I built a budget gaming PC using only Black Friday deals - and it’s genuinely great value

Deals
By Christian Guyton
published

Join me on my Black Friday PC-building quest

The MSI MAG Forge 112R gaming PC case on a red background with 'BIG SAVINGS' text.
(Image credit: MSI)

Black Friday deals are coming in hot, and my little cousin wants a gaming PC. What better time for me to put my PC-building experience to work than now, when I can snap up a bunch of cut-price components? Amazon has now kicked off its official Black Friday sale, so I’m on the hunt for parts.

Of course, custom PC builds aren’t necessarily the best-value approach these days; there was a time when putting together your own computer would be significantly cheaper than buying a pre-built system, but that’s frequently no longer the case. With this in mind, I set out to construct the best gaming PC that would be cheaper than a desktop I could simply purchase fully assembled.

You can see my list of components (and the deals I snagged on them) right here, but if you want a more detailed breakdown, just scroll down - I’ve explained my process more thoroughly below.

What components did I pick?

MSI Gaming Ventus 2X OC RTX 3060: $260now $241.99 at Amazon

MSI Gaming Ventus 2X OC RTX 3060: was $260 now $241.99 at Amazon
It might've been overtaken by the newer RTX 4000 series GPUs, but the RTX 3060 is still a top-notch choice of budget graphics card. With 8GB of VRAM and two fans, this model from MSI is one of the cheapest you can find for Black Friday - but that doesn't mean it's worse than other models, since performance varies very little between third-party RTX cards.

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AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: $309now $158.55 at Amazon

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: was $309 now $158.55 at Amazon
An excellent mid-range CPU from AMD, the 5600X has 6 cores, 12 threads, and a bundled AMD Wraith Stealth cooler - letting you save even more. It's not the most powerful processor on the planet, but at almost half price, this is one heck of a deal.

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Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2: $149.99now $95.99 at Amazon

Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2: was $149.99 now $95.99 at Amazon
An absolute steal at less than a hundred bucks, this full-size ATX motherboard features a robust design, plenty of USB ports, and should support all the components I'm putting into this build. Just bear in mind that with a 5th-gen Ryzen processor, the board may require a BIOS update before use.

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Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB): $63.66now $39.99 at Amazon

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB): was $63.66 now $39.99 at Amazon
The go-to memory for any seasoned PC builder, Corsair's Vengeance LPX is no-frills performance goodness. This kit uses two 8GB DIMM sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4 RAM, which should be plenty for some straightforward 1080p gaming.

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Crucial BX500 480GB: $44.99now $29.25 at Amazon

Crucial BX500 480GB: was $44.99 now $29.25 at Amazon
No old-school hard drives here - we're using a SATA SSD, which is the cheapest form of solid-state storage. This drive from Crucial is basically some of the cheapest PC storage money can buy (at least, without dipping into the less reputable brands on Amazon), and 480GB should be plenty of storage for an entry-level build. But if you do need more, upgrading is easy!

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MSI MAG A650BN: $69.99now $59.99 at Amazon

MSI MAG A650BN: was $69.99 now $59.99 at Amazon
A standard non-modular ATX power supply, the MAG A650BN from MSI gives plenty of power for your PC build - 650W of power, to be precise. That'll be more than sufficient for a 1080p gaming desktop, with a bit of overhead room for upgrading further down the line too.

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MSI MAG Forge 112R: $89.99now $64.99 at Amazon

MSI MAG Forge 112R: was $89.99 now $64.99 at Amazon
65 bucks for a full-size gaming PC case with four ARGB fans? That's a serious deal - and the MSI MAG Forge 112R won't disappoint, offering a PSU shroud for hiding any excess cables and a perforated front panel for better ventilation. The tempered glass window means you can show off your build in glorious rainbow lighting, too!

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Building a PC on Amazon

The focal point of this build is an Nvidia RTX 3060, one of the best cheap graphics card options available that was slightly overpriced at launch - happily, this twin-fan MSI RTX 3060 is now down to $241.99 at Amazon, providing a solid 1080p gaming foundation for this PC. It was a regular staple on our best graphics card ranking before being superseded by the newer (but more expensive) RTX 4060.

I needed a decent mid-range CPU to match that GPU, and I was pleased to find the  AMD Ryzen 5 5600X for $158.55 at Amazon, which is half off its list price. It’s a solid hexa-core processor that I personally used in my home PC build for a while, and comes bundled with one of AMD’s Wraith coolers, letting me save some extra cash for the overall build. Actually, AMD - why the heck did you stop bundling these coolers with all your CPUs? They were some of the best CPU coolers around for mainstream chips!

With a Ryzen 5000 processor, I needed an AM4 motherboard, and the best-value one I could find was this Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2 for $95.99 at Amazon. It’s a fairly feature-light mobo, but that’s fine - it just needs to support our components. Also plugging into the board will be 16GB of Corsair Vengeance LPX RAM at $39.99 and an insanely cheap SSD: this 480GB drive from Crucial for just $29.25 at Amazon right now.

Naturally, we’ll need a power supply for this build, and I’ve opted for the straightforward MSI MAG A650BN, on sale for $59.99 at Amazon. This 650W PSU should provide plenty of juice for this build, with a little bit of headroom for upgrading the internal components later on. Finally, I needed a case - while I could’ve found a slightly cheaper one, I opted for the MSI MAG Forge 112R at $64.99, since it comes with four ARGB fans - giving me a little extra visual flair for this build.

So, did I succeed in my quest? Well, my planned builds clocks in at $690.75 total - and the cheapest pre-built RTX 3060 gaming PC I could find was this STGAubron Gaming Desktop PC bundle for $699.99 on Amazon. Granted, that PC comes with a bunch of extra peripherals, but I’ve literally never heard of the brand (it doesn’t even seem to have a website) and some of the components are… well, suspicious. It apparently uses DDR3 RAM (in 2023?!) and nowhere on the listing does it specify which Intel Core i7 processor it uses. Some brief digging seems to indicate it’s an ancient 3rd-gen quad-core Intel chip, so… not good.

In other words, I think I nailed it. The PC I’ve cobbled together using only Black Friday deals is actually pretty great value for money, and has the added advantage of easy upgrade potential in the future. For a desktop that’ll likely be used for playing Fortnite more than anything else, I think it’s going to do great.

Not in the US? Scroll down to see the best PC component deals in your region.

More of today's best Black Friday deals

Christian Guyton
Christian Guyton
Editor, Computing

Christian is TechRadar’s UK-based Computing Editor. He came to us from Maximum PC magazine, where he fell in love with computer hardware and building PCs. He was a regular fixture amongst our freelance review team before making the jump to TechRadar, and can usually be found drooling over the latest high-end graphics card or gaming laptop before looking at his bank account balance and crying.

Christian is a keen campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and the owner of a charming rescue dog named Lucy, having adopted her after he beat cancer in 2021. She keeps him fit and healthy through a combination of face-licking and long walks, and only occasionally barks at him to demand treats when he’s trying to work from home.