Black Friday 2025 is over. Come back next year for 2026 Black Friday Deals!
In the meantime, check out what we recommend at current prices: Logical Increments Builds
If this image might be a photo of you building your PC, it may be time to upgrade.
Yes! Yes! Black Friday is almost here, the day every PC builder waits for all year round.
This year’s Black Friday should bring us some relief from the very topsy-turvy prices we have been seeing, since Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) sales are typically the best prices you see all year round.
We have not had many serious updates to the chart this year. The hardware releases have been slow, the international scene has been volatile enough to ensure most of the PC hardware conversations centred on tariffs/prices and not releases, and some of us on the Logical Increments team have been going through some unforeseen consequences circumstances that an apple-a-day could not cure.
I am very grateful to still have you, dear reader, even though it has been a quiet year update-wise. Now then:
(Information on Steam’s top games were gathered for this article from Steam Charts)
Back in January 2020, I crafted a neat little piece discussing the Logical Increments tier needed to enjoy each of the top games on Steam at the time. Fast forward to now, and oh, how the scene has shifted! Back around that period, we were seeing trade tariffs causing a good bump in prices for PC hardware. As we ventured into late 2020, high demand meant the cost of PC parts kept climbing, and 2021 brought even higher prices—especially for graphics cards due to a cryptocurrency boom. Oh, and let’s not forget, the world was just getting acquainted with Covid-19, adding a whole new level of complexity to tech market dynamics through supply chain issues.
Now, at the tail end of 2023, with prices and availability having normalized in some (though not all) component categories, and just a week left until Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s about time we take a fresh look at what Logical Increments PC building tier you’d need to dive into the most popular Steam games today. Let’s see what changed in the last few years, and whether that ol’ system still has some life in it, or whether it might be worth a little upgrade. Stick around as we unpack the current gaming demands and discuss today’s tech landscape.