The best budget gaming PCs of 2024: the next generation

A strong contender for one of the best-budgeted gaming PC builds of the year, the ADMI 4060 gaming PC is comprised of strong hardware which, on initial glance, exceeds this budget PC's low price. Utilising impressive SSD storage with a spacious 1TB, as well as 16GB of RAM which is unlikely to struggle with high-end games, and the icing on the cake: a monstrous RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, it's hardly a surprise that it's one of our favourites this year.

Balanced hardware built well with professional-grade cable sorting, the ADMI gaming PC is truly stunning, with little room for criticism. If we were to truly nitpick, we'd certainly consider upgrading the ADMI's 12th generation Intel i5 CPU in time: it's a solid CPU undoubtedly, but to truly push the boat out on performance, using something a little more recent would truly heighten your gaming experience.

Again, we're largely scraping for downsides here: the Intel i5 CPU is remarkably solid, and when used with the ADMI's other hardware, there's no doubt that you'll be tearing through waves of foes in stunning 4K resolution, without a hitch before long.

Made for gamers in dire need of a punchy setup, but without a heap of cash to spend - the Veno Scorp Gaming PC is a steal that'll cover any player's need for a quality setup.

Capable of handling its fair share of AAA games in its sleep, this Veno Scorp Gaming PC build is an absolutely baffling deal that budget gamers need to get their hands on this year. From its sensational 16GB of RAM to its solid Intel i7 CPU and NVIDIA GTX 1660 GPU, the Veno Scorp offers some promising hardware potential for exciting AAA gaming. Still, this budget gaming PC isn't without its limits.

A particular weakness of this build is the reliance on a hybrid storage system: utilising both HDD and SSD, with most of the storage itself being HDD, you're not getting the best storage in terms of speed, despite the 1TB of HDD storage. Using HDD storage will limit quick access to games, extending loading times, which is especially crucial in open-world games.

Of course, the unique benefit of a gaming PC is its customisability, should you want to upgrade the SSD, simply take out the HDD and swap it out, it's that simple. Out of the box, however, the use of HDD leaves much to be desired.

Veno Scorp's budget gaming PC is a bargain at its price, with few PCs online truly competing with its impressive GPU and reliable i7 CPU processor.

Out of the gate, this ADMI PC build has an NVIDIA RTX 3050 8GB graphics card - giving you plenty of potency for some serious gaming performance. Joining the magnificent graphics card is the ADMI's plethora of reliable hardware; an AMD Ryzen 5500 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, which isn't perfect, but certainly offers strong performance even amongst the most demanding modern games.

perhaps the most prominent weakness of this PC build is the ADMI's Ryzen 5500 CPU, a popular, yet limited budget CPU which struggles to go toe-to-toe with Intel's 12th-generation i5. Performance lags behind slightly, despite having a similar amount of cores. Its clock speed is perhaps the weakest aspect of the Ryzen 5500 CPU, and it leaves the general operation of the PC slightly lagging behind, despite its otherwise strong hardware

Concerning design and construction, ADMI's Gaming PC's vivid white mesh case certainly stands out from the crowd, and once activated, RGB fans will have more than their fair share of colours to choose from.

For its sheer value - there's nothing you can truly fault with ADMI's seriously good 3050 build, its brilliance is simply obvious, and we cannot recommend it enough.

Dipping in price recently, the AWD-IT Charger is likely to be one of the strongest budget PCs on the market this year, comfortably sitting below the £700 price point whilst being equipped with some of the best hardware of the year.

Starting strong with storage, the 1TB of SSD storage is perfectly ideal for gamers with a library's worth of larger AAA titles such as Call of Duty, so you're far less likely to need a thorough clean-out at any point. Capturing the excitement of gamers most of all has to be its RTX 3060 card with an unparalleled 12GB of VRAM, vastly competing with most graphics cards available at its price. With the RTX, smooth next-generation gaming and access to ray tracing are a possibility, so grabbing this PC setup is a little extra worthwhile.

The AWD-IT Charger's particularly strong 16GB of RAM is certainly commendable, but it's undeniably made stronger by the presence of the AWD-IT's particularly high VRAM. This is because, when VRAM becomes overloaded during gaming, which is more likely to happen than ever before in modern gaming, the PC uses the main RAM as an overflow, which is why having plenty is a necessity. Having 16GB of RAM ensures that you're undoubtedly going to have enough for strong performance.

The major downside of the AWD-IT Charger is undeniably its fairly average AMD 5500 CPU, certainly one of the cheaper components onboard which isn't the best for gaming. A good amount of cores but a slower clock speed means that the AWD-IT charger does well while multitasking, but doesn't complete those individual tasks with a great amount of speed.

And yet, for all intents and purposes, the AWD-IT Charger is doubtlessly ahead of the curve for performance, leaving few stones unturned to provide the best performance possible at its budget price.

Easily one of the best rigs we've come across this year for simple, non-AAA gaming, this MEDION Erazer gaming PC with an Intel Core i5 processor, 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM is a true bargain. But it's not the stellar memory, nor the CPU that excites us, it's the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4 GB graphics card.

With a strong budget graphics card, you're not going to get the performance you might find on a 30-series card, but for what it's worth, you'll get plenty of performance from the 1650 GPU. We'd certainly recommend playing at full-HD resolution with this graphics card for the best performance.

The Intel i5 12400F CPU isn't the most remarkable CPU on the market, but for a budget build as cheap as the MEDION Erzer, it's certainly one of the stronger components of this rig.

Needless to say, the performance on the MEDION Erazer gaming PC is excellent for the price, there are very few games that you'll struggle to run, which is an achievement considering its affordable price.

A mainstay of budget PC builders, CyberpowerPC and its Wyvern mid-range models have cropped up consistently on PC roundups for years now, and the latest generation is unequivocally the best we've seen for the price.

Well-priced at around £650, the Wyven's excellence largely stems from its stellar NVIDIA RTX 3060 GPU with 12GB of VRAM, a card more than capable of holding its own against the next generation of AAA games. Ray-tracing, 4K ready and truly next-level compared to a multitude of similarly-priced PC builds, the Wyvern more than delivers out of the gate with just this impressive graphics card alone.

As for its memory, the 16GB of RAM is certainly strong, keeping intensive games afloat with its ample space. The 500GB of SSD storage on the Wyvern, while quick, doesn't provide a whole lot of room for newer games, which are all the more demanding on storage. Thanks to the PC's excellent case, however, upgrading the CyberpowerPC's storage is a breeze.

What may be a little more disappointing to gamers is the AMD Ryzen 4500 CPU, which certainly leaves us wanting for a little more clock speed to get the most out of games. This cheap CPU is an outlier in this build and is likely to cause a degree of bottlenecking, which doesn't bode well if you're looking for top-tier performance.

That being said, for the card alone, alongside the stellar build quality and the sheer value of this PC build, the CyberpowerPC Wyvern is amongst the best of the year, offering strong performance, consistent stability and plenty of gorgeous aesthetics to scratch your RGB itch.

Purchasing a gaming PC is expensive enough, so choosing a bundle is a fantastic way of drastically cutting back your PC setup budget, but it's not without its potential risks. Of course, typical PC bundles have to cut back somewhere, so getting a strong gaming PC that's also less than £750 can be tough, but Vibox has certainly managed to pull it off.

The Vibox V-8 is a fantastic, cheap and reliable gaming PC which unquestionably deserves a spot on this year's roundup. Out of the gate, this budget build is equipped with an NVIDIA 3050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM, so there's no doubt that delving into larger, more demanding games is a breeze for this setup.

Paired with 16GB of RAM and an impressive 1TB of SSD storage, it becomes a little confusing as to why this PC build is so cheap, and yet still comes with an array of peripherals too. The CPU, while not the strongest, fits this budget build well, there are undeniably going to be cutbacks in places, and the CPU is likely the best component to reduce spending on, so it's a logical choice on Vibox's behalf.

Where the lower price becomes apparent is the actual quality of the peripherals: the included mouse, keyboard, monitor and mouse mat aren't the best you can buy, that's a given. The mouse is a little ugly and the monitor itself doesn't do a whole lot for the visuals of modern games. It's still a 1080p screen, which looks great, but you're going to notice its less than top-tier quality.

But, if you're shopping on a budget and want to get going on gaming as soon as possible, then you can certainly start with this fantastic setup from Vibox, it's one of the best bundles we've come across and is more than worth its great value price.

Certainly, one of the more attractive bundle PC builds, the Vibox V-24 is certainly on the cheaper end of the PC bundle spectrum, with hardware that isn't groundbreaking but is certainly going to provide strong full-HD gameplay.

Running an NVIDIA 1650 GPU with a semi-decent 4GB of RAM, alongside a full terabyte of SSD storage, you can expect solid performance across an array of newer games, with stable performance in an array of FPS games. The Ryzen 5 CPU is decent, but not the most impressive, and will provide a strong degree of reliable multitasking, with some bottlenecking of the Vibox's more powerful GPU.

While the main PC case looks fantastic, the peripherals are typical Vibox peripherals, which certainly feel on the cheaper end. Yes, the full-size keyboard is good, but it's undoubtedly designed as a beginner keyboard to get you started without having to wait for a decent keyboard.

Looking at the true value of the Vibox V-24, you really cannot fault the V-24 for its minor shortcomings, it's a fantastic gaming PC, and when everything's included - the bargain this bundle is, truly is apparent.

For under £750, it's tough to find a build with a 40-series graphics card onboard, but AWD-IT's FROST gaming PC certainly manages to pull it off. This utterly phenomenal build steals the show with its stunning, well-ventilated case and tidy build, but the monstrous graphics card brings this PC to a whole new level.

With the 4060 GPU, expect to game at 4K quality without a hitch, crank up your settings on the latest games and explore the gorgeous vistas of modern gaming to your heart's content. The only caveat to this PC's terrific graphics card is its lower-end AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU and 500GB of SSD storage, which certainly don't meet the same sheer excellence.

Bottlenecking is likely on this PC build, but with 16GB of RAM and the full-throttle of the GPU on its side, performance remains strong, there's no doubt about it. An excellent gaming PC deal worth investing in, grab this PC for a next-generation experience.

Almost certainly one of the best budget gaming PCs for less than £500, the AWD-IT LEVEL 3 gaming PC has some impressive hardware, a great design and plenty to offer gamers looking to delve into some of the most heart-racing games of the year.

The strongest of the LEVEL 3's hardware has to be its NVIDIA 1650 4GB GPU, which isn't the best on our list, but typically performs well with even more recent AAA games. Choosing to play less-demanding games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty are bound to be a good choice for this build, with more demanding open-world games running into some issues.

These performance issues are largely the fault of the lower-end AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, which is on the lower end of hardware on our roundup. It's a cheaper CPU to be sure, but will perform well when paired with a higher-end GPU and a strong 16GB of RAM. The storage, while not spectacular is certainly enough to start off, storage is incredibly easy and affordable to upgrade too, so it's not a major deal in the long run.

For those starting their PC gaming journey, this brilliant PC deal is bound to be the perfect foot in the door, strong hardware, a great aesthetic and well-made, this might be the perfect PC for under £500.