I’m looking at this deal for a prebuilt:
Lenovo LOQ 17IRR9 Tower PC — $749.99
- Intel Core i5-14400F (10 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.7GHz)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 (8GB GDDR6)
- RAM 16GB DDR5
- 512GB SSD
- PSU 500W
For some context, my PC has a 1070 in it. I’m a budget conscious gamer, usually playing at 1080p. With ram prices skyrocketing and steam betting on steam machines with low vram going forwards, I feel like it’s an okay deal for a guy who upgrades basically never.
It seems like a nice deal to me. Anyone want to talk me out of it?
Can you build it yourself for cheaper?
Also, IMO 16GB is bare minimum in 2026 if you are using Windows. I’d really go to 32GB.
who has $1000 extra to spend on 32gb of RAM… (joke, but not really…)
DDR4 is still somewhat affordable (I stress “somewhat”), and it should still be plenty fast enough for gaming. You can get a 32GB kit for ≈$200, which is only double (lol) what it was a few years ago.
It’s a bit of a toss up. If I go with ddr4, I can probably build something with a similar cost, maybe just a tiny bit more. I guess it might be silly to buy now. I’m kind of anxious about the price of PC parts.
I’m on DDR4 and have no problems running the games I want, although I’m on Linux.
It’s 2026. If you are on windows you should be planning your switch to Linux.
Microsoft has no interest in you owning a computer. You can buy access to stream game rentals from their data centers while AI inserts ads and micro transactions into all the games.
Depending on how quickly you need a PC it might be worth waiting for the Steam PC that’s not out yet and we have no idea on price or availability.
From that I can find online the steam PC will be less powerful than the desktop 4060 and probably be comparable in price to this PC. I do intend on installing Linux on this computer.
I do intend on installing Linux on this computer.
In that case I strongly suggest you look at an AMD GPU. Nvidia is usable on Linux, but not pleasant.
I haven’t had trouble with Debian
I’ve also used Nvidia for years without issues, that doesn’t mean there aren’t pain points. For example the open source driver is severely worse in performance than the proprietary one, but the proprietary one lacks some features used by some Wayland compositors, which is why for example sway requires a special flag to be passed if you’re using Nvidia proprietary drivers.
Go with AMD for the GPU, life will be easier. I regret not doing this.
Also, go with AMD for the processor. The 7800X3D is stupidly good for gaming and not THAT much more than the i5-14400F (well, okay, it’s like $150ish more, but so much better). You can also find other AMD CPUs closer in price to that one which will outperform it. Intel’s kinda gone to shit.
Can you wait until the current bubble crashes and prices come back down?
Regardless of how the AI bubble will behave, corporations are pushing hard to discourage private hardware ownership in favour of rented cloud-based services. It is very unlikely that availability will ever return to the situation it was prior to the current situation, they will attempt to force cloud services through artificial scarcity and high prices on hardware.
Yes; however, I’m getting the personal vibe that gaming hardware progress is massively plateauing. Still, I may hold off. Tbh, I’ve kind of been waffling on buying a new PC since 2017. My 1070 is juuuust old enough now that I’m starting to see some games I straight up can’t run at 30 fps.
This whole manufacturing crisis in the USA (that’s where I live) coupled with depressed wages and aaa games not interesting me… It’s all kind of discouraging. I’m tempted to just buy something good enough and sit for another 10 years. Perhaps I’m just being reactionary to the increasing prices and looking for a ‘deal.’
That’s my problem with the 1070 as well. It’s not bad enough. I’m also getting the upgrade itch, but then I can still play all the games I’ve wanted to at good enough settings.
If you want to build a “New” system you might be better served picking up an intel arc discrete GPU and seeing how that does in your current system. Also if you have older RAM, you might be best served upgrading that before buying into a whole new ecosystem.
That’s a pretty good price for components from the future, if that includes shipping. You have to keep in mind Wormhole Post has really high fees.
You could try Blackhole Express, but they tend to always stretch things.Lol 🤣 I see the typo now. I’m ancient and old, you see!
I’m really curious about what that typo was now :D
I said 2016 instead of 2026 😬😬😬😬😬
Looks like a good deal. The RAM alone is worth more than the whole PC.
10 cores, 16 threads. How does that work out, is it some bigLittle system?
Just curious, last intel I used was like gen 8.
Yes. Intel now splits their CPU’s with “P” cores (performance) that function like normal x86 processors with hyperthreading, and “E” cores (efficiency) that are lower clocked, less feature rich cores without HT.
Most OS and background tasks can be loaded on E cores while P cores work strictly on high performance programs. Its not bad, except for the fact that its Intel building them.
Thanks!
I feel like this is not a great deal. Keep in mind that pre-builts are in general, a gamble. They often advertise the parts that people might know (CPU/GPU) but fill the other parts (PSU, MoBo, RAM, computer case, fans, CPU cooler) with cheap garbage.
Now this PC is $250 short of $1000 (before tax and shipping) and you are getting a low end CPU from an old Intel generation, a mid/low end GPU from a prior generation (only +50% performance compared to the 1070), half the ram capacity you’d want, and absolutely terrible hard drive space at only 512 gb.
half the ram capacity you’d want
You don’t need more than 16GB of RAM.
The only games that list that much in their requirements 1: don’t actually need it and 2: are unoptimized slop you shouldn’t be buying anyways
Saying you get “only +50% performance” from a 4060 over a 1070 is disingenuous at best, a complete lie at worst.
You seem to have just done a quick google and taken the first number that came up in the summary while neglecting to read the rest. Many games will give you well over 100% performance increase, as well as having access to raytracing and other new features, including DLSS.
I don’t understand how providing the average performance gain over the 1070 is disingenuous/lying. In fact it would be more disingenuous to cherry pick certain games where the performance gains are highest.
The 4060 is not a ray tracing card. Don’t sip the Nvidia koolaid, you gonna need a vram buffer greater than 8 gb to run ray tracing at a frame rate that doesn’t feel bad. Also ray tracing is a gimmick imo. I don’t really think the visual enhancement is worth the performance hit in almost all games I’ve tried ray tracing. I’d rather play a game at 144 fps at native resolution than at 60 fps with ray tracing on and DLSS on.
DLSS is a fair point imo, but personally, it would feel bad upgrading a decade old card with a 3 year old card; while getting the same vram capacity, an average +50% raster performance, and DLSS.
Either way, this person’s needs are different from mine, so may be that feels okay for them.
Why don’t you get some Intel Arc GPU, I think at the moment they are the best bang for your buck.
I would say this PC isn’t great on paper. The PSU is too weak and if you decide to upgrade in the future you would most likely need to change it. The 8Gb VRAM is also suboptimal, as well as the SSD size.
Not to mention that most of the pre-built PCs are cutting corners and probably this PSU would be no-name and I wouldn’t trust it.
You should target a 750W PSU from a respectable brand, with a bronze or silver rating (gold or platinum is even better, but it depends on the price). A GPU with at least 12Gb VRAM and at least 1Tb SSD. Optionally, I would even advise you to get 32Gb RAM if you can find at an OK price, because next year or so this is supposed to be extremely expensive and it will make your PC more future proof.
