But with prices rising across the board, careful decisions have to be made so as to not waste money frivolously on PC components that don’t contribute to the performance of the whole. Also: This is the perfect mini electric screwdriver To help, I’ve assembled this sub-$550 hardware build so that all you will need to add is your own peripherals and operating system of choice. You can buy a Windows license here, for example. Note that prices might fluctuate on either side of that $550 mark – the components market is rather volatile these days. Now, let’s see what you can get for the money. The only downside is that there’s no built-in graphics chip, but that’s not a problem here as we’re going to add a discrete GPU to this build next. This GPU from Sapphire is a fantastic option for less than $200, offering 4GB of memory fitted, support for two monitors with HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and twin cooling fans. Also: The 6 best gaming chairs you can buy Oh, and there’s built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, so you’ll save some money on adapters and dongles. The brand is especially good for gaming systems that are pushed harder and made to run hotter than regular desktop systems. My recommended model is a 288-Pin RAM with DDR4 3200 (for decently fast data transfer speeds) and heat-spreaders fitted in. Sure, you can get much more storage for your money going for an HDD (about 2TB, or four times as much as you’re getting here), but there’s a huge performance hit. In this case, the sequential read speeds go up to 560 MB/s and sequential write speeds are up to 530 MB/s. The one from Thermaltake supports 500W output and has a large, quiet cooling fan to dissipate heat.