[EDIT1: The Thermaltake GF1 850W that's often included in lists is currently on backorder] Hi everyone :)

As expected, there are a TON of people asking for build (advice) on this sub (and also on r/buildapcforme) during these Black Friday sales. I've helped as many people as I can, but there are a lot of similar requests for full builds, and yours might just get buried at the moment due to the volume of requests.

I'm currently on a 13 hour train-ride, so I decided give my two cents and share my knowledge I learned over the many years, on what to buy with current deals going around, with these following FIFTEEN 'best buy guide' Gaming PC lists!

A few things to note beforehand:

• These lists are focussed first and foremost towards gaming. For productivity PCs, you might want to consider Nvidia graphics cards at a lower budget (due to CUDA support for stuff like Blender, but also better performance in many video editing software) or 32GB RAM for example.

• If this is your first time building a PC, please take your time and watch this (long) video from Linus Tech Tips, a start to end guide on how to build a pc!

• I am not affiliated with any purchases/links whatsoever! This is just a hobby and I like sharing my knowledge with the community!

• For EVERY build, PLEASE remember to enable memory XMP (for Intel), or DOCP/EXPO/EOCP (AMD, depends on motherboard brand what it's called) in the BIOS! This changed the default slow RAM speed (2133/2400mhz for DDR4, 4800Mhz for DDR5) to the speed that is actually mentioned on the BOX. You can miss out on a LOT of performance if you don't do this!

• These lists don't include peripherals or a monitor. For an excellent best buy guide for monitors, watch this brand new video from Hardware Unboxed. They also just made a European version!

  • This video doesn't include any really low budget (sub $150) monitors though, so you're best googling that yourself. I'd recommend at least getting a 23" 1080p IPS monitor, at 75hz+ if possible.

• These lists are U.S. prices. However, even for outside the US it may be a nice reference guide on what you should "try" to expect for a certain budget. Don't be scared if european prices are higher for example: that's because U.S. pricing doesn't have any sales tax (U.K.'s VAT) included in the price, while that might be ~20% in european and other countries.

• I will most likely refer to "Graphics Cards / Video Cards" as "GPUs". The CARD is the actual sold model CARD, while the "GPU" is the actual chip that's manufactured by AMD/Nvidia/Intel

  • Some specific products like some power supplies might not be available outside the U.S. (or vice versa) - use this Tier list as a reference guide instead on what to get: https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/

• Some choices can be very subjective.

  • Stuff like how much storage you need, whether you do productivity tasks on the side (for RAM for example), and aesthetic choices like the case and cooler are subject to change from person to person

  • Consider these lists a solid foundation, but there are definitely things to change. For example - going from 1 budget to the next, I could upgrade graphics card only, but maybe you're more interested in having more storage, more RAM, a nicer case/cooler, etcetera.

  • I can't make aesthetic choices that appeal to everyone. Some people want a full black build with a tempered glass case, but no RGB, others want RGB, some want a white build with or without RGB, some want no glass/rgb at all, etcetera.

• Prices and stock are still subject to change. Even while making the list, some items went out of stock or prices changed.

• I'm not considering 2nd hand for these Best Buy Guides. If your budget is $350 for example, you can get MUCH more gaming performance with a 2nd hand gaming PC with something like a GTX1060 or RX580.

• While making this, Hardware Canucks also made a video with a few $500-$1500 build on Youtube. definitely check that out as well, although these lists are pretty similar, and I try to pack a few more budgets in between.

• I made a popular guide before, which might explain some of the terms you come across in this post.

• You can also find all the lists consolidated HERE

$350 - Basic iGPU Gaming PC

With this budget, we have to rely on integrated graphics (unless you go 2nd hand), so performance will be limited. If you're only doing light gaming like eSports titles (Valorant, CS:GO, Dots, LoL, Rocket League) you'll be fine at 1080p 60+ fps, but will struggle with modern titles. However, There's at great deal on this 650W Bronze power supply from Thermaltake at just $40. It's a C-tier "low end" power supply, but completely fine for this budget and sets you up for a very nice drop-in graphics card upgrade down the line. If gaming on higher settings, especially newer and higher fidelity titles, is your main concern, I highly recommend either saving up a little more to the next tier ($500), or go 2nd hand. For 2nd hand, you can either buy a complete PC, or buy a used Dell Optiplex (~3-6 years old) for around $180, and then buy a new AMD RX 6600 GPU ($190).

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: The 5600G pretty mucht the only choice for iGPU gaming (except the 5700G which isn't a much faster GPU). It's cheap, performs MUCH better than the iGPUs found in Intel's variants, and can play some games pretty well. Some dude made a video benchmarking 300 GAMES with these integrated graphics.

• Cooler: The 5600G comes with a cooler in the box! It's not the most quiet out there, but it's the best option working with this budget. You can always add a $20-30 aftermarket cooler like the "ID-Cooling se-224-xt", Vetroo V5, or Deepcool AG400/AK400.

• Motherboard: With this A520m model from MSI we get a basic motherboard, but it does support memory overclocking (a 1-click profile in the BIOS), which is very important for iGPUs as memory speed is very important!

• Memory: We take a 16GB set of 3600mhz CL18 RAM. RAM speed is important for iGPU CPUs (also knows as "APUs")

• Storage SSD: As we're limited in budget, a 512GB SSD is what we can afford now.

• Graphics Card: As mentioned, we're running on the integrated AMD Vega 7 graphics. This PC is completely set up for a drop-in graphics card upgrade though! Don't forget to change the HDMI/DisplayPort cable from the motherboard to the graphics card!!

• Case: This is a pretty basic case, but it's it's pretty decent as well. All the super-cheap "Gamer" cases out there are terrible quality.

• Power Supply: As mentioned, we get a 650W power supply which is WAY overkill. With JUST the CPU, you'd even be fine with a case that has a 150W or so power supply included, but that wouldn't allow for a graphics card drop-in. This C-tier PSU is excellent for the price. If you're okay with spending $16 extra, I'd definitely upgrade to this 650W Gold PSU from Thermaltake, the GF1 650.

$550 Entry level gaming PC

We're now making a huge step up in gaming performance. By adding the excellent value (still one of the highest FPS/$) GPU, the AMD RX6600, we drastically increase our power in games (think about 5+ TIMES the performance):

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: We "downgrade" to a Ryzen 5500, but it's actually identical to the Ryzen 5600G - except it doesn't have integrated graphics. Apart from troubleshooting, we don't need the graphics anymore anyway, and it saves us about $35!

• Cooler: We're still going to use the included cooler. If noise/thermals is an issue for you, you can of course still just upgrade the cooler to a (cheap) third party model.

• Motherboard: We're still using the same A520 motherboard. It's unfortunately a bit limited in I/O (USB etcetera), and only has 2 DIMM slots (RAM slots) and 1 M.2 slots. It is however VERY cheap and still does the job just fine. It allows us to afford the graphics card within budget, which is the #1 priority right now.

• Memory: With the integrated graphics gone, RAM speed is a bit less important, although still relatively important for Ryzen CPUs. 3200 Mhz CL16 and 3600Mhz CL18 is VERY close in performance (it's the same Real time latency of 10ns), and saves a few bucks. Going 3600Mhz CL18 is totally fine as well though!

• Storage SSD: As we're still very limited with our budget (because we want to fit in the GPU), 500GB is still all we can afford. Fortunately though, you can just add more storage later on! Adding a SATA SSD is still perfectly fine and not noticably slower than fast M.2 drives - FOR GAMES.

• Graphics Card: And here it is, the AMD RX 6600 graphics card. It's awesome for games, and a very capable card even for 1440p gaming!

• Case: < see $350 list >

• Power Supply: < see $350 list >

$650 - Lower-midrange gaming PC.

You'd be surprised how much we gain by going up $150. We get a more expansive motherboard (okay and more expEnsive), a much better case, double the storage, a better power supply, a much faster GPU, faster CPU, and faster RAM.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: Upgraded to a Ryzen 5600. Don't think it's the same as the 5600G - the 5600G is actually closer to the older Ryzen 3600 in CPU performance. The 5600 is faster, and has more Cache which some games can take really good advantage of! Definitely worth it for $30 more!

• Cooler: Okay so here's the subjective part - think about whether noise/thermals is more important to you, or expandability is. I chose to upgrade the motherboard because the cooler is much easier to upgrade down the the line...

• Motherboard: ...This motherboard upgrade gives us 4 DIMMS (RAM slots), more USB, 2 M.2 Slots and extra PCIe expansion slots (for wi-fi cards for example). It also looks pretty nice. Downside being that ASRock isn't one of the most "nice" companies out there, especially towards reviewers.

• Memory: < See $500 list >

• Storage SSD: We double the storage to 1TB, and happens to be cheaper in $/GB as well.

• Graphics Card: We upgrade the RX6600 to the RX6650XT. It's about 21% faster for 21% more money. If your budget is around $600, taking this exact list, but with the regular RX6600 is perfectly fine too!

• Case: The Fractal Design Focus 2 wasn't really regarded a good option because it launched at around $75-80, where it had a ton of strong competition. At just $60 though, it's suddenly a very tempting pick as quality tends to drop pretty significantly below around the $75 mark. It offers a great balance of price/quality.

• Power Supply: We upgrade to an A-tier, Gold Rated, 650W power supply. $56 is a big steal for this model, and the only reason we can fit it inside this tight budget.

$850 Midrange gaming PC

There honestly isn't much to say here. We upgrade the GPU to a 6700XT. It seems like a small step, but it's actually around $25 faster than the 6650XT. Note that there are a bit cheaper variants out there like the MSI Mech 2X and ASRock models, but with these higher tier GPUs I prefer to get a bit better quality - IF - the difference in price isn't too big. Generally it's accepted to not pay more than a 10% premium for a difference brand/model and this is still within that range.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: <See previous>

• Cooler: I've added an aftermarket cooler. For $30 it can drastically improve the acoustics of your PC.

• Motherboard: <See previous>

• Memory: <See previous>

• Storage SSD: <See previous>

• Graphics Card: <See introduction above>

• Case: <See previous>

• Power Supply: <See previous>

$1000 Popular Upper midrange

Okay so, I'm going to provide 2 different $1000 builds for two reasons. [1] It's the most popular budget out there and [2] with this budget there's also a lot of wiggle-room and possibilities. From here and on it also becomes much harder to get an "objectively best" build, even though no single build is perfect for EVERYONE, just because there's so much to choose from. The first build is purely catered towards gamers. It packs in an AMD RX6800XT with the excellent price of $514.99. It's ASRock, but it's SO much cheaper than all the other models, there's no questions about its amazing value. (EDIT: the $514.99 model seems to be out of stock. There's is a higher end one from XFX that's also good, but $60 more)

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: Some people might look at the 5600 and ask "isn't this build really unbalanced with a budget Ryzen 5 CPU and a high end Radeon GPU"? To which my answer is - no. Getting this much faster GPU inside the budget will objectively give us the maximum performance possible. The 2nd $1000 list WILL be a more all-round build, but its gaming performance will most definitely be lower than this. Partly because I will assume that MOST people will use a 1440p monitor from this budget and on, where CPU performance becomes less of a concern due to GPU bottlenecks.

• Cooler: <See previous>

• Motherboard: According to Hardware Canucks, the Riptide series of ASRock offer a good balance of quality and cost. It still gives us the 4 DIMMS for RAM, and 2 M.2 slots which is the most imporant.

• Memory: <See previous>

• Storage SSD: Team MP34 is only a little more than the Team MP33, but offers faster speeds and a general upgraded design.

• Graphics Card: The RX6800XT is about 25% faster than the 6700XT, and an excellent choice for this price. It does however eat up over HALF of our budget, so we're a little constrained on the other parts. The card does draw about 300W of power - but...

• Power Supply: ... with an upgraded 850W version of the ThermalTake GF1, we're completely in the green here. And all that for just $25 extra!

• Case: I took the RGB version of the Focus 2 case just to showcase that there's a lot of room for personal choice. If you don't mind spending another $30, there's an absolute ton of cases to choose from up to $100!

$1000 All-Rounder + Productivity

If you're just out for "just give me something good an not having to worry about anything", an all-round gaming PC can be for you. We downgrade the GPU which frees up enough budget to double the RAM, upgrade the CPU & motherboard.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: We upgrade to the Ryzen 5700X which is a mega-efficient 65W 8-core CPU. It's only about 2-5% slower than the 5800X in productivity tasks, but at HALF the energy consumption!

• Cooler: We keep the Deepcool AK400 as it's an excellent value & quality tower cooler, easily cooling a 65W CPU quietly.

• Motherboard: The MSI Pro B550m-VC is a good allrounder with a good feature-set, and comes with wi-fi on board as well!

• Memory: We upgrade to 32GB of RAM to suit our workstation & future game needs!

• Storage SSD: <See Previous>

• Graphics Card: We downgrade to the Nvidia RTX 3060ti, but it's from a very reputable brand like ZOTAC, and enables CUDA-support, DLSS in games, and better Raytracing. Overall performance is quite a bit lower than the previous list's RX6800XT though.

• Case: We stay with the Fractal Design Focus 2 as a value-pick, but definitely pick your own preference here.

• Power Supply: With the lower power consumption we can warrant the old 650W variant of the GF1 again. If you think you might upgrade your PC in the near future to somethiing higher end, spending the extra $25 on the 850W model is not bad idea at all!

$1300 Combined high-midrange

With $300 more to spend, we can pretty much combine the previous 2 $1000 lists to get the best of both words + 1TB of extra storage and a better motherboard + case.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: We keep the 5700X from the previous all-rounder PC for excellent price/performance. Although going 13th gen or Ryzen 7000 COULD be an option, we'd be spending a lot more on the CPUs themselves, cooling, the mothboards, and RAM - limiting the amount of important budget left for a good GPU.

• Cooler: <See previous list>

• Motherboard: The MSI B550 Gaming Plus (or B550-A Pro) is all a regular user could probably need.

• Memory: <See previous list>

• Storage SSD: We upgrade to a 2TB SSD from Samsung. The 970 Evo Plusis a nice allrounder and nicely priced as well. it comes with a DRAM Cache, and is known to have good durability as well.

• Graphics Card: We take the higher end model from ASRock of the 6800XT - the Taichi range is considered ASRock's "premium" lineup.

• Case: We upgrade to the Fractal Design Pop Air. It comes with more fans, is modern, has USB-C, and very well built for the price. Amazing allrounder and would recommend it over somethinig like the 4000D airflow - but do remember that this is a subjective choice.

• Power Supply: We take the 850W GF1 from the gaming focused $1000 PC.

~$1500 Ryzen 7000 AM5 High-Midrange PC

With this budget, we can reasonably step into the world of either Intel 13th gen or Ryzen 7000. Ryzen 7000 wasn't very interesting when it came out just a month or so ago, but now that there have been price-cuts and cheaper chipset B650 Motherboards, they're suddenly the more interesting option for gamers out there. This mostly has to do with Intel 13th gen being a dead-end platform, while the AM5 socket of the new Ryzen 7000 CPUs are brand new and will most likely last another 4 years or so.

I went a little bit over budget as I wanted to keep the quality aspects of previous builds rather than cheaping out to save $32.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: The 7600X is an excellent gaming CPU from AMD's brand new CPUs. With drastically reduced platform costs (CPU+cooler+motherboard+RAM) over the past few weeks this is a solid choice with excellent upgrade path over the future.

• Cooler: These chips consume a lot more energy than the Ryzen 5 CPUs of previous generations. All Ryzen 7000 will boost to 95C, but that's by design according to AMD and not something to worry about. Adding a super beefy AIO liquid cooler won't net you more performance, but we definitely need a better one than the small AK400 from before.

• Motherboard: [EDIT] The ASRock PG Riptide is the cheapest AM5 motherboard out there, but still packs a ton of features previously only seen on higher end boards like BIOS-flashback, 2.5Gb networking, and USB-C.

• Memory: The recommended speed for Ryzen 7000 CPUs is 6000Mhz, and this budget allows for low latency memory of that speed as well.

• Storage SSD: We take the same Samsung 970 Evo from the lower class builds.

• Graphics Card: Same goes for the GPU, this RX6800XT remains excellent value and there's not a lot else to choose from. The RTX3070 is a decent alternative that comes with DLSS and better Raytracing, but overall lower performance.

• Case: [EDIT] The Fractal Design Pop Air is a great all-rounder that also comes with plenty of fans. Great airflow and build quality, and well priced during these sales.

• Power Supply: The White Pop Air happens to be the cheapest at the moment, and so is this white version of the Corsair RM850. Excellent quality, but if you don't like the white aesthetic, black is always an option too.

$1400 White Beast

At this budget I'd first recommend taking the newest Ryzen 7600X. With prices reduced from $300 to $235, motherboard being $150 instead of $250+, and getting pretty fast 32GB of DDR5 RAM for under $150 instead of $250 from a few months agobefore. This suddenly makes going Ryzen 7000 a really interesting choice over something like Ryzen 5000 or Intel 13th gen. We're getting a brand new, lasting AM5 platform meaning that you theortically won't have to upgrade you motherboard/RAM as long as this CPU socket is supported by AMD.

PCPartPicker Part List

$1500 4K gaming focussed

If your main concern is 4K gaming, we CAN actually drop back to Ryzen 5000, in order to fit a higher end GPU. For this, we have two options I would recommend - the AMD RX6950XT for the highest overall performance, or the RTX3080 if you're really into Raytracing and DLSS.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: As mentioned, we drop back to Ryzen 5000, with the 5700X from previous lists.

• Cooler: We can also take the cheaper cooler again, the AK400.

• Motherboard: Same goes for the motheboard.

• Memory: And the RAM

• Storage SSD: And SSD

• Graphics Card: As mentioned, the RTX3080 is also an option. Both are really fast, and better priced than the overpriced RTX4080. If you can wait, it might be interesting to wait until December 13th when AMD's new RX7000 cards come out.

• Case: Same old case.

• Power Supply: Same 850W GF1 PSU.

$1700 High end

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: We still take the 7600X as it's excellent value. We still want to get as much gaming performance as wel can, which is why we try to budget more towards the GPU

• Cooler: We take one of the options of the Deepcool AK620/AG620, or Scythe Fuma 2 Rev B. All are excellent quality coolers and often even better performing than the famed Noctua NH-D15.

• Motherboard: The Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite is an excellent quality motherboard packed with features and not "way" too expensive.

• Memory: AMD recommends a 6000Mhz set of DDR5, so that's what we're going with. Sometimes there are excellent deal on lower speed modules as well.

• Storage SSD: We stay with the 2TB 970 Evo Plus

• Graphics Card: We can either take this Nvidia RTX 3080, or go with the AMD RX 6950XT. Both are fine choices depending on what your preference is.

• Case: We stay with the Pop Air case as an excellen all-rounder.

• Power Supply: As we have a little more budget now, we can take a pride and true Corsair RM850 instead. The Thermaltake GF1 850 is also on backorder at the moment, so that might scare off some people. Corsair gives you 7 years warranty which is very nice.

$2000 White Beast

With $2000 we're starting to be REALLY flexible with our choices. There just happen to be some nice deals on white colored parts, and though this might speak to some of you.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: We upgrade to the 8-core Ryzen 7700X, and I personally think it's not worth upgrading to anything higher end. If you're spending this much money, you'll probably upgrade again in 3-4 years or so. With that in mind, there's no way that for gaming, 8-cores becomes "too few" within that time-period. Higher end CPUs, especially just adding cores, does not do much for a gaming PC. If you're mixing with heavy productivity, something like an Intel Core i7 13700K/13900K or Ryzen 7950X could be an option still.

• Cooler: For the 7700X, I think you can go either way with Air-Cooling or Liquid-Cooling. With gaming, we generally don't load the CPU to 100% for extended periods of time, so we should still be good with a high quality aircooler like the AK620.

• Motherboard: <See Previous List>

• Memory: As far as I've seen, going ABOVE 6000mhz doesn't benefit Ryzen 7000 a whole lot, but lower latency might. This 6000Mhz CL30 (which is really low which is good) is still relatively 'affordable' for what it delivers.

• Storage SSD: We upgrade to a 980 Pro for reliability and a mega fast boot-drive. It's only $30 more than the 970 Evo Plus which is worth it with this budget.

• Graphics Card: Again we can choose either the RTX3080 or RX6950XT. The 6950XT is about 17% faster on average

• Case: I went with the white RGB version of the Pop Air for this theme.

• Power Supply: The white version of the Corsair RM850 happened to be cheaper than the white version!

$3000 Gaming Beast

If you REALLY must spend more, we can take some niche luxuries. Expensive motherboard, large expensive cooler, super fast RAM, blazingly fast SSD, an overpriced RTX4080, expensive case, and platinum rated power supply. Reasonably you wouldn't spend any more than this if money is an issue.

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: The 7900X is (arguably) overkill for gaming. It's a little faster, but it's also not THAT much more expensive than the 7700X.

• Cooler: Getting a large high quality AIO cooler is warranted with this budget and CPU. If acoustics are important to you, limiting the power of the CPU to 105W TDP is a great option without losing much performance

• Motherboard: Excellent X670 board that's well suited for overclocking, has 4 M.2 slots, Wifi 6E, and a ton of I/O.

• Memory: <see previous>

• Storage SSD: You can go either way with the SN850X or 980 Pro. In the real world, you won't notice a difference anyway.

• Graphics Card: The RTX4080 is really overpriced at the moment. This $1377 also stated just 1 in stock, so even its price is probably not up to date by the time you read this.

• Case: The H7 flow is a sleek, high quality and high performance case. It fits a 360mm radiator on top and fits well together with this specific AIO.

• Power Supply: A very high end 1000W Platinum power supply.

$4000 Die-hard PC Monster

We're getting into ludicrous budget mode with $4000. In theory, we want to get an RTX4090, but they seem to be either WAY overpriced (say, $2500+), or just plain not in stock. I would never get it over my heart to recommend someone buying one for more than $2000 so that's what I'd set the upper limit for (if you can ever find one).

PCPartPicker Part List

• CPU: I don't think going with the i9 13900K is worth it, even here. If you have 5-6K to spend - sure, go ahead. But ALL those E-cores are completely wasted here. It only adds extra noise/heat for miniscule gains in performance.

• Cooler: <see previous>

• Motherboard: <see previous>

• Memory: <see previous>

• Storage SSD: We up the storage to 4TB. Because, why not.

• Graphics Card: RTX4090 is the fastest GPU you can buy. For some die-hards I get it, it's MUCH faster in stuf like raytracing than the 3090 is. If you must have the best, this is it.

• Case: <see previous>

• Power Supply: We had a little budget left, so I wanted to get a very high end titanium power supply to last us basically forever. Adding $100 is peanuts at this point. This 1600W unit from super flower just happened to be "relatively" affordable for these specs.

Please leave feedback, I might have missed or made mistakes with some parts. If things are not available anymore, I will also provide alternatives.

P.S. I had to remove the last whole PCP Tables due to character restrictions.

Hello everybody!

I'd like to extend a warm WELCOME!!! to all of our new Occasional/Seasonal employees who will be joining us this holiday season. Godspeed to Product Flow and Supply Chain teams company-wide.

Please use this Mega Thread to ask any and all questions regarding Black Friday and this holiday season. We'll try to help you out as best as we can. Note: we are not officially endorsed by nor affiliated with Best Buy Co., Inc. and your comment may not receive a response. For immediate help, please contact Best Buy at 1-888-BESTBUY (1-888-237-8289).

If you're a Best Buy employee, don't forget to join our employee-only Discord server at https://discord.gg/bestbuy! Note: Upon joining the server, you will be required to complete an automated employment verification process to access all of the channels.

A few things to remember and resources:

• We do not have any information regarding gaming consoles or GPU's. Don't bother asking, because we genuinely don't know.

• Our subreddit rules still apply to this Mega Thread. Please remember the human and adhere to our subreddit rules like you would in any other post.

• Don't forget to shop Black Friday deals RIGHT NOW at https://bestbuy.com/blackfriday!

• Check out all of our other deals at https://deals.bestbuy.com!

• Looking for Workday? --> https://www.myworkday.com/bestbuy/d/pex/home.htmld

• Looking for Job News? --> https://sn.bestbuy.com/otj

• To download the Connect app, Solution Sidekick, and the Leadership Engagement Tool app, you can visit: https://apps.bestbuy.com

Thank you and have a safe holiday season!

• The Moderators of r/BestBuy

• The Best Buy Discord's server staff