MID-RANGE BUILD

Our recommended build for playing the latest games

T O TA L $1,977

Z370 Tomahawk MSI $125 This is a nice-looking bit of kit at a good price. Couple that with two M.2 slots, and it’s the perfect place to house that Core i5.

Core i5-8400 Intel $179 Better default gaming performance and a lower price puts this chip ahead of the AMD Ryzen 2600X.

GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX EVGA $590 Trying to balance prices, we’ve opted to drop down to an SC Gaming card. Don’t worry, you only lose out on a very minor overclock.

MasterLiquid Lite 240 CoolerMaster $55 This 240mm, dual-fan, all-in-one liquid CPU cooler is ludicrously cheap, but performs well and stays quiet, too.

Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @2666 Corsair $180 16GB is the minimum amount of RAM we’d recommend for a system of this caliber.

RMx 650W Corsair $120 Nothing like having a quality power supply. Get a decent cable kit for this one, and you can easily spice up your rig.

MX500 250GB Crucial $75 This is still our SSD of choice. We’ve kept the capacity the same as our cheaper build, but upgrading to 500GB would be ideal.

Caviar Blue 1TB 7200RPM Western Digital $44 SSDs are great, but they’re still far from cheap. This 1TB HDD will hold as many games as you can handle.

Eclipse P400S TG Phanteks $80 The clean lines, intuitive build features, and fantastic price cements the Eclipse as our midrange case of choice.

AGON AG251FZ AOC $395 Not only does this 1080p monitor have a lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate, but it produces decent image quality, too.

Alloy FPS Cherry MX Blue HyperX $80 This crisp keyboard from HyperX ticks all the right boxes. It may lack RGB, but those clicky keys will keep you happy for years.

Castor Mionix $54 Mionix’s Castor is a dream to use, supportive like a glove. With clutter-free software and an optical sensor, it’s hard to go wrong.