As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
With the announcement of the highly anticipated Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, most players are leaving the PS5 and Xbox behind for PC gaming.
With Call of Duty being primarily a console shooter, players are starting to see Call of Duty on PC as the best choice. Especially since most PC games offer controller support, it’s like you never really left playing on console. Playing on PC offers better performance and higher resolutions, giving players a clear advantage over console players. Except the only downside to PC, being its high entry cost, you might be looking for the best gaming desktop for your budget.
Call of Duty: Warzone Minimum Requirements
We’re going to use the Call of Duty Warzone minimum requirements listed straight from Nvidia’s website. Prioritizing the “recommended” section, since we want our frames per second to be above 60. We’re going to mainly look at PC’s with a GTX 1660 or above. This will almost guarantee you are going to hit 60 FPS or higher, depending on which card you choose to go with.
Here is the info pulled we’ll be using to scale going forward:
Best Budget Prebuilt Gaming Computer for Call of Duty
Finding a sweet balance between price and performance, we put this list together with a budget range of $700 – 1500.
HP Pavilion Gaming Premium Desktop
List of specs:
- AMD Ryzen 3 5300G CPU 4 Core Processor (Up to 4.2GHz)
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 Super
- 8GB RAM – DDR4
- 256 GB SSD Hard Drive
- Built in Wifi & Bluetooth
- Mouse & Keyboard (Plus Mouse Pad!)
- HP 3-in-1 memory card reader
At this low price point the HP Pavilion gaming PC is a great option for an entry level computer, with everything you need to jump in Call of Duty. Rocking an AMD Ryzen 3 5300G 4 Core CPU and GTX 1660 Super, this PC will easily hit 60 FPS on low to medium settings.
Even though the CPU may be under the recommended specs, a quick google search will show that CPUs benchmarks are pulling speeds of similar Intel Core i5 processors or older i7 CPUs.
This PC comes with plenty of room for future upgrades as well. The stock 8 GB of ram is plenty for gaming alone, but you can easily upgrade to 16 GB if needed. Also with a smaller hard drive at 256GB of storage, you can easily pop in another 1 TB hard drive specifically for your other favorite games.
This is a best budget option if you are looking to hit the minimum PC requirements and still want better performance over consoles.
ASUS ROG Strix GL10 Gaming Desktop (2022)
List of Specs:
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6 Core Processor (3.8 GHz to 4.4 GHz)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
- 512 NVME GB SSD
- 1 TB SSD Hard drive (1,000 GB)
- 16 GB Ram – DDR4
- Built in Wifi
- 8 USB ports
The Asus ROG Strix GL10 is a great option at its given price point. With an AMD Ryzen 6 core CPU,Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 TI, and 16 GB of ram you’ll get a decent frame rate on most competitive games on low settings. Plus the case is super stylish with a clean RBG lighting strip on the front and tempered glass.
Even with decent clock speeds this CPU can still be overclocked as well, which can only improve gaming performance (any AMD CPUs ending with an “X” can be overclocked). Though it may require a better CPU cooling, to keep the temps within a safe range.
With Call of Duty games taking up about 200 GB of storage, the Asus GL10’s 512 GB SSD & 1 TB hard drive gives you plenty of room for multiple games. While also taking advantage of the fast load times SSD hard drives offer.
Looking for a good quality second monitor for reading your Twitch Chat?
Check out our list of affordable monitors to boost productivity!
CUK Stratos Micro Gaming Student Desktop PC
List of Specs:
- Intel Core i5-10400F 6 Core Processor (2.9GHz-4.3GHz)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 12GB
- 16GB DDR4 2666MHz
- 2 X 256GB NVMe Solid State Drive
- Free Mouse and Keyboard included!
- 6 built in case fans
The Cuk Stratos is pretty simple on its face. Stocked with an Intel 6 core processor, 16 GB of ram, and 2x 256 GB solid state drives this PC is going to be pretty fast. Plus, having 5 built in case fans is a nice addition so your PC stays cool under pressure.
The biggest selling point for this PC build is the Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060 GPU.
In terms of performance, the 2060 is going to have one of the higher benchmarks over the other gaming computers on this list. Call of Duty Warzone would benefit highly from this graphics card and would by far give better performance since it’s above the recommended specs listed on Nvidia’s website.
This GPU also offers ray tracing technology and can even handle NVENC encoding if you ever felt like streaming.
iBUYPOWER Pro Gaming PC Computer Desktop SlateMR 281a
List of Specs:
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 6 Core Processor (3.9 GHz – 4.4 Max)
- NVidia RTX 3060 12 GB (Brand May Vary)
- 16 GB (2 x 8) DDR4 RAM 3000MHz
- 500 GB NVMe SSD
- 4 x USB 3.0
- 2 x USB 2.0
- WIFI Ready
- No Bloatware
- Free Keyboard and RGB Gaming Mouse
The fact this computer is listed under $1k is crazy. Packed with a Ryzen 5 5600G and RTX 3060, this is easily the best gaming desktop on this list. iBUYPOWER has become a pretty popular brand over the last couple of years, with most of their builds becoming available at most major retailers.
With a highly respected RTX 3060, this GPU will be able to run Call of Duty Warzone at medium to high settings and still get a high frame rate. Take advantage of RTX’s ray tracing and stream using Nvidia’s NVENC encoding while still getting great performance. With built-in Wifi and expandable storage, this PC is a great choice in the long run since the hardware is future proof.
With 6 USB ports, this PC is also VR ready and would make a great computer for editing/encoding content for Twitch or YouTube.
Acer Predator Orion 3000 PO3-630-UA15 Gaming Desktop
List of specs:
- Intel Core i7-11700F 8-Core Processor (Up to 4.9GHz)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 8 GB
- 16GB DDR4 3200MHz Memory (expandable to 64GB)
- 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD
- 1TB 7200RPM HDD
- Intel Wireless Wi-Fi 6 AX201 802.11ax
- 1 – USB 3.2 (Type C) Gen 2 Port (Up to 10Gbps) (Front)
- 1 – USB 3.2 Gen 2 Port (Front)
- 1 – USB 3.2 (Type C) Gen 2×2 port (Up to 20Gbps) (Rear)
- 2 – USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A Ports (Rear)
- 2 – USB 2.0 ports (Rear)
The next prebuilt PC comes from Acer, who is one of the bigger PC hardware manufacturer’s in the world.
This is a beast of a PC, coming with an Intel i7 8 core Processor and an RTX 3070. You can run Call of Duty Warzone with high settings and hit well above 60 FPS. Stocked with 1x 512 GB SSD, a 1x TB hard drive, and 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz memory this PC will eat any game thrown at it.
With the RTX card you’ll also be able to live stream using Nvidia’s NVENC encoding with minimal impact to gaming performance. In terms of prebuilts, this is one of the best gaming PCs under $1500 with these listed specs. You should even be able to play at a higher resolution and hit 120 FPS or higher on medium to low settings.
Prebuilt Vs Building your own PC
Prebuilt PCs
There was a common voice among PC gamers that buying prebuilt computers was looked down upon. But with Graphics card prices always fluctuating due to crypto currency, PC gamers found themselves looking to Prebuilt companies. As they were able to deliver PCs with higher end graphics cards at reasonable prices.
It even got so bad, people were buying prebuilts just to take out the GPU then turn around and sell the remaining parts!
The best part about prebuilds is their simplicity. Just have to buy it, turn it on, and start gaming. For most console players, this is the most attractive feature why they choose a prebuilt over building a custom PC. It’s just easier.
Prebuilt PC’s do come with their downsides as well.
Prebuilts also tend to find areas to cut corners as well, like cheaper generic power supply units or unknown brands of RAM. Thankfully those can easily be upgraded for better system stability.
Prebuilt PC must haves!
Stepping into the PC gaming world can also be intimidating. What graphics card to choose? AMD or intel? Which power supply do I need?
When buying a prebuilt PC for AAA titles like Call of Duty, sometimes it might be a better option to spend a little extra money for a better graphics processor (GPU) or faster CPU. As games are always being developed with the newest hardware, future proofing with higher end hardware is always a better option.
I always tend to opt for Nvidia GPUs over the AMD Radeon RX GPUs. Nvidia’s graphic card performance is still second to none, even with AMD’s positive advances in the most recent years. If you’re looking to hit anything above 60 FPS, an Nvidia 1660 and above would be a good starting point.
Building your own PC
Depending on how detailed you want to be, building your own PC can give you a lot more options over buying a prebuilt. With a wider selection of hardware and easy websites to create PC builds (like https://pcpartpicker.com/), you can often find parts cheaper as well. One aspect we love about building your own PC, is the satisfaction you get once your newly built PC turns on and clears post.
Troubleshooting is easier as well, since you personally purchased all the parts and put it together. If individual parts break or stop working, each part comes with its own warranty. Unlike prebuilts where you have to go directly to the manufacturer for any issues.
But building your first PC can be extremely intimidating, especially with the cost of some of the parts. Installing something incorrectly can potentially put you out of hundreds of dollars and leave you without any gaming PC at all. Although as long as you follow the manufacturer’s instructions, the majority of the time it’s pretty easy.
Conclusion
Hopefully this list helps show the type of PC and the cost needed to play Call of Duty at the same or above a console’s performance. In reality none of these are bad computers, just depends on what corners you are willing to sacrifice.
Like most, we’re looking forward to the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and we’ll see you out on the battlefield!
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.
