Best gaming PC for Valorant

Valorant is a fast team shooting game, popular with competitive players. It is built to run on modest PCs, but serious players want very high frame rates, and that changes what you need.

What Valorant needs

Valorant is light. It is made to look clean and simple, not fancy, so it runs on a wide range of PCs.

• Graphics card: the part that draws the picture. Built-in graphics (graphics inside the processor, with no separate card) can play it at low settings. A budget to mid-range graphics card plays it smoothly.
• Processor: matters more than usual. At high frame rates the processor does a lot of the work. A good modern processor is worth it.
• Memory (RAM): 16GB is the sensible amount. See how much RAM you need.
• Storage: an SSD, a fast storage drive, so it loads quickly.

Going further: high frame rates, high-refresh screens and 1440p

In a fast shooter, smoothness matters more than looks. Frame rate (FPS) is how many pictures the PC draws each second. Refresh rate (Hz) is how many the screen can show each second. Competitive players want both to be high, so movement is smooth and easy to track. Read frame rate and refresh rate explained.

A stronger graphics card and processor help you reach higher frame rates, run a sharper 1440p screen, or stream and record your matches while you play.

Which screen?

For Valorant, refresh rate matters more than size or sharpness. Many competitive players choose a 24 inch 1080p screen with a high refresh rate. Read 1080p, 1440p or 4K and what size monitor is best for gaming.

Play other shooters too? See the best PC for Counter-Strike 2 and the best PC for Fortnite. Sandbox Computers builds and tests every PC on our own bench in Worcester, and sells them through sandboxcomputers.com.

Want the official specs? The Game Finder shows the minimum and recommended specs published by the makers of Valorant, and our PCs that meet them.

Questions people ask