Building your own gaming computer is easier than ever before. Tutorials, forums and guides can be found in every corner of the internet. The hardest part about building a PC is how to allocate your budget.

Helpful sites and local shops

You can expect a decent performing computer for around $1,000 but other factors such as discounts, price hikes and buying used parts can affect your price-to-performance range. Logicalincrements.com is a great website to check which parts fits your budget and see an estimate of how well they will perform on certain games.

To help plan your gaming computer build, you can go to websites like PCPartPicker.com and CamelCamelCamel.com. These websites will help you compare component prices among the top retailers like Amazon and Newegg. PCPartPicker will also help you figure out if the parts that you picked are compatible. Local PC shops are also a great place to get cheap parts, without going to websites like Craigslist and eBay. Since most customers prefer newer parts, some local computer shops have older generation hardware that they are willing to part with for a discount. Most computer shops will also test the parts for free to let you know if they are working and give you advice on your build, if needed.

Monitors and Peripherals

Another thing to keep in mind when building your first gaming rig is that you have to set aside money for your monitor, mouse, keyboard, operating system and games. Many first-time builders focus most of their money on the computer itself and potentially resulting in cheaper monitors and peripherals. There is nothing wrong with a cheap peripheral setup, but monitors are a different story. It’s better to buy a good monitor because it is the part of your build that you will be focused on the most.

Operating system

The last thing to worry about your build is your operating system and the games. For operating systems, the only real option out there is Windows, and a license would cost you around $100. Linux is another operating system option, but despite it being free, it does not support many games.

Games

Lastly, reserve a bit of money to buy at least one new game to test your machine with. Free-to-play titles such as Apex Legends are a good way to test your build but having a brand-new triple A title can show off what your machine is capable of. Obviously, your performance depends on the quality of your parts.