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The Top 5 Gaming PCs Under $1,500 in 2022 provides a list of five computers that meet Recommended Hardware Requirements for the latest games in the industry, like Call of Duty Vanguard and Battlefield 2042. There are some games that have not been released yet, but if you are planning to buy a new computer in 2022, then you should be thinking about games that will be released in 2023 and 2024, like Diablo 4. Although the system requirements have not been officially announced, there is some speculation as to what hardware requirements will look like. Therefore, the selected gaming PCs in this article may potentially work for those games as well. If not, upgrading can be a straightforward and inexpensive option to get up to the needed hardware requirements for future games.
Recommended PC Requirements for Call of Duty: Vanguard and Battlefield 2042
| Hardware | Call of Duty: Vanguard | Battlefield 2042 |
| Operating System | Windows 10/11 – Latest Update | Windows 10/11 – Latest Update |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K or AMD Ryzen 5 1600X | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X or Intel Core i7 4790 |
| RAM (Memory) | 12 GB | 16 GB |
| Hard Drive Space | 61 GB | 100 GB |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 580 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT |
For Diablo 4 predicted specs, visit Diablo 4 System Requirements 2021 | WePC. The minimum specifications listed on that blog for Diablo 4 are much less than the recommended system requirements for Call of Duty: Vanguard, and Battlefield 2042. Therefore, you can rest easy knowing that these recommended hardware requirements will at least most likely run future games that are resource intensive like Diablo 4.
Top 5 Gaming PC #1: The Mantis Gamer PC
Price on Amazon: $1,449.99 (subject to change)
This gaming PC is number one of the top gaming PCs for under $1,500. You should have no problems playing the latest games on recommended settings for the next three to five years. This PC may not quite qualify for competitive or ultra-level settings of the most graphic intensive games out there, but it will do its job superbly on recommended settings.
The main thing to note with this PC is the GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. This graphics card comes with 4GB of GDDR6 memory and plenty of the latest NVIDIA features, like Ansel. For more details on this graphics card, visit GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER Graphics Card | NVIDIA. The other nice features about this gaming rig is that it has NVMe SSD storage. For those that don’t know about NVME, it basically removes the SATA cable from the equation and plugs the SSD right into the motherboard. This boosts speed by a multiple of six to the hard drive.
| Processor | 2.9 GHz core_i7 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3000 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 512GB NVMe Solid State Drive |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 4.00 |
Top 5 Gaming PC #2:
iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Computer Desktop Element
Price on Amazon: $1,298.00 (subject to change)
The iBUYPOWER Element MR 9320 gaming computer may actually deserve the number one spot for its specs, number of positive reviews on Amazon, and the support from the manufacturer. The only reason it sits at number 2 on our top 5 gaming PCs list is due to the fact you are not getting NVMe storage with this computer. However, the other hardware components are top notch and it all comes pre-assembled and ready to go. The other thing to consider with this graphics card is that it only comes with 1 HDMI, 1 DVI, and one Display Port. If you have multiple monitors, make sure you get adapters or already have the right connectivity. This computer will last you three to five years of newly released video games, while playing on recommended settings for the most part.
iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Computer Desktop Element
| Processor | 2.9 GHz core_i7 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB Mechanical Hard Drive |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Geforce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
#3: SkyTech Shadow Gaming Computer PC
Price on Amazon: $1,249.99 (subject to change)
The SkyTech Shadow comes in at number 3 on our top gaming PCs list. It has a great middle-of-the-road processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB Video Card (similar to the one above), 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD hard drive. The hard drive on this computer is not the NVMe technology, but it is SSD nonetheless and it will play the latest and greatest games very well. Again, with this PC you won’t need to worry about making any upgrades for the next three years to play any future games that are released down the road. The one thing to watch out for on this machine is to make sure that your monitors use DisplayPort as this graphics card has three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port. If you like this build, check out my review of the Skytech Chronos.
| Processor | 3.6 GHz ryzen_5_3600 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3000 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6G |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
#4: Skytech Legacy Mini Gaming PC Desktop
Price on Amazon: $1,249.99 (subject to change)
The Skytech Legacy Mini Gaming PC Desktop is number four on our list of top 5 gaming PCs. It is a great choice for a middle-of-the-road gaming computer. It has a good processor and similar video cards to the previous builds (NVIDIA 1660 Super 6G). It only has a 500 GB SSD drive though, so again no NVME. This computer, like the others, should keep up with most games that get released within the next couple of years. Be prepared in year 4 or 5 that you may not be able to play newly released games then on recommended settings. But hey, by that time you should be looking at replacing your computer again anyway. The other challenge to keep in mind is that this computer has a smaller form factor (case). So you may not be able to expand and have things like multiple hard drives.
| Processor | 3.2 GHz amd_ryzen_7 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3000 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 500 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB GDDR6 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
Top 5 Gaming PC #5:
SkyTech Chronos Mini Gaming Computer PC
Price on Amazon: $1,149.99 (subject to change)
The SkyTech Chronos Mini Gaming Computer PC is a great compact computer with a lot of performance and hard drive capacity. The best two things about this computer is its price and that it competes performance-wise with many of the higher priced gaming PCs. It has a 1TB NVMe SSD drive, GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB GDDR graphics card, an Intel i5 processor and 16GB of memory. The downside to this computer is its small form factor and lack of ability to add multiple hard drives. That being said, you may not need that with the amount of storage space you get with this computer. It should keep up with new games three to five years from now, allowing you to keep playing recommended settings on new releases.
SkyTech Chronos Mini Gaming Computer PC
| Processor | 2.9 GHz core_i5 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | GeForce GTX 1660 6GB |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
Are you looking for more horsepower than these PCs and have a bigger budget? Check out these top 5 gaming PCs under $2,000 in 2022.