Where to buy a gaming PC nowadays?

[ChimpMaster]

I last purchased a PC from CyberPower 10 years ago. It was specc'd well for its time (see below) so lasted me well, considering that I'm just a casual gamer and didn't need anything too powerful.

I want to upgrade now to Win 11 and to a better spec, but of course am caught up the RAM price storm. I'm not even sure what spec to get because I've been out of the loop for years, but I want to future proof for next 5+ years so want 32gb RAM and a decent GPU.

I will not be self-building. Budget is around £1500 (PC only, not monitor etc), with scope to increase if advised.

What spec might you recommend, and where to buy from?

my old spec:-
i7-6700K 4GHz 4 cores
16Gb RAM
nVidia GTX 970
1 x 256Gb SSD for Windows
2 x 2Tb SATA HDD for data

[ladymuck]

This has been discussed before and I think the suggestions still hold up.

Scan is pretty good. Overclockers too.

It's not just RAM that's peaking in price but also SSDs.

Take a look at the recommended (not minimum) specs for a few of the top games that require high performance kit. Then try to up it from there to get extra longevity. I always massively overspec for the current requirements and that tends to last a good 5 years before signs of struggle start appearing.

[fulcon]

I'm on my 3rd PC from Power Computing. I've had it a couple of years now, the previous two I ran for ~10 years each.

You're not just contending with the price of memory, but the price of graphics cards too. At the top end. you're looking at over £1000 for a 5080, and over £2000 for a 5090. Recent rumours suggest NVidia is going to squeeze the supply of 50x0 cards next year which could drive prices up further.

Depending on the type of gaming you plan to do (AAA titles?, 4K?, VR?), and your requirement for a decent GPU, I would not go below a 5070 if I was buying a PC today.

If gaming is your main focus, you could also wait a few months and see what price the Steam Machine launches at, and what the reviews are like.

[BlueSharp]

I'm on my 3rd PC from Power Computing. I've had it a couple of years now, the previous two I ran for ~10 years each.

You're not just contending with the price of memory, but the price of graphics cards too. At the top end. you're looking at over £1000 for a 5080, and over £2000 for a 5090. Recent rumours suggest NVidia is going to squeeze the supply of 50x0 cards next year which could drive prices up further.

Depending on the type of gaming you plan to do (AAA titles?, 4K?, VR?), and your requirement for a decent GPU, I would not go below a 5070 if I was buying a PC today.

If gaming is your main focus, you could also wait a few months and see what price the Steam Machine launches at, and what the reviews are like.

5060 is more than enough for a casual gamer. I would, however, avoid the 8GB and stick to the 16GB version.

[fulcon]

5060 is more than enough for a casual gamer. I would, however, avoid the 8GB and stick to the 16GB version.

I think the small price difference between the 5060Ti and the 5070 makes the 5070 better value. Most reviews I've seen advise buying the 5070 over the 5060Ti as the better performance outweighs the extra memory for most scenarios.