Research-based guide. Prices and specs are sourced and dated, not tested by us.

Prebuilt prices are strange right now. Memory and graphics card prices have climbed all year, and full PCs have lagged behind the parts inside them. That makes a ready-made PC a more reasonable choice than it was a year ago, but only if you pick the right configuration. This guide takes the three prebuilts that Tom’s Hardware reviewed and ranked as best budget, best mid-range and best overall, matches them to a budget, and adds one thing the review pages do not: how much of each price is the graphics card.

We did not test any of these machines. The verdicts below are Tom’s Hardware’s, from its Best Gaming PCs page (last updated 5 October 2026, by senior editor Andrew E. Freedman).

The three picks side by side

Budget	PC	CPU and GPU	RAM and storage	Price	Tom’s Hardware verdict
About $1,100	CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme	Core Ultra 5 225F, RTX 5060	32GB DDR5-6400, 2TB PCIe 4.0	$1,099.99 (price when tested)	Best budget. Good for 1080p, no bloatware. The air cooler is very loud and the SSD is slow.
About $1,600	Asus ROG G700	Core Ultra 7 265KF, RTX 5070	32GB DDR5-4800, 2TB PCIe 4.0	$1,584.99 (deals box on the page)	Best mid-range. 240 mm liquid cooler, roomy case, 850W PSU. Wi-Fi 6 only and XMP is not enabled out of the box.
About $2,000	Corsair Vengeance a7500	Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 5070 Ti	32GB DDR5-6400, 1TB PCIe 5.0	$1,999.99 (deals box on the page)	Best overall. Strong build quality, two-year warranty. Pricey.

Sources: Tom’s Hardware, Best Gaming PCs of 2026 (updated 5 October 2026). Specs and verdicts are from that page. The two higher prices come from the deals box on the page when we read it on 29 October 2026.

How much of the price is the graphics card?

Graphics cards are the part that moved most this year, so the GPU share of a prebuilt price tells you how much you are paying for everything else. We took the cheapest listed US price for each card on Tom’s Hardware’s GPU price tracker (updated 26 October 2026) and subtracted it from each PC’s price.

PC	PC price	Cheapest listed GPU of that model (26 Oct)	GPU share of PC price	Left for everything else
CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme	$1,099.99	RTX 5060: $449	41%	$650.99
Asus ROG G700	$1,584.99	RTX 5070: $869	55%	$715.99
Corsair Vengeance a7500	$1,999.99	RTX 5070 Ti: $1,229	61%	$770.99

Read this with care. The GPU price is the cheapest card of that model on the tracker, not the exact card inside each PC, and the PC prices were not all checked on the same day. It is a rough guide, not a like-for-like cost breakdown. Still, two things stand out:

• Going up a tier mostly buys a better graphics card. The money left for the CPU, memory, SSD, board, power supply and case rises only from about $651 to about $771 across a price gap of about $900.
• The remainder on the Gamer Xtreme, about $651, has to cover a 32GB DDR5 kit, a 2TB SSD, a CPU, a board, a PSU, a case and Windows. For comparison, the non-GPU parts of Tom’s Hardware’s June 2026 $1,000 DIY build (with DDR4, a 1TB SSD and an older Core i5) added up to $719.60 at that article’s deal prices. Different dates and a different platform, so treat it as a hint rather than proof, but it shows why a well-priced prebuilt can undercut buying the parts.

Where sources disagree: the Gamer Xtreme price

Tom’s Hardware tested the Gamer Xtreme at $1,099.99. The deals box on the same page, when we read it, listed a Gamer Xtreme labelled “(2025)” at $1,609.99. We cannot tell from the page whether that is a different configuration, an older model or a price that moved. The lesson is practical: prebuilt prices change by configuration and by week, so match the exact CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD from the review against the listing before you pay, and ignore the model name.

Which one fits you?

If you…	Choose	Because
Play at 1080p and want to stay near $1,100	CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme	RTX 5060 is enough for 1080p per Tom’s Hardware, and 32GB RAM plus a 2TB SSD are included.
Are sensitive to fan noise	Asus ROG G700 or Corsair a7500	The Gamer Xtreme’s CPU cooler was called very loud even at idle. You can swap the cooler later with part of the savings.
Want room to upgrade	Asus ROG G700	Roomy glass case and an 850W PSU. Enable XMP or EXPO yourself, because it is off by default (see our RAM speed guide).
Want the best gaming CPU and longer support	Corsair Vengeance a7500	Ryzen 7 9800X3D, PCIe 5.0 SSD and a two-year warranty, which Tom’s Hardware calls more support than most prebuilts.
Plan to play at 1440p or 4K	Asus ROG G700 or higher	Tom’s Hardware says the RTX 5060 is fine for 1080p but will not run most games well at higher resolutions.

Five things to check before you buy any prebuilt

• RAM: 32GB is the sensible target now. See how much RAM you need.
• Warranty and where you buy: coverage can differ between buying direct and buying from a store. Ask for the written terms of the exact channel you are buying from.
• Power supply and cooler: ask for the model, not just the wattage.
• Storage: a slow SSD, like the one Tom’s Hardware noted on the Gamer Xtreme, is fine for games but worth knowing about.
• The parts comparison: price the same parts yourself before you decide. Our build, buy or wait guide explains the trade-off.

Keep reading

• Why PC parts cost so much in 2026
• Build, buy a laptop or wait

Last checked 29 October 2026. We update this guide when Tom’s Hardware revises its picks or when prices move noticeably. How we source our guides is explained on the About page.

Sources

• Tom’s Hardware, Best Gaming PCs of 2026 (updated 5 October 2026)
• Tom’s Hardware, GPU price tracking 2026 (updated 26 October 2026)
• Tom’s Hardware, $1,000 build with Prime Day parts (June 2026), used for the comparison parts total