We built a Black Friday gaming PC for less than $950, complete with 16GB of VRAM and 32GB of memory

If you want to build a budget-friendly PC on Black Friday, spiraling RAM prices and GPU shortages might make you think twice about trying to put together a cash-conscious gaming rig. Fear not. Tom's Hardware is back with its iconic budget build, as made famous by Amazon Prime Day.

Pleasing everyone is impossible when it comes to building a PC, so consider this a helpful guide as you get started. It includes an 8-core processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM (DDR5 is simply not an option at this price), a 1TB M.2 SSD, and the potent RX 9060 XT with 16GB of VRAM.

We've previously done builds of this caliber for $800 to $850, but crippling price increases on RAM and SSDs mean that $950 is the best you'll get, even with Black Friday discounts. We've optimized this build to the bone, but price increases have been unavoidable. For example, our RAM was $69 the last time we put together this parts list; it's now $140. Likewise, the SSD is $20 more.

At worst, let this serve as a guide as to what you can expect to pay for a budget-friendly enthusiast PC, or the individual parts contained therein, as we close out the year.

$950 Prime Day gaming PC: Quick list

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor: $183 at Amazon
• Gigabyte B550 Eagle Wi-Fi 6 motherboard: was $119 now $89 at Amazon
• PowerColor Reaper AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT: was $369 now $349 at Amazon
• PNY 32GB (2 x 16GB) XLR8 3200 MHz DDR4: $139.99 at Newegg
• Crucial 1TB P310: was $95.99 now $79.99 at Amazon
• Phanteks XT Pro: was $59 now $49.99 at Newegg
• Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 80+ Gold 600W: was $69.99 now $49.99 at Amazon

$950 Prime Day gaming PC

And there you have it, a capable and affordable gaming PC that can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming, no corners cut. Pick up this parts list now before the AI gold rush makes budget-friendly PC building a thing of the past.

We are working hard to find the best computer hardware deals for you this Amazon Prime Day. We cover the hottest deals in real-time at our Best Amazon Prime Day Deals Live page. If you're looking for more savings, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.