- Incredible value budget gaming PCs
- Excellent price-to-performance
- Peripherals included with most models
- Abundant RGB lighting
- WiFi cards sometimes defective
- More expensive models offer poor value
If you’ve been shopping for budget gaming PCs recently, you’ve almost certainly seen at least a couple of STGAubron’s offerings; at the time of writing they make the #13 best-selling PC tower on Amazon, which also ranks as the #28 desktop PC overall and #1 new release overall. It’s also likely that you’ve never heard of this brand in your life. So, who makes STGAubron PCs, are they of good quality, and are they even worth your consideration?
In this article we’ll answer these questions by taking a deep look at the STGAubron brand and their product selection, build quality, reviews, and more.
Today’s Deals
- 55% OFF: Nextorage 2TB NVMe SSD 7300MB/s Write 6900 MB/s Read |
$249.99$109.99 - Skytech Archangel with Core i7-12700F, RTX 4060 Ti, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD |
$1399.99$1199.99 - ASRock Phantom Gaming Arc A770 8GB |
$289.99$249.99 - Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core, 24-Thread CPU |
$550$309.99 - ABS Stratos Aqua with Core i5-13400F, RTX 4060 Ti, 16GB DDR5 |
$1499.99$1099.99 - Acer 165hz 1ms 24″ Gaming Monitor |
$150$120
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Best Budget Choice
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Best Mid-Range Choice
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Best High-End Choice
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$399.99
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$549.99
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$1,089.99
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About STGAubron
There is virtually no information readily available online regarding STGAubron. However, after digging around a bit, we found that STGAubron PCs are sold by Skytech USA LLC, which appears to be the USA branch of Skytech Global Ltd. Hence, the “STG” in “STGAubron” is most likely an acronym for “Skytech Global”.
STGAubron gaming PCs are rather new; the trademark for their brand name was filed on August 21, 2022, and their first wave of prebuilt PCs began to hit the market in the fourth quarter of 2022.
While the names are nearly identical, Skytech USA LLC and Skytech Global are not to be confused with Skytech Gaming; they’re entirely different companies. You can read our Skytech Gaming brand prebuilt PC review to learn more about them.
Skytech USA specializes in selling refurbished, primarily office-grade PCs from big names like HP, Dell, and Lenovo, but they seem to be branching out with their STGAubron line. STGAubron PCs are tailored more towards gaming with higher-powered graphics cards than the majority of Skytech’s inventory, and they’re decked out with RGB lighting.
What’s more, STGAubron PCs aren’t refurbished, they’re new. This is a big deviation from Skytech USA’s usual business model, but it makes for an extremely interesting product lineup.
Is STGAubron Legit?
As with any new brand, it’s not unusual to have some doubts as to a new brand’s legitimacy. It’s safe to say, however, that STGAubron PCs are legitimate, at least in the sense that they’re made by a real company that sells real computers (Skytech). Skytech is a Microsoft Certified Refurbisher and Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner that distributes over 20,000 PCs monthly on average, so they’re certainly not a scam company.
STGAubron Product Lineup
STGAubron’s target audience is definitely those looking to buy a prebuilt budget gaming PC. They currently have seven different SKUs up for sale, plus some variations of these with different storage configurations or even video cards. The cheapest rig is currently right at $500, while their most expensive is $1000.
While some of their nicer gaming rigs include Nvidia 30-series video cards, STGAubron’s cheap prices mainly come from the fact that they use older hardware; they often make use of decade-old CPUs and DDR3 RAM in their systems.
With this in mind, always be sure to consider actual performance of the chip used in any given build. Just because a listing advertises a PC as having a “Core i7” doesn’t mean it can even handle games at 1080p and 60FPS, as Core i7s in 2012 were a shadow of what they are today.
In the section below we’ll have a look at a few of STGAubron’s most notable entries, and also take a look at their performance relative to modern-day CPUs to gain better insight into the in-game performance that should be expected from these gaming PCs.
ABR0922 Tower | RX 580 and Core i7-2600K
The Core i7-2600K is simply an educated guess; the ABR0922 doesn’t actually advertise this as its CPU, but it seems highly probable that this is the one used: STGAubron seems to favor 2nd to 4th-gen Intel CPUs, and the 2600K is one of the only models with a 3.8GHz boost clock, which matches the one advertised.
While this model is the weakest STGAubron rig, it actually isn’t the cheapest: It’s currently $499.99, versus the ABR0122’s price of ~$60 less. Thus, we’d recommend steering clear of this SKU in favor of a PC that offers better value.
ABR0122 | RX 580 and Core i7-3770
Their lowest-end ABR0122 (the model that’s the #1 new tower PC on Amazon) features an unspecified 4-core Core i7 CPU, almost certainly the Core i7-3770 based on the 3.4GHz CPU clock and 3.9GHz max clock specified in the product listing, and AMD’s RX 580. While an i7 CPU might sound too good to be true, these chips are over a decade old, released in Q1 of 2012.
Thus, the i7-3770 is only about 72% as powerful as even Intel’s Core i3-10100, which is a decent processor for 60FPS gaming but certainly falls into the entry-level category.
The RX 580 is a great budget GPU, and is perfectly capable of hitting at least 60FPS in most games. Other hardware includes a 512GB SATA SSD, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, and case fans galore.
All in all, then, the ABR0122 is a solid lower-tier entry-level gaming PC. Even with its uber-old i7, users can expect to comfortably surpass the 60FPS benchmark in even most modern titles at 1080p, as long as graphical settings are kept to the lower end. For $500, this is about as good as it gets for a prebuilt PC (although you could easily build your own PC and get a better rig for the same price).
ABR0222 | GTX 1660 Ti and Core i7-3770
Part of their newest Gaming Diamond series released in February of 2023, STGAubron’s ABR0222 features the GTX 1660 Ti and Core i7-3770. At the time of writing it’s ~$50 cheaper than the ABR0522, which packs the far more powerful Core i3-10100F alongside the same GPU.
Moreover, the ABR0522 has nearly twice the storage capacity and newer, faster, DDR4 memory. For this reason, it’s well worth it to spend the extra $50 or so to upgrade to a more modern platform with more computing power. The only good reason to purchase the ABR0222 would be if its price decreases in relation to the ABR0522, or if you’re on a rigid budget right around the $530 price point.
ABR0522 | GTX 1660 Ti and Core i3-10100F
The Core i3-10100 we mentioned earlier can be found in STGAubron’s product stack, in the ABR0522. This ~$600 rig features the reliable mid-range GTX 1660 Ti and Intel’s few-generations-old Core i3-10100F.
These are complemented by a 1TB SSD and 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM. As is common with this brand, the chassis has plenty of RGB lighting and even an RGB CPU cooler.
At $600, the ABR0522 offers some of the best value of any PC in its price range, without even factoring in the peripherals (which admittedly appear to be of low quality).
ABR0722 Tower | RTX 3060 and Core i7-8700
On the higher end of the STGAubron spectrum, we have the ABR0722 Tower. This ~$850 gaming rig has significantly more up-to-date technology than the aforementioned PCs.
The i7-8700 isn’t horribly outdated by this brand’s standards, as it was released in 2017. It’s almost perfectly on par with the Core i3-10100 in single-core performance, and bests it by a wide 42% margin in multi-core processing. Thus, in multi-core performance, it’s comparable to a Core i3-12100 (the i7-8700 is roughly 5.6% weaker).
Thus, this system packs plenty of punch for 1080p 144FPS gaming, especially considering its inclusion of the rock-solid RTX 3060.
The ABR0722 also comes equipped with a sizeable 2TB SSD and 32GB of DDR4 memory, both very solid for a $1000 rig. Unfortunately, even with the 3060 this build isn’t a very great deal. Alternatives in this price range like the Lenovo IdeaCentre Gaming 5i or HP Victus 15L come with much more powerful newer-gen i7 CPUs alongside the same RTX 3060, giving these a much higher performance ceiling for the same cost.
Still, this STGAubron PC can handle 144FPS in most games, and 60FPS in virtually all.
ABR1422 Tower | RTX 3070 and Core i7-11700KF
Most recently, STGAubron has released a wave of PCs with far newer CPUs and RTX 30-series GPUs. This lineup includes the ABR1422 Tower, one of their most powerful offerings, which features Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and Intel’s Core i7-11700KF from late 2021.
These specs are massively better than 8th-gen CPUs like that found in the ABR0722, and bring STGAubron directly into competition with major brands like Skytech, CyberPowerPC, HP, and iBuyPower.
While we’d love to see newer hardware in these PCs, especially in regards to processors but also in regards to their GPUs, 11th-gen Intel CPUs are still a massive leap forward for the brand. The ABR1422 Tower is STGAubron’s first true contender in the 1440p gaming market, and it’s even good enough for lower-end 4K gaming.
Unnamed | RTX 3070 and Core i9-11900F
It appears as though STGAubron forewent an “ABR” name for this specific rig, which is surprising considering this is the brand’s most potent gaming rig to date. It’s only marginally better than the ABR1422 Tower, with the Core i9-11900F being the only notable improvement.
While this does technically give this PC more horsepower than the ABR1422, it’s not worth the extra money. When paired with the RTX 3070, users are unlikely to see any performance boosts with the 11900F over the 11700KF, since the graphics card will be the system bottleneck in almost every scenario excepting gameplay at ultra-low resolutions and settings.
Since the Core i7-11700KF is more than capable of 240FPS gaming in virtually all titles, we’d recommend steering clear of this rig in favor of the ABR1422 Tower or a similarly priced PC.
Other STGAubron Models
While we only covered a few models in depth (since many are very similar to each other), STGAubron builds a number of other configurations:
- ABR0922 Tower: RX 580, Core i7-3770, 1TB SSD, 16GB DDR3 RAM
- ABR1022 Tower: GTX 1660 Ti, Core i7-3770, 1TB SSD, 32GB DDR3 RAM
- ABR0322: RTX 2060, Core i7-3770, 512GB SSD, 16GB DDR3 RAM
- ABR0422 Tower: RTX 2060 Super, Core i7-3770, 1TB SSD, 32GB DDR3 RAM
- ABR0622 Tower: RTX 3060, Core i7-3770, 1TB SSD, 32GB DDR3 RAM
STGAubron makes extensive use of the Core i7-3770 in its builds, even higher-end ones featuring the RTX 3060 (which is somewhat surprising). It appears that they sometimes use the generation-newer, more powerful Core i7-4790 in their builds on occasion, but don’t advertise this in order to keep their options open. Nearly all of their PCs are bundled with an RGB keyboard, mouse, headset, mousepad, and sound bar, although a couple come without headsets.
Moreover, almost all of their rigs are advertised as having integrated WiFi and Bluetooth. Unfortunately, it appears that their PCs have an extremely high defect rate in terms of WiFi per customer reviews, so we recommend investing in an aftermarket WiFi dongle or, even better, using Ethernet.
Pricing
We touched on STGAubron PCs’ pricing earlier, but thought it best to give a more general overview of their products’ competitiveness in terms of cost.
For the most part, their lower-end gaming rigs ($650 and less) are priced very well, and undercut most similar-performing prebuilt PCs. Their more expensive computers, especially those with the RTX 3060, are overpriced compared to the market, as they offer significantly inferior performance compared to many competing models that cost roughly the same.
If you’re looking to buy a mid-range or high-end gaming PC, STGAubron probably isn’t your best bet, and shouldn’t be given your consideration unless the landscape changes substantially. If, however, you’re looking for a decent 60FPS budget PC, they have a handful of competitively priced SKUs that might be your best choice, depending on the market at the moment.
STGAubron Reviews
Since STGAubron is such a new brand, it hasn’t had a lot of time to accumulate reviews. Their most popular model, the ABR0122, has amassed only 16 customer reviews at the time of writing.
Their two models that have been rated, the ABR0122 and ABR0322, have averages of 3.6 and 2.7, respectively. This is extremely mediocre, but upon reading the reviews the situation is a lot less grim than it would appear. A large quantity of stars were lost over troubles with the included WiFi adapter, which appears to be defective in a good number of builds.
Hopefully Skytech switched suppliers and the issue is resolved, but buyers should nevertheless beware of this potential pitfall and just use Ethernet or a separate WiFi dongle.
There were a couple of reports of STGAubron PCs being dead on arrival, which is a much bigger deal. The sample size is still far too small to reach a definitive verdict on the quality of STGAubron rigs, but it seems likely that they use cheap parts to keep costs low. With that being said, they offer free returns, at least through Amazon, so the worst-case scenario isn’t all that bad.
Alternatives: Other Brand Reviews
Finally, feel free to check out our reviews of other gaming PC brands to compare alternatives.
