My favorite November tradition, other than eating myself into a turkey and pie coma, is seeing what kind of rig I can build using nothing but the best Cyber Monday PC gaming deals. I scour every retailer for the best prices on the best parts, looking for every opportunity to save a few bucks while still buying quality PC components. The trickiest thing about shopping is just how much junk there is to wade through—there are dozens of sticks of RAM on sale for close to the same price, but dig into the specs and you'll see differences in speed and latency hiding behind those savings.
This year I gave myself a budget of $1,200 (pre-tax) to build a gaming PC that would normally cost $288 more. Once these deals disappear, this PC build will run closer to $1,500.
This is a PC I'd happily build for myself, with no cut corners. At its heart are the non-overclocking version of our favorite gaming CPU, the Intel Core i5-13600KF, and an incredibly reasonably priced Radeon RX 6800 with 16GB of GDDR6. We've also got some fast DDR5 RAM, a 2TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD, and an all-in-one liquid cooler that'll help that CPU stay cool.
Quick links: Cyber Monday PC build under $1200
- CPU: Intel Core i5 13600KF - $250 (save $54)
- GPU: XFX Speedster Radeon RX 6800 - $379.99 (save $20)
- Motherboard: ASRock B760M PG SONIC WiFi - $129.99 (save $45)
- Memory: G.SKILL Trident Z5 32GB DDR5 6400 - $109.99 (save $10)
- SSD: WD Black SN850X 2TB - $119.99 (save $12)
- Power Supply: Montech Century G5 750 watt 80 PLUS Gold - $79 (save $30)
- CPU Cooler: DeepCool LS720 Liquid Cooler 360mm - $74.79 (save $19)
- Case: Phanteks Eclipse G300A - $34.99 (save $25) (Backordered as of November 26)
Total cost: $1,163.74
The Core i5-13600KF can handle any current game you can throw at it and will be a strong gaming GPU for years to come, while the Radeon RX 6800's ample VRAM will help a bit with the #stutterstruggle that's afflicted so many PC games this year. AMD's cards still aren't fantastic at ray tracing, but this is still otherwise an absolute beastly 1440p graphics card. In our review, it delivered an average 75 fps in Total War: Three Kingdoms, 128 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and 92 fps in Metro Exodus, all on Ultra settings.
I made sure to pick parts that would all fit in the selected case, so there shouldn't be any rude surprises when you go to put it all together. Unfortunately it's currently backordered, but it should give you a good idea of the size you need to spring for. If you're feeling the itch to start the year with a new PC, it's going to be hard to beat the price/performance of these deals.
Also, it has a Sonic the Hedgehog motherboard with built-in Wi-Fi 6E and a 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port. I set out to make a PC that would go fast, but I didn't expect this would be how I got there.
Full component list: Cyber Monday PC build under $1200
