The best £1,500 gaming PC build for 2026

The best £1,500 gaming PC is built around a Radeon RX 9070 with 16GB of video memory. Add a Ryzen 5 9600X, an ATX B650 motherboard, 16GB of DDR5-6000 and a 1TB NVMe SSD. A good 750W power supply, a twin-fan tower cooler and an airflow case finish it. It comes to about £1,500 to £1,550.

That is a 1440p machine. It plays the games below at high settings and well above 60 FPS. This guide shows the full parts list, what frame rate to expect, and which upgrade to make first when you have a little more to spend. The FPS figures are techfitsme estimates built from our performance table. They are for comparing cards, not a replacement for a press review.

What is the best £1,500 gaming PC build in 2026?

The build below uses eight parts, all compatible with each other: an AM5 processor, a B650 motherboard, DDR5 memory and an ATX case. Everything is on sale at Amazon.co.uk, and the price you see is read from retailers about once a day.

For comparison, UK retailer AWD-IT recommends a heavier build at this budget: a Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an RTX 5070 or RX 9070 XT, 32GB of DDR5-6000 and a 2TB SSD. That is a seller's view, but it shows where the market sits. In 2026 the memory shortage has pushed every parts list up, and one of our own sources reports a build that cost about £1,100 in mid-2025 now costing nearer £1,400.

A few notes on the choices. The MSI PRO B650-A WIFI is a full-size ATX board with Wi-Fi, so you do not need a separate adapter. The Corsair RM750e is a fully modular power supply with the 12V-2x6 cable that modern graphics cards use. The case comes with four fans, which saves buying extra ones. The ASUS Prime RX 9070 is a compact two-and-a-half-slot card, and it fits easily in a mid tower like this one.

Windows is not included in this price. Add a licence if you need one.

Prices here come from our check of Amazon.co.uk on 14 October 2026. Stock and prices move week to week, so treat the total in the card as the figure to trust. If one part has jumped, swap it for a similar model rather than waiting.

What FPS will this PC get at 1440p?

Here is the Radeon RX 9070 against the cards you will see around it, in two very different games. Cyberpunk 2077 is among the most demanding games around. Counter-Strike 2 is the opposite: light, fast and made for high-refresh screens.

The RX 9070 stays above 60 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 and clears 300 in Counter-Strike 2. That is enough for a 144Hz or 165Hz 1440p monitor in most games. The smaller cards drop below that, which is why we would not go lower for this budget.

One more tip: if a game runs below your monitor's refresh rate, turn on upscaling before you lower the resolution. DLSS on Nvidia and FSR on AMD render the game at a lower resolution and rebuild it at 1440p. You gain frames with little loss in sharpness.

RX 9070 or RTX 5070: which graphics card for £1,500?

The Radeon RX 9070 is the better buy here. In our table it scores 110 against 100 for the GeForce RTX 5070, and it has 16GB of video memory against 12GB. It is also cheaper: roughly £650 to £700 for an RX 9070, against roughly £750 for the RTX 5070.

The RTX 5070 does have an edge. It supports DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, which AMD cards do not offer, and Nvidia cards are usually stronger in ray tracing. PCWorld also points to the 12GB limit of the RTX 5070 as its main weakness.

For a longer head-to-head, read RTX 5070 vs RX 9070. If your budget is closer to £1,000, see the best gaming PC under £1,000 and RTX 5060 vs RX 9060 XT.

Which CPU do you need for 1440p gaming?

A Ryzen 5 9600X is enough. At 1440p the graphics card is the limit in nearly every game, so a faster processor adds very little. The 9600X has six cores, sits on the AM5 socket, and costs roughly £140 to £190 depending on the week.

A Ryzen 7 7800X3D costs around £100 to £120 more. It only pays off in games that lean on the processor, such as esports titles at very high frame rates or simulation games. For most players that money is better kept for the graphics card or for memory.

AM5 also gives you an upgrade path. You can drop in a faster Ryzen later without changing the motherboard.

How much RAM and storage should a £1,500 PC have?

Start with 16GB of DDR5-6000, and treat 32GB as the main upgrade. Memory prices are still far above 2025. Club386 reported UK prices falling by about 25% from December 2025 to February 2026, but kits are still expensive. A 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit (32GB) costs roughly £280 to £450 in the UK right now.

That leaves two clear upgrades:

• 32GB of RAM. Roughly £50 to £200 on top of the build above. It gives you more room for background apps, and the 16GB card in this build will not be held back by it.
• A 2TB SSD. The 2TB Crucial P310 is around £230, against around £160 for the 1TB. It matters once you install several big games.

Our guide to how much RAM you need for gaming explains when 16GB is still fine.

Where can you save money, and where should you not?

Do not cut the power supply or the graphics card. A good 750W unit protects every other part, and the RX 9070 draws about 220 W in our data, so 750W leaves comfortable room. AWD-IT also quotes 750W for the RTX 5070 and 750W to 850W for the RX 9070 XT. If you are unsure what size you need, read what power supply do I need.

You can save in these places:

• Storage. Stay on 1TB for now. M.2 SSDs are easy to add later.
• Processor. A Ryzen 5 7500F is cheaper than the 9600X, and at 1440p you will rarely notice. We have not priced it at Amazon.co.uk today, so check the live price.
• Case. Any ATX case with a mesh front panel and good airflow works. You do not need a premium one.
• Cooler. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE costs under £40 and cools a 9600X easily.

Is a prebuilt PC worth it at £1,500?

Usually not at this price. Fierce PC sells a prebuilt at around £1,450 with a Core Ultra 5 225F, a Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB and 16GB of RAM. In our data that card is far below the RX 9070 (index 67 against 110).

A prebuilt does save you the assembly, and it comes with a warranty from one seller. If you would rather not build, use the assistant to compare. Otherwise, building gets you the stronger card.

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