How to Split a PC Build Budget: Percentages by Use

Give the biggest share to the part that does your main job, protect the parts that keep everything else safe, and do not let memory eat the whole budget by default. The old rules of thumb came from a time when DDR5 was one of the cheapest lines on the list. It is not anymore: on the day this was written, a 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 kit cost more than a Ryzen 7 9800X3D. These splits are based on real street prices in our catalog on November 9, 2026.

Start with these percentages

Set aside anything that is not inside the tower, such as a monitor, peripherals and a Windows license, then split what is left.

Treat these as a first pass. Multiply each percentage by your total, look up those amounts on the category pages, and enter the result in the PC builder to check compatibility and see the real total. If you are starting from nothing, run the same list against complete systems, because some prebuilts now cost less than their parts.

Parts have floors, so the table bends at the extremes. On a small budget, a motherboard, power supply and case cannot shrink below a certain point, so the graphics card's share falls. At the top end, the graphics card takes over: at RTX 5080 pricing, it was already about half of a matching parts list.

Gaming

The graphics card does nearly all the work, so it gets close to half the money. Our graphics card guide shows which tier fits your monitor. Pair it with a CPU that does not bottleneck it. A Ryzen 5 9600X or Ryzen 5 7600X3D is plenty for mid-range cards at 1440p, while a Ryzen 7 9800X3D makes sense for high refresh rates. Tom's Hardware's 1080p testing shows X3D chips well ahead of everything else, but that gap narrows as resolution rises.

The exception is high-refresh competitive play and simulation games, where more should go to the CPU.

Streaming

If you stream, shift a little from the graphics card to the CPU and memory. Use the GPU's hardware encoder, which handles most of the extra work. RTX 50 cards use NVIDIA's ninth-generation encoder, with two encoders on the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 and three on the RTX 5090, and Radeon RX 9000 cards can encode AV1. Budget the microphone, camera and lighting from the peripheral pot, using our desk setup guide.

Editing

Memory and storage matter more here. Adobe recommends 32 GB or more of system memory for 4K footage and 8 GB of GPU memory, so plan on 32 GB as a start and 64 GB in two sticks for heavier projects. That is why memory gets more than a quarter of this budget. Our RAM guide covers why two sticks beat four.

A 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X or a 24-core Core Ultra 7 270K Plus handles rendering and export well in Tom's Hardware's multithreaded tests. Give the projects their own SSD, separate from the boot drive. Cut the graphics card before you cut memory, unless your software leans heavily on GPU acceleration, in which case check its requirements first.

General use

An everyday PC needs no graphics card if you pick a CPU with usable integrated graphics, such as a Ryzen 5 8600G or Core Ultra 5 225. Memory, storage and the platform then take most of the budget.

Before you build one, compare it with a mini PC or an office prebuilt. A self-built general-use PC with 16 GB and a 1 TB SSD came to more than Beelink's complete SER9 Pro in our catalog on November 9, and a mini PC takes up almost no desk space. Building still makes sense if you want a standard ATX platform that can take a graphics card later.

What to cut first

Work down this list until the total fits.

1. Looks. RGB, glass panels, LCD pump heads and matching fans do nothing for performance.
2. Motherboard tier. A B850 or B860 board does the job for most builds. On November 9 the ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero cost more than three times as much as the Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite WiFi7. Our opinion piece on overspending on motherboards makes the case.
3. PCIe 5.0 storage, if the premium is large. A good PCIe 4.0 TLC drive is fine for nearly everyone.
4. SSD capacity. Start at 1 TB and add a second M.2 drive later, since storage is the easiest upgrade to make.
5. Liquid cooling. A dual-tower air cooler costs much less and is plenty for most CPUs up to about 170 W. See the case and cooling guide.
6. Memory speed and timings. DDR5-6000 CL36 can cost noticeably less than CL30 and gives up little, especially on X3D chips.
7. CPU tier. At 1440p and 4K with a mid-range graphics card, a cheaper CPU often costs you very little.

What not to cut

Some savings cost more than they save.

• Power supply quality. It is only about 4 percent of a gaming budget, and a poor one can damage other parts. Buy a reputable ATX 3.1 unit with a long warranty.
• Dual-channel memory. Use two sticks, always. One stick halves memory bandwidth.
• The 16 GB floor. Below that, Windows and a game will fight for space.
• VRAM at 1440p and above. An 8 GB card saves money now and limits you in new games quickly.
• Airflow. A mesh-front case costs no more than a sealed one and keeps everything cooler and quieter.
• Socket choice. If you may upgrade the CPU later, AM5 has a stated support commitment through 2029.

If the budget still will not stretch, buy in stages. A CPU, board and memory on a current platform can wait for the graphics card, or the other way around if you already have a usable CPU. For the bigger question of whether to buy now at all, our market piece looks at where prices are heading. To sanity-check a final list, ask Socket, our build assistant.