High-End Gaming PCs Are More Expensive Than Ever, But You Don’t Actually Need One

It’s no secret that PC components are quite expensive right now. Even though I’ve seen RAM prices starting to inch (and I mean inch) down, building a new PC is way more expensive than it should be. And while that sucks for anyone wanting to build a rig for a game like Crimson Desert, or another AAA game with pretty lighting effects, PC gaming is more accessible than it’s ever been.

There tends to be this misconception that PC gaming is exclusively these big towers on our desks or dense laptops that need a 5-pound power brick, but thanks to how good APUs have become lately – looking at you Panther Lake – there is much more to it than that.

Handheld gaming PCs and more powerful laptop APUs mean that you don’t need to invest in a high-end machine to play the best PC games. And, in fact, many of the best games you can play on PC can run on a veritable potato.

Hardware Is More Expensive Than Ever, And That Sucks

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that things don’t suck for anyone that doesn’t already have some kind of PC that can play games. Right now, getting into PC gaming is more expensive than ever, with even entry-level graphics cards like the RTX 5060 costing around $360, rather than their $299 starting price.

Things are even more dire with more mid-ranged hardware, with the RTX 5070 starting around $650, which is $100 more than its intended starting price. And don’t even get me started on RAM and SSDs, which are still way too expensive, even if there are signs that prices will start lowering soon.

I don’t envy anyone that needs to start their PC gaming journey from zero right now, but if you have even a mediocre PC or laptop right now, you might not actually have to, as long as you temper your expectations a bit.

This year, we’ve already seen how well games have been scaling. Both Resident Evil Requiem and Crimson Desert run pretty well across a wide range of PC hardware, as long as you’re willing to turn down some of the settings. But even beyond the AAA world, the true magic of PC gaming lies in games that can run on extremely low-end hardware.

PC Gaming Is More Than Just Ray Tracing

A lot of people have this image of PC gaming in their head that it’s nothing but super-expensive hardware, rainbow lights and ray tracing. And, at the high-end, that’s not even inaccurate. But most of the games that push graphics technology forward – your Cyberpunks, your Alan Wake 2s – they’re playable on game consoles as well.

Instead, I’d argue that PC gaming’s true identity lies in the games that you can’t really find on consoles. Whether that means something like World of Warcraft or something like Lethal Company, PC is full of games that just don’t exist anywhere else, and usually these games aren’t packed with all the eye candy that makes high-end hardware sweat.

In fact, a lot of these games are straight-up ugly, with blocky character models and low-resolution textures. Instead, more emphasis is put on making the game fun rather than serving double-duty as a tech demo. No matter how much I enjoy exploring a huge open world like Crimson Desert, nothing quite beats the fun I have logging onto Discord with friends and playing R.E.P.O., and I’m pretty sure my GPU fans don’t even spin up when that game is running.

So, yeah, maybe you do need a high-end gaming PC to play the latest AAA games with all the settings cranked, but that’s honestly just the surface level of PC gaming. Even if you can’t upgrade your PC, or if you’re just playing games on the same laptop you use for work, there are a ton of amazing games that will run just fine. They won’t have ray tracing or DLSS 5 running on top, but does that even matter?

There’s a Reason Linux Gaming Is Growing

The latest Steam Hardware Survey came out last week, and while a lot of the data falls in line with stuff I’ve seen in the past, the Linux install base has been growing incredibly quickly. In March 2026, Linux users made up for 5.33% of Steam users, which is up 3% over last month. In the same time frame, Windows users dropped by 4.28% and MacOS users went up by 1.19%.

If you break down the versions of Linux that are growing, it’s not surprising that the Arch Linux, the distro behind SteamOS (and the Steam Deck) is driving a lot of this growth.

Both the Steam Deck and the Lenovo Legion Go S are way more affordable than a fully-fledged gaming PC, and they’re just powerful enough that they can run most games at low-medium settings. And that’s just AAA games. For the indies and RPGs that really make PC gaming special, handheld gaming PCs are arguably the ideal way to play right now.

Handhelds are portable, which makes it easier to take your games on the go, and even when you do need to plug in a keyboard and mouse to play a strategy game, you can just, like, do that. In fact, the whole reason Valve decided to make the Steam Machine in the first place was because it got data that a ton of people were doing exactly that.

And as gaming hardware continues to get more expensive, using a somewhat low-powered Linux device – be it a handheld or Valve’s gaming cube – is only going to become more common.

Friendslop Is The Future

While rising prices does mean that gaming is in a, well, a weird place right now, I doubt the medium is going to go away. Instead, a lot of the big-budget blockbuster slop that we’re used to seeing during the summer showcases is going to get a bit less popular. In their place, lower-budget games that are just fun to play are going to rise, and it’s already started.

Maybe it’s just the people that I hang out with, but usually when I hear my friends talking about some new game they’re playing, big AAA games are becoming more rare by the day. Instead, I hear a lot about some weird new roguelike, or another new cozy game with some silly twist. I mean, just take a quick look at the top-selling games on Steam right now, and Raccoin, a raccoon-themed coin-pusher roguelike, is sitting at number 4, outselling Resident Evil Requiem. And that’s one of the ‘biggest’ games of the year so far.

Sure, a lot of this probably comes down to the price of the games. After all, just looking at Raccoin versus the game that features Raccoon City, and the former costs $10 right now, compared to $70. But, if anything, that only proves that meeting people at a price tag that makes sense for the moment is a recipe for success, even if you have a very silly and fun game. And I don’t see that happening anywhere but PC right now.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra