Picking out the best gaming PC for you depends on a few important factors, and those will vary wildly between different people and what the goal is. If you're after a budget pre-built machine that won't break the bank but will be ideal for good gaming use and for college or university, then your expectations and short listed items are going to be a lot different compared to someone who has a 4K version of one of the best gaming monitors and needs a beast of a machine to drive that resolution. Either way you want to get the best bang for your buck so you're in the right place, and it always pays to at least aim high.
Generally when it comes to pre-built gaming PCs, the prices are becoming more and more aligned with DIY costs, and the rising level of competition means that quality is increasing everywhere too. The advantages of getting one of the best gaming PCs pre-built for you are clear at first: - it saves you the potential headaches and hard labor of the build. But the benefits, if you;re that way inclined, go further. Built buy a company and/or sold by a retailer means that your new machine will have warranty coverage and quite possible some extras that the DIY route doesn't provide (perhaps stuff like unique cooling solutions, cable management, or parts that aren't available anywhere else). Plus, simply put, you are allowed to not want to build one yourself, despite what some may say about it being the only 'true' way to enjoy PC gaming. Not the case, buy a pre-built if you fancy taking a slightly simper route into PC gaming.
As anyone on Nvidia's staff will be happy to tell you, ray tracing is the future of gaming. While the games currently available may not be best equipped to make it clear why that's the case, I actually agree with the GPU manufacturer - manipulating light, shadows, and reflections will be a huge component of getting games right up to the photorealistic threshold. If you're curious to see it in action for yourself but don't want to sink money on a top end RTX card, the SkyTech Legacy Mini may be just the answer you're looking for.
Like the above iBuyPower machine, the Legacy Mini packs an affordable but capable RTX 2060 with all its dedicated ray tracing cores (and the Tensor equivalent to handle DLSS computations). Unlike the SLIIBG213, on the other hand, it's loaded up with an AMD Ryzen processor, so if you're one of the Red Team enthusiasts, the Mini may be the prebuilt solution you've been dreaming of. It's also packed into a slightly smaller frame than the standard mid-tower, which means it'll tuck under a desk or into a living room entertainment center with ease (though it does mean you have slightly less real estate to navigate around in inside the chassis).
Best for... AMD processor enthusiasts who want to join the era of ray tracing and DLSS but don't want to pay a premium
While at first glance the Corsair Vengeance 5180 might seem like a lot of RGB lighting, signifying nothing, the reality is it's packed with powerful hardware and some thoughtful design decisions that elevate above even the other gaming PCs on our list.
Inside the spacious case you'll find one of Nvidia's mighty new ray tracing cards, the RTX 2080, and a very capable Core i7-8700. It also comes with a very welcome, generous 480GB SSD as well as 2TB of traditional storage. The glass tempered panes of glass on the front, side, and top and massive RGB light-show might be the headline (or at the very least, most eye-catching) feature, but the 5180 is no slouch in performance, either.
One of my favorite features is actually the case design. While it's a pretty massive piece of kit, the space is used extremely well in a dual-chambered design that separates the motherboard, GPU, and RAM into one side and the storage drives and PSU into the other. This makes tinkering a breeze, with no massive cable snakes to navigate around when you're swapping out the graphics card or adding RAM. On the other side, handy removable hard drive bays allow you to easily add additional storage if you're so inclined, and all the PSU cables are wrapped and neatly tucked so they won't interfere.
Of course, if you do fancy an RGB light show from your desktop, the Corsair can be lit like a Christmas tree and becomes a flashing, 16.8 million color equipped show piece for the easily impressed amongst your friends and families. Even as someone who's not a particular fan of the RGB frenzy currently gripping gaming PC and accessory manufacturers, I don't hate the candy colored display the Corsair presents every time you power it on.
Best for… Gamers who want a powerful, fully-featured machine that's as capable as it is flashy
There's something sort of mystical about the Obelisk that encapsulates some of the most exciting facets of our hobby. The sleek, hard angles of this HP rig mirror the object its named after, a dense black cube of potentiality ready to unleash the most beautiful and intense games of this generation.
True to that design, the Obelisk is trim and compact and powerful. It cuts away the fat, eschewing overblown RGB lighting or the elaborate tentacles of a liquid cooling setup, focusing instead on delivering sheer performance at a very attractive price. It's also highly customizable, with a range of builds that start at the very affordable and peak up near some truly dizzying heights. The Obelisk comes packed with a very nice 8th gen Core i7-8700 and a high end RTX 2080, only one step down from Nvidia's most powerful 20-series, ray tracing focused graphics powerhouse. It also boasts a speedy 256GB SSD and a generous 2TB standard HDD, so you'll have plenty of room to load your most demanding games onto the faster storage and tons of leftover room for everything else.
While the Obelisk's case is smaller than the similarly specced Vengeance, it's not tiny by any means, and the air cooling solution the Obelisk provides has been more than sufficient during testing to handle even heavy gaming loads. It does make swapping out components slightly trickier than the Vengeance's massive dual-chamber case, of course, but that also means it'll fit more easily into smaller spaces. The Obelisk tucks neatly under a desk, or can even slide into a larger entertainment center if you want it to be the central unit in your living room media showcase.
Best for… power gamers looking for a no-frills machine to anchor their gaming setup
If you're looking for a mighty gaming machine that impresses visually as much as it does with its under-the-hood performance, the SkyTech supremacy is the machine for you. Coming in right around the high-end mark, it packs Nvidia's shiny new RTX 2080 Ti, the top end GPU in its much ballyhooed new raytracing family of cards, and a very competent, overclockable Core-i7-8700K. This beast will easily handle any games or apps you feed it, and perform admirably even under processor intensive workloads.
Perhaps the most arresting element of the Supremacy, however, is the gorgeous panel of tempered glass and open architecture, molded around those powerful internals in what looks like a terrarium for high end PC performance parts. It's a truly beautiful machine and allows you unfettered access to the parts, as well as plenty of access to fresh air to keep the mobo and parts humming along dust free, all perched on a pair of understated feet that elevate it like a piece of modern industrial art.
Best for... Hardcore gamers who value aesthetics almost as much as performance
The Corsair One series is incredibly small and lightweight (at least considering how much power it's packing), and has an attractive form factor. As a step-up option from Corsair's flashier but more modestly outfitted Vengeance model, the Corsair has a few advantages that will primarily appeal to those looking for more workload capability and who are focused on gaming as a more secondary concern. The Corsair One is decidedly a workstation focused rig, though it certainly doesn't slouch in the gaming department either.
The One comes in a few flavors, but the best dollars-to-performance value is in the package. It's built around the same GPU as the Vengeance, an RTX 2080, and contains the same storage drives, a 480 SSD and a 2 TB HDD. Where it exceeds the Vengeance's specs are in the CPU, an overclockable Core i7-9700K, and also in a nod to megatasking workload scenarios, it packs double the RAM, at 32GB of DDR4-2666. It will manhandle modern games at 4K with ease, and it's also suitable for heavy rendering, CAD, or other workstation style applications.
If that's not enough horsepower for you, however, for another sum you can raise the bar all the way up to the most powerful mainstream card Nvidia produces, the RTX 2080 Ti, as well as moving up to a Core i9-9900K, a ridiculously powerful processor. It's sort of the ultimate gaming/workstation hybrid, though if you find your bank balance is absolutely bursting with discretionary income, first, call me, but second you might also want to consider the top option in the Corsair family. It also throws in a massive 960GB SSD so you can stash practically all of your games and applications all on a speedy static drive.
Best for… Content creators for whom gaming is an important but secondary concern, or professionals who love to game in their spare time but prioritize processing power
