Best gaming PC under £1,500 (2026)
£1,300 is the sweet spot of the 2026 gaming PC market. A Ryzen 7 7700 with an RTX 4070 Super and 32GB of RAM gives you proper 1440p gaming with ray tracing in most modern AAA games. This is the build we'd recommend to most buyers.
The build we'd recommend
Mid-tier
£1,2991440p · 60fps
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700
- GPU
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Super 12GB
- RAM
- 32 GB
- Storage
- 2TB NVMe SSD
The most-recommended tier across our buyer guides — and for good reason. The 4070 Super at 1440p with DLSS 3 handles every major modern release, including Cyberpunk with ray tracing on Medium. 32GB RAM is the right amount for 2026.
Build this at Create PCs →What you can expect at this budget
- 1440p high to ultra settings in all 2026 AAA titles
- Ray tracing enabled at 1440p with DLSS Quality
- 4K achievable in older or well-optimised titles
- 4–5 years of comfortable gaming at high settings
- VR-ready with current-gen headsets
Games this PC handles well
When to spend more
The next step up is around £1,800. That gets you a 9800X3D with a 5070 Ti and unlocks 1440p/144 or 4K/60 in modern titles. If you have a high-refresh OLED or a 4K monitor, it's worth the jump.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the RTX 4070 Super worth the extra money?
- Yes — the jump from the 4060 (£799 tier) to the 4070 Super doubles VRAM (8GB → 12GB) and increases raster performance by ~40%. That extra VRAM is what unlocks ray tracing in modern titles without texture compromises.
- Why 32GB of RAM?
- A few specific games in 2026 (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Star Citizen, modded Starfield/Skyrim) genuinely use 24GB+. For most games 16GB is still enough, but at the £1,500 tier 32GB removes that as a future bottleneck.
- Can it do 4K gaming?
- In older or well-optimised titles (Forza Horizon 5, Witcher 3), yes — 4K/60 is achievable with DLSS. In demanding 2025-2026 releases, you'll be playing at 1440p upscaled to 4K. That looks excellent on a modern monitor.
- Should I get a 1440p or 4K monitor with this PC?
- 1440p OLED at 144Hz+ is the right pairing. The 4070 Super drives that comfortably across most games. A 4K monitor will leave you running everything at 1440p anyway via DLSS, so just go 1440p natively.