Best gaming PC build under $300 of 2023

Building a gaming PC for under 300 dollars can be a tough task but thanks to AMD’s impressive range of APUs, we were able to do so while still achieving decent entry-level performance. At the heart of this build sits AMD’s entry-level APU, the 3200G. It comes equipped with Vega 8 graphics, which are surprisingly good at handling low-intensive games such as CS:GO and Fortnite.

Let’s quickly go over what this build has to offer in terms of performance and features, and while we’re at it, let’s discuss some of the roadblocks we encountered and why we ended up choosing the hardware we concluded with.

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Budget

One of the main goals for the $300 custom build was to create a gaming PC that could handle AAA titles while remaining under $300. No easy task I’m sure you’ll agree. However, thanks to the excellent value of AMD’s APU range, we were able to achieve this goal by opting for their entry-level APU, the 3200G.

The 3200G was pretty much the only APU we could go for and remain under budget, but that wasn’t a bad thing. By opting for an APU, we no longer had to worry about the cost of a standalone GPU. This means we could bolster other areas of this build like RAM.

Performance

Let’s be honest, you aren’t buying this build if you’re looking to play AAA games in 4K/ultra settings. This build is tailored towards low-intensive games such as CS: GO, Fortnite, and Overwatch. The APU should be able to churn out 60+FPS on these games on low-medium settings.

AMD APUs

An APU, for those wondering, is an accelerated processing unit that comes with its own integrated graphics built-in. Unlike Intel CPUs, an AMD APU comes with VEGA graphics, which is much more powerful. The 3200G comes with VEGA 8 graphics that showcase similar performance levels to a GT 1030. So, not bad.

The integrated graphics of an APU fully depend on your system’s RAM when in use. For that reason, equipping your build with fast RAM is essential when trying to achieve maximum performance out of your APU.

How We Choose

Our team has years of experience behind them building PCs for a range of needs and budgetary requirements. All this knowledge combined with hours of research, user feedback, and onsite benchmarking is what goes into choosing the best components for our builds.

We look for value for money, how the components perform together, and focus on gamer’s needs to make sure our builds are the best for your buck.

We build all these PCs ourselves, in-house, so trust us when we say we want to make them as good as possible. We actually use all these builds ourselves day-to-day in the WePC offices.

How We Test

We build each of our selected PC’s from scratch to make sure all the parts we recommend work well together, fit into the selected case, and provide the best performance possible for the price range.

Once built, the PCs are used in the office for everyday work as well as a range of games from light to heavy-duty. While we test, we also run benchmarking tests to see how well our builds perform, all while keeping an eye on the temperature of the components themselves.

We tested our AMD builds against their Intel counterparts and found that these CPUs performed better across the board, and for a lower price. This is why we only recommend an AMD version.

NOTE: Due to the ongoing effects of the global coronavirus pandemic, some retailers are experiencing stock issues. WePC constantly updates our pages to reflect current availability, so if the PC or part you want shows as out of stock, check back later or check out these alternatives.