Building a desktop PC from scratch is admittedly not for everyone, and in these Covid-19 affected times, prebuilt gaming PCs are offering better value price wise compared to building your own desktop PC.
Chip shortages, scalping and disruptions in supply lines has made it that graphics cards and processors are hard to come by at recommended retail prices.
Keeping in mind that football manager is not really a demanding game compared to the newer AAA games, I have sought prebuilt PCs at different price points i.e. budget, best value and high performance to provide you with options depending on what other activities you will be carrying out on the PC aside from taking on challenges like attempting to win the league while exclusively using players that came through the youth system of your club.
All the recommended prebuilt desktops PCs below will run the game well, aside from compromising on the number of leagues you will load at the beginning of each save. I have a guide here on the best way to set up your save so as to have realistic transfers with realistic transfer fees to boot.
Budget Prebuilt PC For Football Manager
Specs: Core i5-2400, Nvidia GT 730, 16 GB RAM
When shopping for a budget prebuilt PC that can load quite a few leagues in football manager, settling for an older but still capable processor like the Core i5-2400 is a sound choice. You get the performance you need without going overboard on price.
The Core i5-2400 can still hold its own, and it meets the minimum system requirements for most AAA games, while being comfortably ahead of the minimum requirements for football manager.
The 16 GB of ram that comes with this prebuilt is more than sufficient for football manager, and it will also come in handy while opening a dozen or so tabs on chrome or playing background music when you are working on a project.
If you plan on playing other games aside from football manager, the Nvidia GT 730 will handle most games that got their release before 2016 at middle to high settings at 1080p, while newer ones from 2017 onwards will have to be tweaked with a combination of low to middle settings to hit 60 fps at the same resolution.
However, football manager which is our main focus will be handled with minimum fuss. The only things you have to watch out for is starting a save with a lot of leagues loaded while running a big database. This set up might run fine at the start, but once the regens start coming through, the processor might start struggling with long processing breaks, especially during deadline days.
Best Value For Money Prebuilt Desktop PC To Run Football Manager
Specs: Core i5-11400F, RTX 2060, 8 GB RAM
In this category that offers the best compromise on price and performance, I have settled on a PC that will both run football manager comfortably and hold its own in newer AAA games, as well as being suitable for productivity.
The Core i5-11400F that the prebuilt comes with is the newer version of the Core i5-10400 that earned the spot for best value processor to run football manager in our list here. With 6 cores and 12 threads, the Core i5-11400F will hold its own against any newer processor, especially when it comes to gaming performance.
It is also no slouch in productivity and things like photoshop, video editing, coding and the like will be handled easily unless you are handling 4K content, where the high performance prebuilt PC below will be better suited
The RTX 2060 will handle anything football manager can throw at it, and you should ideally not have to worry about which leagues to drop and which to leave on view only.
Other AAA games will also be handled comfortably at 1080p at high settings. This GPU can also handle 1440p in most titles if you have a monitor that can natively display the resolution.
The 8 GB of DDR4 ram that the build comes with should ideally be at least 16 GB, but you can always buy an extra 8 GB stick later to add to your build. DDR4 is fast enough therefore most applications including football manager will still run fine, but it is nice to have the added smoothness that the extra 8 GB of ram will provide.
High-end Prebuilt Gaming PC For Football Manager
Specs: Core i9-10850K, RTX 3080, 32 GB RAM
This prebuilt PC suits people who are looking for a desktop PC that does more than just run football manager. Photo and video editing will be handled comfortably at 4K, while all other games will also run at 4K, hitting 60 fps in most titles.
The Core i9-10850K is one of the most powerful processors around and offers strong single core performance. With 10 cores and 20 threads, you can comfortably take on longer challenges on FM like the Great San Marino challenge without having to worry about whether your PC will slow down to a crawl 15 years into the save.
The 32 GB of DDR4 ram that the prebuilt comes with is necessary to prevent creating a bottleneck for the fast processor.
The RTX 3080 was my pick for the highest performance graphics card to run football manager in our list here. This is before you go into the very expensive territory of the RTX 3090 and beyond. RTX 3080 manages to tick every box you might think of, both in productivity and running games.
Should you have the budget to spare, you can go a step-up to the RTX 3090 for a small increase in performance, but the price increase that comes with the jump is not worth it in my opinion.
Aside from getting a top of the line processor and GPU, the build also comes with an abundance of storage out of the box, a 1 TB SSD and 2 TB HDD to be exact. If you are a data hoarder, you can always add more to this when you eventually fill it up.
Final Thoughts On The Best Prebuilt Gaming Desktop PCs To Run Football Manager
At the end of the day, the activities you will be doing aside from playing football manager should dictate which prebuilt PC you go with.
This is because football manager is hardly graphical intensive, and newer desktops should be able to handle the game well, albeit with a compromise on the number of leagues loaded.
Going with a cheaper build however guarantees that you will need an upgrade much earlier than someone who settles for the best value build, which should handle football manager and other games comfortably for the next 5 or 6 years at 1080p.
If you prefer laptops for their portability, take a look at this guide, where I find the best one that offers the best value in terms of price and performance.
