Buying a refurbished laptop: what grade A means
Grades, battery health and the five checks we do before a refurbished laptop goes on our shelf.
Building a gaming PC at three budgets
Where the money goes at ₹75,000, ₹1,25,000 and ₹1,80,000, and which parts are worth paying more for.
Most people who ask us for a gaming PC have a number in mind before they have a parts list. Here is how we usually split three common budgets, with prices from our counter this month. They change every few weeks, so treat them as a guide.
At about ₹75,000, the aim is smooth 1080p gaming. A six-core processor costs around ₹14,000, an 8 GB graphics card about ₹27,000, 16 GB of RAM ₹4,500, a 1 TB NVMe SSD ₹6,000, a motherboard ₹9,000, a 650 W power supply ₹5,500 and a case with three fans ₹4,000. Add ₹2,500 for Windows setup, cable work and our 24-hour test, and you are near ₹73,000 without a monitor.
At ₹1,25,000, our custom gaming PC on the website, the graphics card moves up to 12 GB, the processor to eight cores and the RAM to 32 GB. This is the sweet spot for 1440p gaming and for students who also edit video. The power supply goes to 750 W, so a future graphics upgrade will not need a new one.
At ₹1,80,000, most of the extra goes to a 16 GB graphics card, with a 2 TB SSD and better cooling for long sessions. Above this, gains for gaming get smaller for each rupee spent. Our advice at every level is the same: put the most money into the graphics card, never cut corners on the power supply, and buy 32 GB of RAM only if you will actually use it.
