Summer 2017 PC Build Guide

It is time for our yearly gaming PC building guide! This time we have numerous categories based on budget. For each PC build we exclude operating system, peripherals, and display, since those are all things you may or may not have already plus not every operating system choice costs money (Linux distros).

Our choices are by no means the only ones, but these featured PC builds will help get anyone started. We are using Newegg as our point of reference since they charge no taxes for most states. Prices fluctuate of course, so our listed prices are not necessarily final.

Right now, GPU prices have skyrocketed once again due to demand for cryptocurrency mining. Because of this, we have omitted two very important price ranges ($800-900 and $1200). It is not a good time to build a budget or mid range gaming PC right now because of GPU prices, so we are only including the budgets that make sense at present.

Budget Console Slayer

Our lowest budget featured PC build has a budget of $600.

Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 3.1 – $40
ASRock A350M – $63
AMD Ryzen 3 1200 – $110
G.SKILL Aegis 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4 2400 CL15 – $67
EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SC – $150
Western Digital WD Blue 250GB SSD – $90
Western Digital WD Blue 1TB HDD – $50
Seasonic M12II Bronze EVO 520W – $55
Total: $625

If you need to keep it under $600, ditch the WD Blue 1TB HDD for now and get it later.

High End Gaming PC

Due to the price hike on mid range GPUs, this next build has a budget of $1,500.

Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass – $90
MSI Z270 SLI PLUS – $140
Intel Core i7 7700k – $310, extra $50 if you want Silicon Lottery to delid it for you (necessary for overclocking if you cannot delid yourself, otherwise unnecessary)
Cryorig H7 – $35
Team T-Force Night Hawk 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3000 – $120
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 DUKE 8G OC – $510
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB – $180
Seasonic M12II Bronze EVO 520W – $55
Total: $1,440

Alternatively, if you want a $1,500 gaming PC build to use for years, you can use the AMD Ryzen platform instead of Intel’s Kaby Lake posted above. Kaby Lake outperforms Ryzen in the vast majority of games at present, but Ryzen will win in true DX12/Vulkan games which is the future (see benchmarks for Ashes of the Singularity, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Watch Dogs 2 for how performance will be in future titles). See below for the alternative Ryzen build.

Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass – $90
ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero X370 – $235
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 – $310
Cryorig H5 – $47, apply here for free AM4 installation kit
Team T-Force Night Hawk 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3000 – $120
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 DUKE 8G OC – $510
WD Blue 500GB – $150
Seasonic M12II Bronze EVO 520W – $55
Total: $1,517

Enthusiast Gaming PC

Our goal with this PC was to keep it as close to $2,000 as possible and no more than $2,200, while using premium parts all around except for the SSDs which use only TLC NAND. The first build on this page, using a Ryzen system, doubles as a “prosumer” PC.

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass – $190
ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero X370 – $235
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X – $330
Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi – $60
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3000 CL15 – $159
Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti – $720
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB – $200
EVGA G3 650W – $100
Total: $1,994

Below is an alternative Intel Kaby Lake system that wins in the vast majority of games today, but loses everywhere else and won’t win in future games due to its CPU having only 4 cores and 8 threads.

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Tempered Glass – $190
MSI Z270 GAMING M7 – $230
Intel Core i7 7700k – $340, extra $50 if you want Silicon Lottery to delid it for you (necessary for overclocking if you cannot delid yourself, and delidding + overclocking is necessary to justify this system over Ryzen 7)
Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 3– $85
G.SKILL TridentZ RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 CL14 – $206
Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti – $720
WD Blue 500GB – $150
EVGA G3 650W – $100
Total: $2,021, $2,071 with delidded CPU