If you’re asking yourself how to buy a gaming desktop, well, you’re in luck because this pre-built from HP takes much of the guesswork out of the process. The Pavilion lineup of gaming gear from HP has been a staple for nearly a decade now, and while this specification of the HP Pavilion isn’t one of the best gaming desktops on the market, it’s a great entry-level budget option for those who don’t want to spend a ton of money and want the basics. Even better, you can pick it up from Walmart at a discounted price of $449 rather than the $639 it usually goes for.
Why you should buy the HP Pavilion gaming desktop
Rather than building a PC from scratch, pre-builts like the Pavilion already come pre-configured, and this one comes with an AMD Radeon RX 5500, which, if you aren’t familiar with the AMD GPUs, is roughly the same as a GTX 1660. That means you aren’t going to be able to play the latest games on the highest settings, but at the very least, you’ll get away with playing the majority of popular free-to-play games like Fortnite, Rocket League, League of Legends, and so forth. Of course, you could also get away with some AAA gaming if you are willing to compromise on graphical quality and stick with one of these gaming monitor deals that run 1080p at 144Hz or less, realistically the GTX 1660 is still a great card, even if it’s a few generations old.
You also get an AMD Ryzen 5-5600G, which is a mid-range CPU that will allow you to game and do your productivity tasks, and 8GB RAM that probably merits an upgrade to 16GB at some point down the line but will get you by for the time being. The only big issue is the 256GB internal storage, which will bump you up against the limit, especially as the installed Windows 11 OS already takes up some of that space. Of course, much like the RAM, you can get by for the time being, and you could always go for one of several external hard drive deals to store non-gaming files so you can keep your internal hard drive clear for games.
Overall, the HP Pavilion is a great entry-level pre-built gaming desktop, especially when you consider Walmart’s discount that brings it down to $449. But, on the other hand, if you’re willing to spend a little more, there are a few gaming PC deals out there that don’t have the issues with RAM and storage that the Pavilion has.