Amazon Prime Day usually has tons of great discounts on everything from outerwear to gaming accessories, but this year there are a surprising number of PC hardware deals. In fact, there are enough deals on PC components that you can build almost an entire gaming rig with one shopping cart. There’s a big asterisk here though: Graphics cards are still in super-short supply and aren’t really discounted. But everything else? We’ve got you covered. Here’s how to build a fair percentage of a new PC with Prime Day deals.
Once you have your hardware, check out our PC build guide to construct it, as well as our best gaming mice and best gaming keyboard guides to round out your new battle station.
Note: We regularly update articles and strike through items that sell out or rise in price as of publishing, and mark discounts based on recent product pricing or average price, not MSRP. Be sure to check discounts for yourself. Our picks come from research and our extensive experience reviewing products. You’ll need an Amazon Prime subscription to get most of these deals.
Updated Tuesday: It’s day two of Prime Day! We’re seeing fewer PC components on sale right now, so we’ve crossed out the expired deals and updated prices throughout.
WIRED’s Prime Day Stories
Motherboard, Processor, and PSU Deals
First you’re going to need a central processing unit (CPU or processor), a place for it to live (the motherboard), and a power supply unit (PSU) to keep your gaming rig up and running. There aren’t any great deals on AMD processors this year, so the motherboards below are all for Intel processors. That just means everything on this list will work together in the same build.
Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X Intel motherboard
Photograph: GigabyteNo matter the workload, you really can’t go wrong with an Intel Core i7. This one is from the ninth generation, which is still quick enough that it won’t hold back your games (or your spreadsheets).
If you prefer AMD to Intel, this deal’s a good one—the price matched what we saw last Black Friday, and it’s since dropped a few more dollars. It’s on par with most i9 processors, unlocked for overlocking, and the included Wraith Prism cooler will keep temperatures within safe ranges. (The LED RGB is nice, too.)
Every PC needs a motherboard, and this Gigabyte Z390 is a beast. The motherboard doesn’t bottleneck your performance anywhere near as much as a CPU or graphics processing unit (GPU), but having a fully kitted out one like this can make your life easier. The Z390 has two M.2 slots for extra storage and they’re in easy to reach places, which isn’t always the case.
A 750-watt power supply is a great place to start for a gaming PC. It never hurts to get more power, but you won’t be hitting any ceilings at 750 watts as long as you stick to a one-GPU setup.
This Core i7 has a K designation, meaning it’s unlocked, which lets you increase the clock rate of the CPU to bump its speed. (It’s essentially faster than the standard chips.) It’s from the 10th generation (we’re on the 11th gen right now). This is the CPU to pick up if you’re planning on doing any intensive tasks (and overclocking) but you’re not quite ready to jump to an i9.
This is one of our favorite processors at the moment. It’s super powerful, and its 10-cores can handle just about any workload (or game) you throw at it, even video editing. On top of that, it’s a K processor, so it’s unlocked just like the one above. Make sure you get a liquid cooler if you’re going to overclock this thing. Note that stock for this is fluctuating, but we’re leaving the deal here for now so you can check and see if it’s back.
Storage and Memory Deals
RAM and storage don’t get the credit they deserve. They’re easy to overlook but are vitally important. RAM keeps your machine on its toes, and hard drives or solid state drives (SSDs) provide all the storage space you’re going to need for new games. SSDs can even improve load times.
For most PC builds, it’s a good idea to start with 16 gigabytes of RAM if you can. That extra memory will keep your machine light on its feet through most workloads and games. Eventually, you might want to step up to 32 GB.
With gaming PCs, I usually like to have as much storage as possible. That means it never hurts to have an internal SSD (on top of M.2 storage) that never runs out of space for your ever-growing Steam library. The bit about NVMe up there isn’t the product name; it just means it’s faster (and typically more expensive) than a standard SATA drive. There’s also a 1-terabyte version on sale here.
If you want some good ol’ internal SATA storage (the kind that’s more common but bulkier), then the BX500 is a good choice. This one’s read/write speeds aren’t going to be as fast as the NVMe M.2 SSDs above.
Cases, Cooling, and RGB Lighting Deals
Cooler Master MasterBox MB530P ATX mid-tower case
Photograph: Cooler MasterNow for the fun part. You’ve got your build almost together, so let’s give that machine a place to live and a killer AC system to keep things running cool and quiet.
Liquid cooling used to be such a spooky thing to install, but now thanks to all-in-one coolers like the ML280, it’s just as easy as setting up a standard CPU cooler, but way cooler.
Cases are always a very personal choice; they’re a matter of style and space. You can’t go wrong with an ATX mid-tower though. It’s big enough that you won’t be scraping your knuckles every time you swap out hardware but small enough that it won’t take up your whole desk. This mid-tower case from Thermaltake is also a good pick. If you’re looking to go smaller, go for this micro-ATX Thermaltake case.
Most cases come with RGB lighting these days, but if yours didn’t (or if you just want more RGB lighting), Corsair’s iCUE lighting kit is super easy to use and install. You can tweak the colors and effects using Corsair’s iCUE software.
Retailer Sale Pages
If you’d like to check more deals yourself, here are some links to sales going on this week.
WIRED’s Prime Day Stories
