7 Best Gaming PCs Under $1000 in 2023
There are many ways to enjoy the top PC games today—gaming laptops, custom-built towers, and even streaming to your iPad are all great ways to enjoy PC games. Of course, another popular way is also on a prebuilt gaming PC. I started my pc gaming journey with a prebuilt CyberPower PC. However, since then I’ve built 3 towers for my personal battlestation. I am a huge proponent of building your own custom PC if you have the budget and means to do so. Otherwise, prebuilt gaming pcs are still a great option. The question is, is there a competitive budget prebuilt gaming pc on the market for $1000?
Here are my picks for the best gaming pc under $1000.
What is the Best Gaming PC under $1000
CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme VR
A reputable prebuilt pc company creating a prebuilt ready for VR out of the box. This config is very reasonable for the cost. It’s a great entry PC for beginner PC Gaming enthusiasts.
Pros: Cons:At the time of writing, the price is sub $1000 at $849 on sale. If you’re reading this during the holiday season, highly recommend jumping on this price.
My View
It’s no surprise that CyberpowerPC is on this list. They have been in the prebuilt pc space for years while offering the best bang for your buck. Even my first gaming pc was a CyberpowerPC. The selling point of this particular model is in its name. CyberpowerPC touts CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme VR as VR-ready.
VR gaming is steadily rising to be the next big form of entertainment. Although certain VR headsets can function as standalone devices, having a gaming pc allows for flexibility in using applications like Steam VR. The CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme VR is a great PC for its price especially with the GPU being an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060. It should have no problem running the latest titles at decent framerates.
8 GB of ram is plenty for enjoying most games. For more demanding games, I’d recommend adding another 8GB of dual-channel ram. The biggest downside is the relatively small storage space. However, like RAM, you can easily add SSDs and essentially future-proof your gaming PC.
Skytech Shadow
This company was established in 2016 so it’s fairly new to the pre-built space considering its competitors. They have made numerous game ready PC’s and the Shadow is great sub $1000 PC.
Pros: Cons:At the time of writing, Amazon offered me a $100 coupon effectively bringing the price to $899. Either be on the lookout for that coupon or for the holidays for the best deals near that $899 price point.
My View
If you solely compare the PC components from the CyberpowerPC Gamer Extreme VR to the Skytech Shadow, the difference is a less powerful CPU but more storage space in the latter. I am a little more averse to this configuration. The reason is that for the entry-level gamer/tech enthusiast upgrading the CPU down the line will be far more difficult than upgrading space for games. Otherwise, the Skytech Shadow gaming computer is a great choice.
iBUYPOWER Pro SlateMR
iBUYPOWER is a industry veteran in gaming PCs. They’ve been building PC for customers since 1999. The SlateMR series configs AMD cpus but can be either Nvidia or AMD GPUs.
Pros: Cons:At the time of writing, the price is sub $1000 at $949 on sale. If you’re reading this during the holiday season, highly recommend jumping on this price.
My View
The iBUYPOWER Pro SlateMR contains some great parts at a reasonable price point. The big difference here is the inclusion of the CPU AMD Ryzen. Ryzen CPUs are phenomenal hardware. My current build has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and it knocks multitasking out of the park. Overall, the build comes with strong components with only the storage space lacking. This model is a great option for a gaming PC under 1000.
CLX Set
CLX Gaming have created many prebuilt PC’s even though they were just recently founded in 2016. The Set is a great entry option under $1000. And thank heavens for the easy naming convention, unlike other companies..
Pros: Cons:At the time of writing, the price is sub $1000 at $979 on sale. If you’re reading this during the holiday season, highly recommend jumping on this price.
My View
CLX is fairly new to the gaming computer scene. Since its founding in 2016, the company has gone on to build a great portfolio of gaming computers, all named after Egyptian gods. (Much better than a random string of letters and numbers.)
Comparing this to the iBUYPOWER Pro SlateMR, you can see that the CLX Set is a less powerful version in terms of the CPU and graphics card for relatively the same price point. Otherwise, they are very similar gaming pcs. At this point, your preference would come down to more granular features like USB ports and PC cases.
NZXT Player One
The upgrade to the NZXT Starter series, great entry level value while also opening up possibilities of easy future upgrades.
Pros: Cons:My View
I know of NZXT mostly because of their great PC cases. They also use their great cases in their prebuilt gaming pc. The NZXT Player One has great components for the sticker price of $949, pretty comparable to the ones previously mentioned in this list. I know we usually don’t talk about other components like case fans or the CPU cooler. But I did want to mention that this config comes with a dedicated CPU cooler and not a stock CPU cooler. This is a huge plus as many gamers can use this cooler for other Intel CPUs when they upgrade. In my view, this PC has the highest score in the future-proof aspect.
The NZXT Player One is a great gaming computer for early pc gamers with major potential for future upgrades.
Zotac Gaming MEK Hero G2
The Zotac
Pros: Cons:At the time of writing, the price is sub $1000 at $901 on sale. If you’re reading this during the holiday season, highly recommend jumping on this price.
My View
Zotac is mostly known for its aftermarket GPUs. Buying a PC from them will guarantee a Zotac GPU in the system. A Zotac 3050 with the Intel i5 will get the job done for most of your gaming needs including VR. The Zotac Gaming MEK Hero G2 is a powerful gaming desktop that packs a punch despite its small size. It’s powered by the 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12400F processor, 16GB of 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8GB graphics card, making it ideal for gamers who want to experience smooth and immersive gaming. The 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD provides lightning-fast loading times and plenty of storage space for all your games and applications. Additionally, the MEK HERO G2 features dual-channel Wi-Fi 6 connectivity for reliable online gaming as well as Bluetooth 5.1 support for connecting wireless peripherals.
The MEK HERO G2 has been designed with gamers in mind, featuring a sleek black chassis with RGB lighting accents that will look great in any setup. Plus, the MEK HERO G2 is backed by ZOTAC’s 3 year warranty so you can rest assured knowing you’re covered if anything goes wrong.
Overall, the Zotac Gaming MEK Hero G2 is an excellent choice for gamers looking for a powerful yet affordable prebuilt gaming PC that won’t break the bank. With its impressive specs and features, it offers great value for money and will provide an enjoyable gaming experience without compromising on performance or reliability.
HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop
This HP option is cheap. However, it cheap for a reason. The case is not the best causing really baid airflow. HP builds their pre-builts in a way that upgrading is worse than building a brand new PC. If you’re going to be playing non-taxing games (Fortnite, League of Legends), then this is a safe option
Pros: Cons:My View
HP makes great personal laptops and business hardware. They also have been making decent prebuilt gaming desktops. Although it’s using a graphics card from a previous generation, it can still dish out decent in-game performance. The biggest difference between HP’s gaming pcs vs other competitors on this list is its case.
The HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop uses a case that is fully enclosed with no glass panel to show the inside. This causes the airflow to be suboptimal as well as makes upgrades extremely difficult. So the biggest downside is that future-proofing is virtually non-existent. I can only recommend the HP Pavilion if this is your first foray into prebuilt gaming pcs. However, if this isn’t your first rodeo with gaming pcs but still want a prebuilt gaming pc under $1000, then I highly recommend my previous choices above.
Skytech Shiva
The Skytech Shiva is another pre-built from Skytech Gaming. This config goes above the $1000 range by $100-200 dollars. But its still worth to put on your radar.
Pros: Cons:My View
I included this as an honorable mention to this list because of what it offers for the price. I understand this list is for gaming pcs under $1000 but I wanted to include an honorable mention for a gaming pc $200 more than the budget price.
The Skytech Shiva is an amazing configuration for its price. An Intel 11th gen paired with an RTX 3060 will run most games in 1440p at amazing framerates. If you can spend $200 more in your $1000 budget, then I highly recommend adding this tower to your battlestation.
What should we look out for in a prebuilt gaming pc?
If you are new to PC gaming, it might be difficult to know what constitutes the best-prebuilt gaming pcs. Truthfully, the answers can very subjective. However, there are ways to objectively approach that answer.
Starting out, you may be attracted to the bells and whistles of RGB fans and RGB lighting. Try not to get distracted and objectively look at these 3 main components, the graphics card, the CPU, and the amount of RAM. You may have noticed I have an affinity toward Nvidia graphics cards. I personally use a 3080 graphics card and it works astonishingly well with the latest games. However, this isn’t to say that an AMD Ryzen graphic card is bad. They still dish out amazing frames at a decent value.
The reason I move towards Nvidia cards is that many games optimize the RTX raytracing as a selling point in their games, a feature only compatible with RTX cards. In certain FPS games, a feature called NVIDIA Reflex can only be utilized when using RTX cards. These are the primary reason that I lean towards Nvidia RTX cards.
Choosing a CPU can lead to a rabbit hole of choices and information. Single thread vs Multi-Thread, # of cores, base and max clock speeds, and more are all choices to consider after you’ve become used to the world of PC building and PC gaming. A deeper dive into those aspects of a CPU isn’t in the scope of this article. For now, just be mindful of motherboard and RAM compatibility when using either an AMD or Intel CPU.
My Final Thoughts
There are a plethora of options when looking for the best-prebuilt gaming PC and it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed. If you are just starting out, which I’ll assume based on the $1000 price point, I highly recommend choosing any gaming computer from this list. The gaming performance on these gaming PCs is perfect for entry-level gamers and will run the most popular games at great frame rates. If you’re still hesitant about these picks, use this article as a piggyback to research other prebuilt gaming PCs. Most modern games will run smoothly based on the components in each of the gaming computers mentioned above.
Getting your first gaming pc is an exciting journey. Getting a pc under $1000 can probably open up your budget for other gaming peripherals to enhance your gaming experience. Hopefully, this article helped you take that first informative step in that journey.
Thanks for reading and happy gaming!
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