This time of year I get a lot of questions about building gaming computers as gifts for the holiday season. Whether they’re intended as gifts for the kids, for the spouse or a little bit of self gifting love, 'tis the season to cut loose a little bit and indulge the gamer in our lives with a nice new piece of hardware to dig into 2017’s top titles. There’s no such thing as a “Best Gaming PC”, but rather a lot of options for ‘optimal,’ and budget plays a big role in what kind of PC we’re talking about building. Here we’re going to look at the budget class of gaming computer. It wasn’t that long ago that a good friend reached out to me for advice building a computer for his young son who was just getting his toes wet in PC gaming. As a parent, it can be hard to justify an expensive gaming computer when you don’t know if your child is going to move on to a completely different interest a year down the road. At the same time, we want to give them a good experience so they can enjoy the games they want to play. While the build below is suited for anyone wanting gaming grade hardware on a modest budget, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my friend’s ten-year-old in mind when I wrote this.