We’ve all seen the PC builds that go all out, relying on the most expensive components to guarantee the best performance possible. But it doesn't require best-in-slot PC parts to have a little fun with most games, and usually there’s a point of diminishing returns as you invest in ever more powerful and expensive hardware. If you’re trying to build or upgrade a rig within a moderate budget, there's plenty of hardware that strikes a great balance between performance and value in the Intel Core CPU and Intel Arc GPU lines.
Intel has been known for strong gaming CPUs for years. From the 12th Gen onward, many of the Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs are more than up to the task. 12th, 13th, and 14th Gen Intel Core CPUs have some big perks for gamers, with potent Performance Cores that can wrangle most games you throw at them. And they back those up with Efficient Cores that help handle your system’s background tasks, thereby freeing up the P-Cores to focus on ensuring consistent gaming performance. With older games, a single fast core can be all it takes to get good performance, and most of Intel’s recent Core processors will give you a handful, so even newer games that leverage more cores have plenty of system resources.
Even going back to the Intel Core i5-12600K, you’d be looking at a 10-core CPU with ample speed to handle most games, and recent pricing makes it easy to pick up for well below $200. This chip would give you six of those Performance cores and four Efficient Cores.
This is a consistent story for Intel CPUs, which can often be found with compelling deals. There are plenty that even help you kickstart your build or upgrade by combining a CPU and motherboard into a bundle that helps you get both at a discount.
It’s not just Intel CPUs delivering value for budget-minded PC upgrades and builds. The Intel Arc A-series and newly launched B-series GPUs can also give you a chunk of performance for a fraction of the price of the competition. Intel’s recent integrated graphics have proven quite impressive and can often handle lighter games and lower resolutions, but if you need some extra graphical muscle to render more complex 3D games or push to higher resolutions like 1440p, Intel Arc graphics cards can support you while playing into your budget.
Acer, ASRock, and Sparkle all make some good-looking and capable graphics cards built around the Intel Arc A770, A750 and the new B580 GPUs. These are almost all available for under $300, sitting them solidly in the budget price range for new graphics cards. Impressively, they come with a decent chunk of VRAM, which helps with running games at higher resolution and with higher quality settings. Even for demanding titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at 1440p Ultra, the A770 can offer smooth gameplay. It even supports low level ray tracing for more realistic lighting and reflections.
And now, Intel has a new generation of GPU available with the first Intel Arc B-series graphics cards. These continue to provide value for gamers who want more performance, with improved ray tracing and features such as XeSS 2 upscaling, frame generation and latency reduction.
If you want to see what kind of system you can build out with Intel Arc and Intel Core components, you can find all sorts of deals, bundles, and complete builds available at Newegg here.
