titles like Apex Legends, Fortnite, League of Legends, and Rocket League, this system will run on them on max settings with no problems.
So, the bottom line is that if you’re looking for the best gaming PC under $600, the part list below will serve you well.
One of the coolest parts about choosing components to build a new computer is that, while there definitely are right and wrong components to get, there are different ways you can go about it. We believe the components that we listed above will give you great performance for the price you pay. However, there are other routes you can go with this build. So, in the section below we will discuss some of the other options you have.
The other great thing about building a computer is that you will always have the potential to upgrade it in the future. So, we’ll also go over the different upgrade paths that are available for this build, too.
But, before we dive into the different component options out there and the available upgrade paths, let’s first cover what kind of performance you can expect out of this $600 gaming PC.
1. What Kind of Performance Can You Expect out of this $600 Build?
So, whether you’re building this system to play competitive esports titles that aren’t very demanding (like Rocket League, LoL, Fortnite, etc.) or you’re building it so that you can play some of the more demanding and graphically-detailed games (like The Division 2, The Witcher 3, etc.), this build will be able to handle both types of games fairly easily on higher settings.
In my opinion, there are three processor options that make sense for this build. The Intel Core i3-8100 that we have chosen, the AMD Ryzen 5 2600, and the Intel Core i5-9400f. We chose the Intel Core i3-8100, though, because the other two options are more expensive and they would require you to sacrifice too much GPU power in order to fit them into the $600 budget. However, there are always sales going on on the various online retailers and so it would probably be a good idea to shop around before you finalize your purchase to see if you can grab anything at a discount—which may end up allowing you to go with an upgraded processor.
But, for the most part, the three previously mentioned processors are going to be the options that make the most sense in this build. So, let’s break down each option and why they are (and are not) good fits for a $600 PC build.
In my opinion, the majority of users are going to benefit the most by using the Intel Core i3-8100 in this build. The i3-8100 offers great single core performance for the price and its four cores should be enough to hold you over until you can upgrade to an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor.
And, while the Intel Core i5-9400f can be paired with the same cheap H310 motherboard, the 9400f comes in at about ~$30 more expensive than the i3-8100.
The reality is that all three of these CPUs are good enough to handle games at 1080P on higher settings when they are paired with a solid mid-range graphics card. So, then, outside of a few other specific use-case scenarios, this really comes down to a matter of price-to-performance.
When you consider the $600 budget for this build and the fact that, at a minimum, you’ll have to pay $30 more for the Ryzen 5 2600 or i5-9400f, in ordere to fit either the Ryzen 5 2600 or the i5-9400f into this budget, you’ll likely have to drop the RX 590 down to an RX 580 4GB or GTX 1060 3GB GPU. That’s not a terrible drop down, but the combo of the i3-8100 and the RX 590 should give you better overall performance.
Of course, if you don’t mind stretching this $600 PC build into a ~$630-$650 build, then by all means, upgrade the processor!
But, overall, with a $600 budget, we felt like the i3-8100 offered the best price-to-performance at this price range simply because it also allowed us to fit an RX 590 graphics card into the build.
While the three processor options listed above are viable options depending on the scenario, the debate on which graphics card to go with between an AMD RX 590 8GB and an RX 580 8GB is probably even more difficult.
Most benchmarks show that the RX 590 8GB slightly outperforms the RX 580 8GB. And, right now, the RX 590 we chose comes in at the same price as the cheapest RX 580. So, with the price being the same we figured it was a no-brainer.
However, the XFX RX 580 8GB graphics card has been known to drop down to ~$190 at times. And, at the price range, the savings difference between it and the RX 590 in this build could allow you to upgrade your processor to a Ryzen 5 2600 or an i5-9400f.
Either way, both cards will deliver a very similar in-game experience—with the RX 590 providing a small performacne increase. And, both options will pair well with a budget-friendly 144Hz FreeSync monitor. So, since they both cost the same, the RX 590 is the better option at the moment.
4. Why Isn’t Windows 10 Included in the Price?
While you will definitely need an operating system in order to get your computer to actually run, we have left out including an operating system in the price of this build. Windows is the best-suited operating system for gaming. Unfortunately, though, a brand new copy of Windows will set you back ~$100.
However, there are alternatives to paying $100 for a copy of Windows. And, so while you will need some kind of operating system, we have left it out of the total cost of your system because of these alternatives that are available.
Second, you could buy a Windows 10 key from a third party marketplace for ~$30. I’ve had good success purchasing Windows keys from Kinguin.net in the past, but there is definitely some risk involved in purchasing a Windows license from a third party source.
Finally, you could just install Windows 10 for free and not activate it. In my opinion, this is probably the best route to go. Essentially, Microsoft allows anyone to install Windows onto their computer without forcing them to activate it. And, for the most part, you can still use Windows normally even when it’s not activated. The only thing you will lose out on is some customization options like setting a custom background for your desktop. But, I think in order to save $100, that is not a bad trade-off cost. And, at the very least, you could run the non-activated version of Windows for the time being until you can afford to purchase an activation key for it.
This $600 gaming computer is pretty good as-is. Again, it is powerful enough to run pretty much any game at higher settings on a 1080P monitor.
The first upgrade that I would make to this build is to add a solid state drive.
The 1TB hard drive that this build comes with will give you plenty of storage for your system. However, as it is a traditional mechanical hard drive, it isn’t the fastest storage option out there. By adding a 250GB (or more) SSD to this build, you can move your operating system and some of your most-used games and applications onto the SSD to see improved load times.
The second upgrade that I would make would be to add another 8GB of memory.
After adding an SSD to this build, the second upgrade that I would make would be to add a second stick of 8GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX. This build will make it really easy to bump up to 16GB of RAM as there will be an open DIMM slot available on the motherboard. So, upgrading to 16GB of RAM will be as simple as adding in a second stick of the same memory that this build comes with.
For this build, since it already has a graphics card in it that is capable of maxing games out on a 1080P monitor, upgrading the graphics card to a higher-end option probably doesn’t make sense unless you’re also upgrading your monitor.
So, for my fourth upgrade, I’d probably look to jump up to an Intel Core i7-8700 before I’d jump up to a higher-end graphics card. By jumping up to an Intel Core i7-8700, this would be a really solid system overall. After that, if you want to make the jump to a higher-resolution monitor, you’ll need to also upgrade your graphics card (and, likely the power supply as well) in order to push games at higher resolutions.
If you don’t already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to go along with your new system, you will definitely need to get one of each. In this section, we’ll give you a few budget-friendly recommendations that will pair well with this build.
If this build proves anything, it’s that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to get a computer that is powerful enough to run today’s top games at higher settings. No, it’s not a high-end gaming computer that can handle 4K gaming, or push a 1440P 144Hz monitor.
However, if you’re someone that currently has a laptop or older desktop that is struggling to run games on a 1080P monitor at a playable framerate and you don’t have a huge budget to upgrade to a high-end system, then this $600 gaming PC will offer you a fairly affordable solution to your problem.
Overall, this build will provide you with the performance necessary to run the best games out there on the higher settings and it will also give you plenty of room to make upgrades in the future, too.
I’m 19 and getting into PC’s and I wanna play DayZ and rust but I don’t want to buy a build computer I wanna build one but I don’t know what parts to get.