Wondering which affordable gaming PC is right for you? In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the Spark, Aurora and Legacy and give you a better idea of their individual strengths, how they perform best, and who they’re suited for. First, we’ll break down the parts in these affordable gaming PC’s, then we’ll compare them to help you figure out which is right for you.
Spark
When it comes to cheap gaming PC’s in 2022, you won’t find a better deal than a VRLA Tech Spark. You don’t need to break the bank to get into PC gaming. Featuring a Ryzen 5 5600G, a CPU with Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics, 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, a 600W power supply and 3 RGB fans installed by default, this PC gives you everything you need to get gaming right away. The Spark is a great gaming PC on it’s own, but we’ve also built this PC to have an easy upgrade path so it can grow with your needs.
The heart of the Spark is the Ryzen 5 5600G, a 6 core 12 thread CPU with 7 dedicated graphics compute units. This CPU makes it perfect for all kinds of PC tasks, including gaming, web browsing, and online school or work. AMD created this CPU with the current graphics card market in mind, it gives you the power to game in 1080p without a GPU, and remains an excellent CPU if you decide to add a discrete GPU to your system.
The Spark has 16GB of DDR4 RAM. On this PC, our techs enable XMP in the bios. XMP gives you access to the full 3200MHz RAM speed. We found that through this process, we could provide even better gaming performance when paired with the 5600G. We also thoroughly stress test these computers for stability and consistency before shipping, to ensure that our customers receive the highest quality gaming PC prebuilt.
All of this is powered by a 600w PSU, which is more than enough power for the base components in this system. The 600W PSU also leaves plenty of headroom for you to add almost any GPU into. Without upgrading the PSU, it would be enough to support up to a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. If you wanted an even higher end GPU down the line, we’d recommend a PSU upgrade.
The Spark is the perfect entry level system for a few reasons. First, it’s built without a GPU, both to lower costs and significantly decrease shipping time. This means, we’re lowered the barrier for entry as much as possible while still delivering an amazing affordable gaming PC. Plus, the M-ATX form factor makes finding room for this PC incredibly easy. With the standard Spark configuration, you get three RGB fans by default. There’s no extra spending needed to get those rgb lighting effects. You can learn more about our Spark gaming PC on our YouTube channel by following this link: Spark on YouTube
Aurora
Currently, the Aurora features an Intel Core i3-10100 and a GTX 1650. This gaming computer provides smooth FPS in 1080p, and is especially good at delivering high FPS in esports titles. This PC is a step up from our Spark in performance, owing to the addition of a dedicated graphics card.
The Intel Core i3-10100F is a 4 core 8 thread CPU, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a max turbo of 4.30 GHz. This CPU is perfect for gaming and productivity applications. The strong single core performance really shines while gaming. Four cores and eight threads are plenty for most basic PC tasks, including gaming, web browsing, and online school or work.
The Aurora features an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. The 1650 is a great option for gaming on any graphics settings at 1080p. If you’re coming from console, is probably what you’re used to. This CPU and GPU combo provides the best of both worlds, you can max settings and get a solid 60 FPS or more in most triple A titles, or you can optimize your graphics settings and watch those frames shoot up, which is perfect for e-sports titles and competitive games. Of course, if you’re looking for a little bit more power the GPU on this build is upgradable on our website.
The Aurora has 16 Gigs of DDR4 RAM. For storage, we have a 120 GB SSD, and 1 TB HDD. This storage combination provides you with the super fast loading speeds from SSDs, and the large capacity of the HDD. We also offer upgrade options including a 256GB SSD, up to a 1TB SSD. Keep in mind, we don’t currently offer an nvme SSD for this build. We offer SSD capacity as an upgrade option to keep costs down, otherwise 120GB will be enough space for your operating system and a few frequently used apps.
We’ve powered this system with a 500W PSU. Even if you decided to overclock this gaming pc, you shouldn’t run into any issues with power draw. Overclock at your own risk. We don’t cover any damage to your PC from overclocking in our warranty policy.
The Aurora is perfect for those getting started in PC gaming, and slightly advanced users. In modern games, the Aurora’s gaming performance can’t be beat. This affordable gaming PC provides the flexibility to adjust settings to optimize either graphics or frame rate, giving you much more control over your gaming experience than a console could provide. You can learn more about our Aurora gaming PC on our YouTube channel by following this link: Aurora on YouTube
Legacy
The Legacy is the top of our entry level PC bracket for a reason, it’s perfect for people starting out in PC gaming, coming from console, or those who are a bit more experienced looking for a great budget option. This gaming desktop is a great value.
Currently, the Legacy features an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, a 6 core 12 thread CPU. It has a base clock of 3.6GHz and a boost clock of 4.2GHz. AMD Ryzen CPUs are famous for their multitasking performance. This means you can confidently take on more CPU heavy tasks like streaming, editing or rendering. Of course, multithreaded performance isn’t all it can do. This CPU also offers great gaming performance.
We’ve recently upgraded the Legacy GPU from the GTX 1660 Super to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050. The 1660 Super was an excellent GPU, however, we wanted to make NVIDIA’s 2nd generation ray tracing as widely available as possible. The RTX 3050 takes everything that makes the GTX 1660 Super great, and improves upon it by adding Ray Tracing, DLSS 2.0, and NVIDIA’s incredibly successful Ampere architecture.
The Legacy has 16 Gigs of DDR4 RAM. For storage, we have a 120 GB SSD, and 1 TB HDD. This combination provides ultra fast speeds from the SSD with the larger storage capacity of the HDD. Depending on your use case, this storage configuration should be enough for most users. We would recommend upgrading your SSD capacity if you have a lot of large files and use them often.
We’ve selected a 500W PSU to power these parts. The components even on a fully upgraded build would only draw around half of that. There’s plenty of headroom to overclock once your warranty expires.
This affordable gaming PC is a perfect option for gamers who want more out of their PC, without breaking the bank. You can learn more about our Legacy gaming PC on our YouTube channel by following this link: Legacy on YouTube
Have a higher budget? Check out our mid and high end gaming PCs!
Do your PCs come with a keyboard and mouse?
No, but we have keyboards and mice available for purchase on our website! https://vrlatech.com/gaming-accessories/