MID-RANGE BUILD
Our recommended build for playing the latest games
Z370 Tomahawk MSI $211
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 $194
Better default gaming performance and a lower price puts this chip ahead of the AMD Ryzen 2600X.
GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Ed. Nvidia $349
Faster and cheaper than a 1070, and ray tracing-ready. Expect an overclocked third-party replacement next month.
MasterLiquid Lite 240 CoolerMaster $59
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 $122
16GB is the minimum amount of RAM we’d recommend for a system of this caliber.
RMx 650W Corsair $120
There’s 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 $47
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.
WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM Western Digital $46
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 $550
Not only does this 1080p monitor have a lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate, but it produces decent image quality, too.
MasterKeys Pro L CoolerMaster $145
This is one of the cheapest mechanical keyboards, yet it looks and feels great. It only has single-color backlighting, though.
AW958 Elite Alienware $96
Suitable for any grip thanks to its add-ons, and there’s just something about those massive metallic buttons.