Buying into the latest and greatest hardware is fine and dandy if you have the disposable income and desire to be on the bleeding edge, though it is not required to play the latest games at high settings. In fact, some of the best gaming PC deals can be had immediately prior or after new product launches. This is when discounts tend to ramp up, and over at Dell, you can purchase a reasonably fast gaming PC for $779.99 right now.
That's after applying promo code 50OFF699 at checkout. In total, you're saving $150 over the MSRP, and coming in around what it would cost to build the same setup with parts sourced from Newegg and Amazon.
What you're getting here is a Core i5 9400 processor paired with a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. You should be able to play the vast majority of games at 1080p ultra with this combination, and depending on the title, you could muster 60fps at 1440p ultra.
Being a relatively affordable PC means concessions had to be made, and that comes with the RAM and storage allotment. It comes with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD combo. Ideally, we like to see 16GB of RAM and at least a 512GB SSD in a gaming PC.
These can both be upgraded, though. If you want to go through Dell, a bump to 16GB of RAM runs $100, as does bumping up the storage to a 512GB SSD (also paired with a 1TB HDD). There's nothing stopping you from performing these upgrades on your own, if and when the need and desire arise.
How does this compare to building your own around the same parts? Let's have a look (prices are from Newegg):
- Core i5 9400—$165.99
- H370 motherboard—$105.94
- GeForce GTX 1660 Ti—$246.99
- 8GB DDR4-2666 RAM—$32.99
- 256GB NVMe SSD—$30.99
- 1TB HDD—$33.99
- Windows 10 Home OEM—$109.99
You're looking at $726.88 before factoring in a power supply or case. Those prices are also based on some parts I wouldn't necessarily choose, brand-wise (I went with the cheapest I could find). After adding a case and PSU, you'd likely be above the asking price on this prebuilt.
In short, this is a good deal on a midrange gaming PC. It's also around $90 less than the similarly-equipped MSI Trident 3, one of this week's cheap gaming PC deals.
