I’m on a $1,500 budget - Help me purchase my first gaming PC

[Bofferbrauer2]

Zkuq said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

I made you a little comuter in PC Part Picker: Link

Since I wasn't sure if you had already an Windows license or if you wanted to go Linux, I left out the OS. Also not included are any peripherals like Mouse and keyboard. Without the OS, we're at $1491.

µThe 7600X was dirt cheap at over $100 less than the 7700XT or 9600XT, so I saw no reason going bigger for now. The 9070XT was also only $60 more than the 9070, so taking the non-XT version didn't make any sense. NVidia even less, as per HU testing just yesterday (link below) the 9070 is 13% faster than the 5070 at the same price, and the 5070Ti too expensive to compete with the 9070XT.

For a 10-year target, I'd rather invest in an 8-core CPU and skimp out a bit on the GPU, so you can probably get by without upgrading the CPU. The GPU will probably have to be upgraded way before the 10-year period is full, so might as well skimp out on it and upgrade a tad sooner.

For Windows, I'd just buy a suspiciously cheap license from eBay or something. I've bought two such licences for myself and one for someone else from a local eBay equivalent, and they've all been just fine.

Okay then, switch out the 7600X for a 7700X and the 9070XT for a 9070 non-XT and we'll be at $1485, $1512 with a 9700X. Going anywhere higher with the CPU would break the budget unless going for a 9060XT, and I feel that's just too much of a tradeoff.

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 20 October 2025