While most pre-builts come in the classic ATX format, these gaming PC’s require some space! They can be bulky depending on the case, and often are relegated to the floor next to a desk, which can be a shame if you spent money for a nice window with some RGB lighting. In the PC building community, there is a growing push towards SFF (small form factor) mini PC’s that focus on movability and size as well as performance.
Good news for those looking for a pre-built, the custom PC building companies have taken note of this growing demand and are starting to produce some nice pre-built mini-PC options. They often use mATX cases rather than true ITX cases, but often find mini mATX towers that can be smaller than the largest ITX cases. For this guide, we are essentially looking at any mini pre-built gaming PC, which may include the occasional mATX case. If the gaming PC is focused on saving space and minimizing size, we considered it for our recommendations!
The one downside to SFF PC’s is that the same performance as their larger friends often comes at a price premium. Maintaining good thermal performance and finding smaller components can lead to some price increases. So, to help you find the right pre-built mini PC to sit on your desk, we broke them down into price categories and are ready to recommend our favorite for each price range. Let’s take a look at the best pre-built ITX gaming PC’s available today:
Best Mini-ITX Gaming PCs – Our Recommendations
| Award | Design | Model | CPU | GPU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $650 |  | Skytech Blaze II Gaming PC | Ryzen 5 2600 | GTX 1660 |
| Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $100 |  | MSI Trident 3 10SI-002US | Intel i5-10400F | GTX 1660 Super |
| Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $1200 |  | SkyTech Legacy Mini | Ryzen 7 2700 | RTX 2070 Super |
| Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $2500 |  | CUK Stratos Mini Gaming PC | Intel i9-10900KF | RTX 3070 |
Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $650
Despite most mini pre-builts costing significantly more than their ATX counterparts, there are still some options at even the ultra-budget level. While at this price the new-gen consoles begin to look interesting for pure gaming, the flexibility of a PC is still irreplaceable. At this price point, you can expect 1080p 60 FPS pretty comfortably on high in most games, and our recommendation will do even better and provide 1080p 144FPS in many esports and well-optimized titles with the occasional modified setting. As with all pre-builts, we want a balanced PC that doesn’t over-invest into any one component that would then be bottlenecked by weaker pieces. For the best pre-built ITX that fits those requirements and costs less than $650, we recommend the Skytech Blaze II Gaming PC.
As we mentioned in the intro, finding a true ‘ITX’ mini pre-built at this price is rough, but this offer from Skytech uses an ITX motherboard in a mid-tower mATX case. As a whole, the package is much more compact than what you would get from a regular-sized PC, and the added space actually helps ensure you get the most cooling possible as all cooling is fan-based (rather than liquid which is common in SFF builds). The Ryzen 5 2600 CPU is still a strong gaming processor with 6c/12t and when combined with the Nvidia GTX 1660, provide a great platform for budget gaming. The motherboard and PSU aren’t anything special, but this is a low-power build that doesn’t need anything fancy to provide a stable framerate. At $649 and right within our budget, this mini PC is a great entry-level machine that packs quite a punch for its size and is our recommendation for an under $650 pre-build ITX gaming PC.
Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $1000
The next step up in terms of budget brings us into a category of heavy competition amongst PC manufacturers. The $900 price range (which ends up being right around $1000 with tax) is a great buying point, offering 1080p 144 FPS relatively steadily in almost all current titles, including newest games with modified settings. This price point has a lot more to choose from, including a true ‘mini’ PC from a major producer. For the best pre-built ITX gaming PC under $900, we recommend the MSI Trident 3 10SI-002US.
MSI needs no introduction, and the Trident range of small form factor PC’s is one of the longest standing and best built mini PC lineups. They were among the first large-scale production of a small PC, and maintain their high quality after years of experience. This particular Trident is very interesting because of the CPU it holds and the upgraded GPU compared to our lower-level build. The 1660 Super is a stellar GPU, but the real star is the 10400F Intel CPU that offers amazing gaming performance. The inclusion of both a 512 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD is nice, as is WiFi 6 inclusion. We would have loved to see 16GB RAM instead of 8GB, but that is expandable later on. All in all, this is a great buy at $899 for someone looking for a powerful 1080p ITX machine.
And small bonus! For someone that knows they want more cores and more threads (mainly for productivity workloads), the same build with an Intel 10700F is available for $100 more. For gaming, we don’t think that $100 upgrade makes sense (better to get more RAM and an RTX 2060), but for a mixed workload, the 10700F is a good buy.
Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $1200
This next price category is where we begin to leave 1080p behind to start dabbling in 1440p at 60 FPS for AAA titles and 144 FPS for esports (with modified settings). Of course, these machines are perfectly capable of 1080p as well and will be for years to come, but you begin to see diminishing returns at 1080p beyond a certain point, typically around the NVIDIA 1660 Super/2060 mark (RADEON RX 5700 for AMD). Even with a mini PC, at this price, we expect a step up in experience from the under $900 build. And luckily, we have that with our choice for best pre-built ITX gaming PC under $1200: the SkyTech Legacy Mini.
From the same builder as our budget option, this mini gaming PC is an interesting one. We finally see the modern standard 16 GB DDR4 RAM and see a major step up with the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super. Even with the 3070 starting to become possible to find in-stock, it’s not everywhere and while pre-builts are starting to have it, small form factor PC’s aren’t yet readily available at this price with Ampere GPU’s. The 2070 Super, however, is still a great card that can push 1440p 144hz in many games, even at high settings. The only oddity in this build is the choice to use a Ryzen 7 2700. There’s nothing wrong with this CPU, in fact, some people prefer it for the 8c/16t nature, but we would have probably rather seen a Ryzen 3600 for a gaming build. In practice, the two are very close in most games and the Ryzen 5 2700 may see some gains in the future if developers optimize for multi-threading/multi-core performance. A B450 motherboard, 500GB SSD/1 TB HDD and a few RGB fans in a windowed IWIN case round out this very compelling build. For $1199, you will be hard-pressed to find better ITX pre-built in this price range.
Best Prebuilt ITX Gaming PC under $2500
We’re getting into the ultra-high-end category here, but we wanted to show just how strong pre-built mini gaming PC’s have gotten. Many will choose to build with this budget to squeeze in a slightly better GPU for the same price, but pre-builts like this one have advantages that are hard to overlook, like stock availability and centralized warranty. We kept this max budget recommendation to $2500 because while there are some of the newest builds out there at $3000 or more, at that price point we would expect most users to go straight for a true custom build rather than an off-the-shelf prebuilt. At this price, we want something that can easily hold 1440p 144hz and even push into some 4K gaming. We expect a decently small form factor, liquid cooling to keep temps reasonable, and no corner cutting when it comes to components. If you want a mini PC that will destroy just about any game you throw at it, we recommend the CUK Stratos Mini Gaming PC.
CUK builds regular sized PC’s as well, but seems to have found a niche with its CUK Stratos Mini line. There are quite a few variations, ranging in price from around $1800 up to $4000 (!) for a build with a new 3090. But this one we’ve selected is interesting because it includes a top of the line Intel 10900KF processor and a new Nvidia RTX 3070. It also comes with 64GB RAM, a 1 TB NVMe SSD and 2 TB HDD, and a Z490 motherboard. The 650W PSU is the only downside to this build, it fits the minimum recommended by Nvidia for the 3070 but we would have liked to see a 750W PSU given the unlocked 10900KF CPU and the amount of power it pulls if overclocked. Given the slight lean towards the CPU with the 10900KF vs the 3070 and the 64GB of RAM, this PC will also perform extremely well in productivity workloads. A pure gaming rig may have chosen to match the 10700KF with a 3080 instead, although there is a pretty serious jump in processing power from the 10700KF to the 10900KF and the 3070 is still able to comfortably push 1440p in nearly all games, and some with RTX ray tracing enabled as well. In any case, for around $2425, this mini PC is more than enough to play even the most demanding of games in a very compact size, making it our choice for an ITX prebuilt under $2500.
Conclusion
No matter your budget, there is a pre-built ITX gaming PC waiting for you. Thanks to the rise in interest in the small form factor gaming community, even mainstream manufacturers are building strong ITX or mini gaming PC’s that combine a smaller footprint with strong performance. Like with any pre-built, you may pay a premium to have it built for you and in this case, a similar premium to have everything shrunk down compared to an ATX sized build, but the decrease in size no longer has to mean a decrease in performance. Whether you want to keep to the budget end of the spectrum or ‘go for broke’ with a high-end build, these recommendations should get you started on the best pre-built ITX gaming PC’s at any price.