The best gaming desktop you can buy

Finding the right gaming desktop can be a serious chore. Sorting through Amazon feedback, spec sheets, and parsing countless reviews for details relevant to your needs can be a massive headache, but we’re here to help.

It seems like we get new gaming desktops to review every week, and each one comes with its own quirks and eccentricities. Let’s be honest, the internals in all the top-of-the-line desktops are going to be remarkably similar.

When you’re buying a high-end gaming desktop you should be on the lookout for more than just raw performance. Any machine in the same price category will be capable of hitting similar benchmarks. What you’re really looking for in a long term solution is something with manageable quirks, features and eccentricities. You want a gaming desktop that reflects you and your needs, without compromising its horsepower.

Most of all, a gaming computer should be fun, so we’ve got the picks to keep the whole process from turning into a stressful mess.

Our pick

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Why you should buy this: You’re in it for the long haul, you want the best gaming rig on the market, and you want to keep it up to date.

[needs product card]

Who it’s for: Gamers who want the best of the best, and don’t mind dropping some serious dough

How much will it cost: $1,300+, depending on specs

Why we picked the Digital Storm Velox

Not only does Digital Storm’s Velox own the distinction of housing Intel’s Core i7-7700K processor — it also overclocked that processor to a ridiculous 5GHz, and cleared our tests with flying colors. Simply put, the Velox is among the most powerful gaming desktops you can buy. And if the i7-7700K isn’t to your tastes, well, you can get a Core i7-6950X, or AMD’s new Ryzen processors.

Despite its speed and extravagance, opening up the Velox and tinkering with its innards is far less intimidating than performing the same process on other rigs, due to its intuitive case design, which eschews screws and buttons in favor of simple pegs that pop in and out with little effort.

You can essentially trick out the Velox to no end (playing with options on Digital Storm’s website, we managed to jack the overall price up to over $40,000), but our review model ran short of $5,000, and it absolutely hauled digital ass.

Altogether, the Velox is hard to beat — on top of being incredibly powerful, it looks great, and it’s easy to fiddle with. If you want a future-proof PC, this is just about your best bet.

Our review

The best compact gaming desktop

Why you should buy this: You’re looking for something small, dense, and deceptively powerful (like a neutron star).

Our Score

The Best Compact Gaming Desktop

Falcon Northwest Tiki (2015)

If you want something a little smaller, the Tiki is a fantastic machine, with a gaming aesthetic and satisfying growl when you turn it on.

$4,045.00 from Falcon Northwest

Who it’s for: Gamers who want compact, understated power

How much will it cost: $1,900 – $4,200, depending on specs

Why we picked the Falcon Northwest Tiki

The Tiki actually scored a little better than the Velox in our review, but they’re very different machines. Digital Storm’s desktop is a powerhouse, and that’s reflected in its aesthetic; the custom metal chassis is certainly a joy to behold, but we wouldn’t classify it as minimalistic. Sure, it’s less flashy than many gaming rigs, but it’s still eye-catching, and takes up a decent chunk of real estate. The Tiki takes after a different tradition, trading visuals and a luxuriant interior for economy of space. This thing is tiny.

It’s also a good choice if you’re averse to some of the flashier gaming PCs out there. Not everyone has a taste for neon red and flashing lights. Like most high-end gaming rigs, you can customize the appearance of the Tiki, but there’s something about its sleek, professional design that lends itself well to shades of black.

If the Origin is a cherry-red hot rod with racing stripes, the Tiki is a slick black sports coupe with tinted windows and growling engine. Really, it growls. It’s a little loud, particularly under a heavy load, but given how small it is, you could tuck this thing under your desk to muffle the worst of the fan noise. Or just sit it out in the open and enjoy the sound of a miniature jet engine.

There are quieter gaming PCs out there, but you might have to make a few compromises.

Our review

The best affordable gaming desktop

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Why you should buy this: You want performance without breaking the bank, or a tiny gaming desktop.

[Also needs product card :D]

Who it’s for: Budget-minded gamers who don’t need unnecessary bells and whistles

How much will it cost: $700

Why we picked the Alienware Alpha ASM100-9000BLK 

Not everyone wants (or is able) to spend thousands on a gaming PC. Luckily, there are potent options out there for even the most frugal gamers, and Alienware’s Alpha Mini series is at the top of the list.

Alienware often catches flak for pumping out flashy, LED-laden computers that are too expensive, boasting similar specs to machines made by other companies at higher prices. That’s simply not the case with the ASM100-9000BLK, which currently retails for just $700 via Amazon.

If you’re a fiend for gorgeous graphics, you can find better options, but few — if any — desktops offer the same level of power as the Alpha for such a reasonable price. At 1080p, but it’ll play demanding games like The Witcher 3 and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor at 60FPS without breaking a sweat.

The CPU, memory, and hard drive are replaceable, so if you need a solid state drive in place of the slower hard drive, you can make that happen (though that sort of defeats the purpose of buying a $700 gaming desktop).

The barebones, gaming-centric Alienware UI is designed to be easily navigable via gamepad or controller, and on this front it succeeds. The Alpha manages to feel like a gaming console, except with Steam’s massive library. If you’re looking for an all-purpose PC, look elsewhere, but this bad boy packs a lot of punch, considering its size and price.

How we test

You’ve read our reviews. You’ve read our conclusions. And now you’re wondering how we came to them. Reviews often lack context. We’ll give out a score and analyze the finer points of desktop performance, but how do we reach those conclusions? How do we test these machines?

Allow us to lift the veil. Here we’ll explain the benchmarks we use for objective testing and the perspective from which we approach subjective topics. We don’t expect everyone to agree with our opinions, but we hope that sharing our process will leave you better equipped to decide what desktop best fits your needs.