Short answer for prices on 9 November 2026: the cheapest new PC I would still call a gaming PC costs 979 euro (Ryzen 5 5600, Intel Arc B580, 16 GB DDR4), the best frame for the money is a 1507 euro AM4 build with a Radeon RX 9070, and 2085 euro gets you a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an RX 9070 XT that will carry 1440p for years. Prices are the lowest offers on geizhals.de including VAT, taken the evening of 9 November, and every build has a button that opens it in our configurator with today's parts already picked.
- Three builds and what they cost on 9 November
- 979 euro: the cheapest PC I would still call a gaming PC
- 1507 euro: the cheapest frame lives on an old platform
- 2085 euro: 7800X3D and RX 9070 XT, the build for the next few years
- Where to save and where not to
- What not to buy for this money
- What these PCs cost to run
- Buying used: what is safe and what is not
- Check your build
The 800 euro build I wanted to open with is gone. A 32 GB kit of DDR5-6000 now costs 499 euro, more than a Ryzen 7 7800X3D and its motherboard put together, and that single price explains why two of the three builds below sit on a platform AMD launched in 2016.
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Three builds and what they cost on 9 November
Every line is the cheapest offer for that exact model on geizhals.de when I wrote this. The frame numbers are an estimate, not a test bench: average FPS from the TechPowerUp test suite (25 games, maximum settings, no upscaling), capped in each game by what the processor can deliver according to TechPowerUp's 720p CPU data. Our configurator counts the same way. No Windows licence, no monitor, no keyboard.
| Part | 979 euro PC | 1507 euro PC | 2085 euro PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Ryzen 5 5600, boxed, 126.30 | Ryzen 5 5600, boxed, 126.30 | Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 279.07 |
| Cooler | box cooler | box cooler | Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE, 33.39 |
| Motherboard | ASUS Prime B550M-K, 84.33 | ASUS Prime B550M-K, 84.33 | Gigabyte B650M Gaming Plus WIFI, 122.00 |
| Memory | 16 GB DDR4-3200 (2x8), 119.99 | 32 GB DDR4-3200 (2x16), 212.99 | 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 (2x16), 499.00 |
| Graphics card | Intel Arc B580 12 GB, 396.90 | Radeon RX 9070 16 GB, 819.00 | Radeon RX 9070 XT 16 GB, 886.84 |
| SSD | Kingston NV3 1 TB, 134.90 | Kingston NV3 1 TB, 134.90 | Kingston NV3 1 TB, 134.90 |
| Power supply | Seasonic Core GC-650, 53.90 | Seasonic Core GC-750, 66.89 | Seasonic Core GC-750, 66.89 |
| Case | be quiet! Pure Base 501 Airflow, 62.85 | be quiet! Pure Base 501 Airflow, 62.85 | be quiet! Pure Base 501 Airflow, 62.85 |
| Total, euro | 979.17 | 1507.26 | 2084.94 |
| FPS 1080p / 1440p / 4K, estimate | 75 / 56 / 32 | 139 / 106 / 64 | 154 / 118 / 70 |
| Euro per frame at 1440p | 17.52 | 14.22 | 17.61 |
Check your build. Prices move every day and your games are not our 25. Each button opens the configurator with the exact pair from the table, so you can swap a card or a processor and see the frames and the total change.
The middle build buys the cheapest frame, and not by a little. Put the same RX 9070 on AM5 with a Ryzen 5 7500F and 32 GB of DDR5 and the PC costs 1860 euro for about 2 percent more frames, so each frame goes from 14.22 to 17.16 euro. The cheap build loses on this chart because the Arc B580 is slow at 1440p, which is fine, it was never meant for it.
979 euro: the cheapest PC I would still call a gaming PC
This is a 1080p machine. The estimate gives 75 frames on average at maximum settings, and the processor almost never gets in the way at this level: in 2 of 25 games the Ryzen 5 5600 sets the ceiling, everywhere else the card does.
Why an Arc B580 for 396.90 and not something greener. The GeForce RTX 5060 costs 450.62 and is clearly faster, the estimate puts it at about 93 frames at 1080p, 24 percent more for 54 euro. I would still keep the Intel card here because it has 12 GB of video memory against 8. In 2026 eight gigabytes means turning textures down in a growing list of new games, and you cannot fix that later with a driver. If you mostly play competitive shooters, take the RTX 5060 and do not look back. One more thing about Arc: results in older DirectX 11 games are less even than on AMD and NVIDIA, so check reviews of your specific old favourites before you buy.
- Memory. 16 GB is enough for most games today. If you can stretch, 32 GB of DDR4 costs 212.99, 93 euro more, and saves you from adding sticks later, which on AM4 often means lower memory speed.
- Cooler. The boxed Ryzen 5 5600 comes with a Wraith Stealth. It is loud under full load but fine for a 65 W chip.
- Upgrade path. AM4 ends with the X3D chips. A Ryzen 5 5500X3D or a 5800X3D drops into this board in two or three years, no new memory needed.
- Power supply. 650 W is double what this system draws, and leaves room for a bigger card.
1507 euro: the cheapest frame lives on an old platform
Here the Radeon RX 9070 with 16 GB does the work: 106 frames at 1440p in our estimate, 64 at 4K without upscaling. It costs 819 euro and it is the reason this build wins the price per frame.
The awkward question is why a 5600 next to an 819 euro card. The chart answers it for averages: the 7800X3D adds 4 percent at 1080p, 3 percent at 1440p and nothing at 4K, while the AM5 route costs 352 euro more, most of it in memory (499 euro for 32 GB of DDR5 against 212.99 for DDR4).
Averages at maximum settings hide the bad cases, though. In TechPowerUp's 720p test of Cyberpunk 2077 the Ryzen 5 5600 tops out at 153.8 frames and the 7800X3D at 221.8. If you play shooters on a 165 Hz screen, big strategy games or simulators, the CPU will be what you notice first, and you should skip to the next build. If you play story games at 1440p and 60 to 100 frames, the 5600 is not the bottleneck and the 352 euro is better spent elsewhere, or not spent.
The 750 W power supply costs 13 euro more than the 650 W one. The RX 9070 does not need it, the next card might.
2085 euro: 7800X3D and RX 9070 XT, the build for the next few years
This is the one I would buy myself. The Radeon RX 9070 XT at 886.84 gives 118 frames at 1440p and 70 at 4K in our estimate, both at maximum settings with no upscaler, so with FSR 4 4K becomes comfortable in most games. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 279.07 is the processor that makes the shooter and strategy cases from the previous section go away.
- Why not the 9800X3D. It costs 361.87, 83 euro more, for about 11 percent more in CPU-bound tests (TechPowerUp index 127.7 against 114.9). With this card at 1440p that turns into a frame or two.
- Why 32 GB of DDR5 at 499. A 16 GB DDR5 kit costs 298.29, 60 percent of the price for half the memory. On AM5 this is the one place where buying less is the worse deal.
- Board. A Gigabyte B650M Gaming Plus WIFI for 122 euro takes the Ryzen 9000 chips too, and AMD has promised AM5 support at least through 2027.
- Storage. 1 TB fills up fast with today's 150 GB games. The 2 TB Kingston NV3 is 263.90, 129 euro more, and it is the first thing I would add.
- Cooler. The 7800X3D ships without one. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE for 33.39 is quiet and more than enough.
Where to save and where not to
Memory is the story of this month. Out of 2085 euro, 499 go to two sticks of DDR5, almost a quarter of the whole PC.
- Save on the platform under about 1600 euro. AM4 with DDR4 runs the same graphics card for 352 euro less and loses around 3 percent at 1440p. Above that budget the X3D processor starts to matter and AM5 is worth it.
- If you want AM5 anyway, the cheapest way in is a Ryzen 5 7500F tray for 121.90 plus a 33 euro cooler. It is a slightly lower clocked 7600 without integrated graphics.
- The new Ryzen 5 7500X3D costs 219. TechSpot measured it (5 January 2026, RTX 5090, 12 games at 1080p) as 11 percent slower than the 7800X3D and 10 percent faster than the 9600X. In Germany the 7800X3D is only 60 euro more, so I would take that one.
- Do not save on the power supply. A Seasonic Core GC is already the cheap end of known brands. A no-name 650 W unit for 30 euro is how systems die.
- Do not buy a single memory stick. One stick halves the memory bandwidth and costs frames exactly where the processor is the limit. Our configurator counts this from Tom's Hardware tests.
What not to buy for this money
On 30 August I took the same geizhals snapshot for our graphics card guides. Ten weeks later every popular card costs 17 to 33 percent more, and the NVIDIA cards went up the most. That changes what counts as a bad deal:
- GeForce RTX 5070 Ti at 1349.99. That is 52 percent more than an RX 9070 XT for about 5 percent more frames (TechPowerUp 1440p average 124.8 against 118.6). Ray tracing narrows the gap in its favour, but not to 463 euro.
- GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB at 734.73. For 84 euro more the RX 9070 gives 51 percent more frames.
- A 16 GB DDR5 kit at 298.29. Either 32 GB of DDR5 or go AM4 with DDR4.
- Ryzen 7 9850X3D at 397. Next to a 9800X3D at 361.87 it is 1.5 percent faster in the TechPowerUp index. In games you will not see it.
What these PCs cost to run
Three hours of gaming a day at the Eurostat average of 0.28 euro per kWh (first half of 2026) comes to 94, 103 and 145 euro a year. In Germany, at 0.36, it is 120, 132 and 187. I used the rated power of the card and processor plus 50 W for everything else, and real games rarely hold both at the limit, so treat these as the upper end.
The gap between the middle and the top build is about 42 euro a year at the EU average. Over four years that is the price of the 2 TB SSD upgrade.
Buying used: what is safe and what is not
With new memory this expensive, the second-hand market is where the cheap builds really get cheap. Kleinanzeigen in Germany, Marktplaats and the Tweakers forum in the Netherlands are full of AM4 systems from people moving to AM5.
- Safe: processors, DDR4 kits, cases and coolers. A CPU either works or it does not, and memory can be checked with MemTest86 in an hour. A used 2x16 GB DDR4 kit is the single best saving in the 1507 euro build.
- Careful: graphics cards. Ask to see it run a 20 minute stress test, check the temperature, and ask for the original receipt, since manufacturer warranty often depends on it and a private seller in the EU owes you nothing. Do not buy a used 8 GB card for a 12 GB price.
- New only: power supplies and SSDs. You cannot see how many hours or terabytes they have behind them, and the savings are small.
Check your build
This page keeps its address and gets new prices every month. If you are reading it later than mid-November, open the PC build calculator: it pulls current shop prices, counts frames for your resolution and shows where an extra 100 euro stops buying frames. You can also start from a game there and get the cheapest set of parts that holds 60 or 144 frames in it.
Sources
Prices: geizhals.de, lowest offer per model including VAT, snapshots by FramesGames on 30 August and 9 November 2026. Graphics card frame rates: TechPowerUp, Sapphire RX 9070 GRE Pulse review, average FPS at 1080p, 1440p and 4K. Processor ceilings and index: TechPowerUp, Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary review and Ryzen 7 9800X3D review. Ryzen 5 7500X3D: TechSpot review, 5 January 2026. Electricity prices: Eurostat, household electricity prices, first half of 2026. Build frame rates and price per frame are calculated by FramesGames with the configurator model and are an estimate, not a measurement. Product images: AMD.
