299
Entry level PCs costing less than $500 ‘will disappear by 2028’, research firm predicts
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
299 points (97.5% liked)
PC Gaming
14087 readers
607 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Mac mini starts at $499 and has gone on sale for $479.
It’s not really for gaming, but for $500, neither is the Windows box. And the laptop is a lie, even with those bezels.
But let’s be real, you can get a decent PC for way less than $500! It won’t compete with the Mac, but it may yet be better for light gaming.
This is around $250 (and that's the version for Europe, shipped from Spain and the price includes VAT).
Six months ago it was just $150, so the current RAM and SSD prices seem to be fully included in the device price.
I got one to replace an aging Windows 8 PC of a family member who only does web-browsing and e-mail and put Linux on it, and have another one at home working as a TV Box + Home server.
With Linux that's more than enough for browsing, e-mail and even office apps. Not a machine for gamers, but then again gamers aren't buying "entry level PCs".
AMD based mini-pcs with something like 680M or 780M are around 500. But they are out of stock lately.
Light gaming, like Pong, or Breakout. Time to rediscover the classics!
Even a lot of modern indie titles will play on a low-spec PC.
For £500 you are doing a lot more than pong. I am kinda curious how far back you have to go at different price points to play the majority of games from that era. Pretty sure £500 is still doing a lot of games 10+ years old.
Retro gaming on a Pi comes in at £50 or so, depends on which one you get though as more RAM does cost more. Downside here is ARM might limit your options a bit for some things not quite so old but it probably would otherwise be powerful enough for. Box86 + wine exists but that looks too much like 2010 Linux gaming that I would rather leave in the past. Some open source games could be compiled on it too.
Pi Zero could run a few games too and that is like £15. But your choices are going to be very limited for anything beyond retro gaming. CDDA should compile and technically run, slowly. Got a pinephone which has similar specs and can do it but compiling takes about an hour and I found out the game had loading screens I wasn't even aware of before trying to run it on specs like that.
I was restricted to my MacBook Air when I was in hospital, and that has the same specs as a 500USD Mac mini (m4, 16GB RAM). It plays 3D stuff like Valheim at 60FPS! The only issue is the more limited library compared to my Linux and Windows machines.
Mame and pre-2001 gaming FTW!
Yeah, what you had for 1500$ ten years ago you can for 300$ today