Prebuilt gaming PC or build your own? Australian prices compared

Building your own gaming PC used to be the obvious money-saver. With memory and graphics card prices up since late 2025, the gap has narrowed: Australian stores that build PCs buy parts in bulk, and their prebuilt systems come assembled, tested and with one warranty. Here is how the two compare at today's prices.

The short answer

• Buy prebuilt if you want one warranty for the whole PC, don't want to assemble it, or a store's price is within about $150 of the parts.
• Build your own if you want to choose every part (especially the power supply and case), reuse parts you already have, or upgrade later without a store's custom parts.

Today's cheapest prebuilt gaming PCs

Gaming PCs with a GeForce RTX card, sold by at least two Australian stores today, cheapest first:

The cheapest prebuilt for each graphics card

The graphics card decides most of a gaming PC's performance, so this is the fairest way to compare. Our graphics card buying guide explains which card suits 1080p, 1440p and 4K.

What to compare against

Our gaming PC build guide prices three builds part by part at the cheapest Australian store each morning. Compare a prebuilt with the build that has the same graphics card, then check what the prebuilt leaves out:

• The power supply. Store builds name the wattage but often not the model. A good power supply protects every other part.
• The RAM. 16GB is common in cheaper systems; 32GB is the comfortable amount for new games. See the best RAM for gaming.
• The SSD. A 500GB drive fills fast with modern games. See the best SSDs.
• Windows. A prebuilt includes a licence; a build needs one on top of the parts list.

Your rights either way

A prebuilt from an Australian store is covered by the Australian Consumer Law as one product, so a fault in any part goes back to that store. A self-build's parts are each covered separately by the store that sold them. Our warranty guide explains what you're entitled to.