Our last gaming PC build guide focused on giving you a 1080p 60 FPS PC gaming experience with price-performance balance in mind. But for this one, we're stepping up to Quad HD: 1440p 60 FPS, with current pricing accurate as of early June 2022.
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - FEBRUARY 22: Internal components of an Asus gaming PC during the League of Legends World Finals on Day Two of the Girl Gamer Esports Festival at Meydan Racecourse on February 22, 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
So as with our 1080p build guide, this one also doesn't feature peripherals like the monitor, keyboard, and mouse into the budget. Also, the prices are subject to change without prior notice, so please keep that in mind.
And without further ado, let's begin!
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
You might notice that we didn't change the CPU from our 1080p build, and for good reason. The higher you go up in resolution, the more game depend on GPU power, not CPU. Nevertheless, you'll still need a great CPU to pair with a powerful-enough graphics card for 1440p, and the 5600X fits the bill again. $196.99 on Newegg.
And since this chip comes with its own cooler, you don't have to splurge as much too.
GPU: AMD RX 6700 XT
It can be tempting to go for the competing RTX 3070 from NVIDIA in this gaming PC build guide, but we opted for the RX 6700 XT from AMD as our GPU of choice for a simple reason: you can get it cheaper without sacrificing too much performance. Right now, the 6700 XT can cost as low as $498 on Newegg, and even lower if you go for sites like eBay
The 3070, on the other hand, can still set you back almost $200 more. A 4-5 FPS gain on average is definitely not worth an extra $200. You're only letting go of Team Green's amazing NVENC encoder, meaning your in-GPU gameplay recording won't be as good.
Here's a video benchmark of the 6700 XT vs the 3070, where the AMD card only manages to give up a handful of frames against its NVIDIA counterpart:
Read also: A PS5-Level Gaming PC Build Cheaper Than Sony's Console: Is It Possible?
Motherboard, RAM, Storage, Case
For our next four components, we're going with whatever we recommended for our 1080p gaming PC build guide for simplicity's sake.
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Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B550-Plus, $156.99 on Newegg
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RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3600 MHz (2x8GB), $78.59 on Newegg
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Storage: Samsung 980 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB PCIe Gen 4, $269.99 on Amazon
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Case: Corsair 4000D Airflow tempered glass side panel, $94.99 on Amazon
Power Supply: Seasonic FOCUS GM-750 750-watt PSU, 80+ Gold
For our power supply, we need to go with something a bit higher than AMD's recommended 650-watt PSU for safety and efficiency's sake. So our choice would be Seasonic's FOCUS GM-750, an 80+ Gold rated power supply with a 7-year warranty and direct fan control feature. $114.89 on Newegg.
The total price for this 1440p 60 FPS build is $1,410.44.
To give you an idea of what a similar gaming PC can do, here's a benchmark courtesy of Jegs TV:
Related: Gaming PC Build 2022: Best Builds For 1080p, 1440p, And 4K Gaming Early This Year
Story posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce