Welcome to our inaugural pc gaming builds of the month! Every month we're going to piece together hardware setups for those interested in upgrading their machines.

  • These builds have been put together by us using our experience in the PC space and by comparing hardware using available third-party benchmarks.
  • Our goal is to get you as much bang for your buck as possible when it comes to gaming.
  • We are going to build a high-end system for both Intel and AMD alongside two builds in the $1200 and $700 price tiers.
  • Price tiers assume you already have peripherals and are accurate as of posting.
  • If you're interested in playing WoW Classic, you'll have a blast even on the $700 / Rare build.

All Amazon links on this page are affiliate links.

PS. Don't forget your USB Flash Drive to install Windows. A 32 GB SanDisk Ultra works great! You'll want to use Rufus to make it bootable.

PC Accessories

We're starting things off with accessories for your build. Need a new keyboard, mouse, or headset? We got you covered.

Accessories

The Legendary Build - High-End Intel & AMD Builds

Our first two builds are for Team Blue and Team Red. The setup stays the same for both builds with only the CPU and Motherboards changing. If you want to build with Ryzen and plan on content creation and streaming, you may want to buy a 3900X instead for the extra performance, though it is definitely not required.

Intel has recently price-dropped their CPUs to remain competitive with the new AMD chip, really showcasing the pressure team red gave them. Both builds will give you very similar performance with Intel pushing slightly ahead in gaming due to higher clocks. AMD really shines when it comes to multi-threaded workloads with its 16 threads compared to Intel's 8 which can help if you're interested in streaming. You'll be quick to notice the AMD system is slightly more expensive than our Intel friend, due to the increased motherboard price. This is thanks to ASRock having a rock-solid board on the blue side that is known for great quality and stability with overclocking while being on the cheap side. If you want to upgrade the memory, just buy two kits!

Do note that these computers, unlike our Rare and Epic tier builds, do not have cases pre-selected. We'll leave that choice up to you!

Team Blue - Intel $2788
Team Red - AMD $2899
Legendary Build Shared Components

The Epic Build - $1200 Tier

We're going big with an RTX 2070 and a current-generation Ryzen 5 processor which will let you push high framerates and give you plenty of overhead for streaming if you desire.

Epic Build $1228

If you're looking for some upgrades to the setup, you can double your memory by purchasing a second kit, or put in some magnetic storage for all your files that don't need really fast access with a 2TB WD Black for $106. An AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is also a nice upgrade for only $110 and it'll give you 2 extra cores (4 threads) for all that content creation your heart desires. A cooler upgrade with a Hyper 212 Evo at $35 is also not a bad investment to keep your CPU a bit cooler.

The Rare Build - $700 Tier

By using a mix of current and last-generation hardware, we're able to make a fantastic entry-level build that is even capable of streaming some titles, though you may need to lower some of your in-game settings to do so.

Rare Build $699

If you want to save some additional money, you can get by on 8 GB of RAM instead, but the extra $30 is well worth the hundreds of Chrome tabs you want want to leave open in the background. More graphical performance can be had for an extra $60 by upgrading to the Nvidia 1660 Ti, though and extra $110 instead can close to double your performance and unlock hardware-level raytracing in Minecraft by upgrading to an RTX 2060 for $340. A cooler upgrade with a Hyper 212 Evo at $35 is also not a bad investment to keep your CPU cooler.

Thanks for joining us for our first ever Build of the Month!