The Best Gaming PC Build For $1000 in 2020 – 1440p at 60fps!

If you're trying to build a powerful gaming PC for $1000 then this is exactly what you need to see! Featuring an i5 9600K, an 8GB RX 5700 XT, 16GB of RAM and 500GB of SSD storage!

With a budget of $1000, you can pretty much guarantee that the computer you build can handle 1080p and should also be capable of putting out 1440p if you don't mind lower fps or lower than max settings. 1080p gaming is not even an issue. This is basically a perfectly balanced price-point for building your own gaming PC, it's enough to get you amazing hardware while still maintaining a reasonable budget.

That all said, if you're looking for a build running an AMD Ryzen processor then you might want to check my other $1000 Ryzen build out instead! It comes with an R5 3600 + RX 5700 XT + 16GB of RAM; definitely a beast worth checking out!

Have a question? Ask me in the comment section!

One of the best parts of building a PC is being free to customize your build as you see fit. Below, you’ll find some potential upgrades as well as items you could (or should) add to your build. Not all of these are necessary, but add-ons (like an SSD) are definitely suggested as they will improve your experience a lot.

This $1000 gaming PC build is going to absolutely dominate anything you throw at it in both 1080p and 1440p. It'll even work for some 4K gaming if you don't mind turning your settings down lower than ultra.

Keep in mind that the price above is for the core components only, you will still need an operating system, and any other peripherals you don’t currently have.

Case: The Phanteks Eclipse P300 is an awesome mid-tower ATX case. You get a handful of premium features without spending a premium price. The P300 comes with a full PSU shroud, a big tempered glass side panel, good airflow, and clean cable management options.

If there's one downside to the P300, it's that it only comes with a single 120mm fan. Although it would work well to exhaust hot air from your case, adding 1-2 more 120mm fans to pull cool air in would be a good idea.

Motherboard: Gigabyte's Z390 Ultra Durable is an overall great ATX motherboard, especially for the cost. It supports the LGA 1151 socket and runs on the Intel Z390 chipset - meaning it fully supports CPU overclocking. It also has fairly decent VRMs and can handle a pretty good overclock without heating up. This is great because the i5 9600K can be overclocked quite a bit.

The Z390 Ultra Durable comes with 6x USB ports, 6x SATA headers, an NVMe M.2 slot, and support for up to 4 sticks of DDR4 RAM. It also comes with integrated audio as well as a built-in ethernet controller.

Processor (CPU): Intel's 6-core/6-thread i5 9600K is a processor that won’t have any issues with gaming, light content creation, or anything else. The i5 9600K has a base core clock of 3.7GHz that can extend all the way to 4.6GHz under load; that's a lot of processing power slapped across 6 high-performance cores!

Being a K model, the i5 9600K is completely unlocked and fully supports CPU overclocking. Also, being a K model, it does not come with a stock CPU cooler. For that reason, I've included Arctic's awesome Freezer 34 eSports as the default CPU cooler.

Graphics Card (GPU): The 8GB RX 5700 XT is a great GPU - the best available at this level. It's easily capable of handling any game in 1440p at 60fps+. It's also capable of 4K gaming if you don't mind running high-ish settings in those more graphically demanding titles to maintain 60fps+.

XFX's RX 5700 XT Thicc III Ultra comes with a great cooling profile, a sleek design, and 4 display outputs including 1 x HDMI and 3 x DisplayPort. It's undeniably one of the most unique looking cards to hit the market this year and I'm personally a huge fan.

System Memory (RAM): 16GB of 2666MHz RAM in a dual channel setup from Corsair's Vengeance LPX lineup of DDR4 RAM is the perfect amount - for a build at this level. Any more than 16GB and you probably won't notice a difference in the vast majority of games, but if you're a heavy-duty multi-tasker or you use your PC for demanding workloads, more RAM might be a good idea.

Power Supply (PSU): Corsair's CX650M is an awesome semi-modular Bronze-rated power supply that won't let you down. Being semi-modular, this supply will make your cable management much cleaner and easier to work with - no more hiding a dozen unused cables!

It'll consistently deliver more than enough power to this build regardless if you're running base clocks or you've overclocked everything to sky high numbers. It's capable of delivering up to 85% efficiency under typical loads and comes with a 5-year warranty just in case the worst were to happen.

Storage: This build is running a 500GB WD Blue SSD by default. For a lot of people, this will be plenty. But, if you're in the group who need more, you should know that it's really easy to upgrade storage. Basically, it's no different than installing your first drive; buy the new drive, connect power + data, and then you'll have more space!

If you're on a budget of $1000, you're in luck, because that's the perfect amount to spend on a DIY gaming PC build. If you were to go to Best Buy and pick a prefab PC up for $1000, you wouldn't get anything near the level of this beast.

When it comes down to picking an operating system for this build, you have a couple of options. One is free, the other is about $100.

The best choice if you want access to the widest array of compatible programs & games is going to be Windows. There are a few different versions available, but the one you'll want to look at is Windows 10 - especially if you want to take advantage of DirectX 12, and you do.

Your free option would be to grab yourself a copy of Ubuntu and run that. It's a solid Linux-based OS which is widely supported by most Windows based programs and games, although you might have to run some in a program called Wine.

When it comes to actually installing your OS, you basically have 2 choices. You can either do it the old fashioned way by using the retail DVD, or you could create your own bootable flash drive. If you're planning to use Linux you can also burn an installation DVD. For instructions on how to create your own bootable flash drive, check here.

If you don't already have things like a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and some kind of audio, you might want to take a look at some of my suggestions. They're hand-picked to match this budget level, and they're all great peripherals.

Since picking a monitor can be difficult with all of the different features to consider, check out my guide on how to pick the best monitor for gaming. 

Even more important than picking out the right monitor is picking out the right chair. With all of the options available, it's easy to get lost and make a bad decision. To make sure that doesn't happen, I've put together this list of the 16 best gaming chairs out there! 

Since the motherboard in this build comes equipped with an ethernet controller, it can easily connect to the internet via a wired connection. But, if your only option is WiFi, then you're also going to need a WiFi adapter.

There are a couple routes you can choose. An internally mounted WiFi adapter is often faster and more reliable than a USB option. But, the USB option is often quite a bit cheaper. Ultimately, the choice is yours. But, here's what I'd pick.

For around $1000, this gaming PC build will last you well into the future of modern games and continue to give you a seriously incredible gaming experience. If you need to game on the highest settings then you've found the right build because I've set you up with a rig that is definitely delivering a lot of bang for your hard-earned bucks.

This build can easily handle any game you can throw at it in 1440p on high settings or better without breaking a sweat. In 1080p, you could easily max (almost) anything out and get 100fps+ without a problem.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or otherwise, feel free to leave them in the comment section and I'll answer them ASAP!