Best gaming desk in 2023: Budget, premium & more

Joel Loynds

Are you planning to add the best gaming desks to your gaming desk? Here are some of the best desks for your gaming session and to make mundane office work enjoyable.

A gaming desk, like the mouse pad, can be one of the most underrated accessories in your gaming setup. While there is a lot of focus and attention on the monitor, gaming PC, keyboard, and mouse, the desk often goes unnoticed.

A good gaming desk not only enhances your gaming experience, reduces the wire tangle, it adds to the aesthetics and personality of your gaming cave. Moreover, a standing desk can also help you burn some calories without stepping away.

If you’ve decided to upgrade your existing desk or get a new gaming desk, then features like cable management, compartments for accessories, RGB lighting, and dedicated stands for gaming headphones or other peripherals are worth considering.

Lastly, you should also factor in the desk’s size to support multiple monitors, though do cross-check the dimensions so that you have enough room for your gaming chair to move freely.

Best Gaming Desks

Best budget gaming desks

If you’re after a good-budget gaming desk, you’re looking at spending around $200. While Amazon might be filled to the gills with $50, or $100 gaming desks, these are usually bad quality from the start.

As of right now, we’re using an incredibly budget, £95 desk, and outside of it being sturdy on top, it is light as a feather. These desks are incredibly similar in quality and will not withstand the weight or amount of things that you plan to use. Plus, if your monitors are on VESA mounts and arms, prepare for them to wiggle during intense typing sessions.

As good as some of these might look, they’re very clearly resold for profit from sellers on stores like AliExpress and Banggood. Your mileage will vary, of course.

Best budget gaming desk: X Rocker Ocelot

x rocker

X Rocker does some fantastic bits of kit. Their beanbag gaming chairs are also highly recommended, but in the world of desks, you won’t find quality for the price like you will with X Rocker.

A wide open space for you to fit at least two monitors onto, with enough space underneath to slot a PC out of the way of your feet, X Rocker’s gaming desk is the perfect entry point.

On the side, you get a place to put your headphones, as well as two cable tidies and a cup holder so you don’t spill that drink all over the place.

Alternative choice: Highmore Aggro

Highmore’s Aggro gaming desk is a low-key, wide desk that will suit anyone looking for something that avoids the garish nature of some budget gaming desks. While it features some LEDs, they’re off to the side and in strips, leaving you with a great-looking desk that does the job.

Best mid-tier gaming desks

Gaming desks mostly fall into this price bracket, costing upwards of $300 before hitting the price highs of the premium. The thing to take note of here is that a lot of gaming desks have fanciful flourishes that you’ll want to consider when fitting into your room. While most will fit, the front will sometimes have a curve going in for slotting yourself into. If you have a desk-wide mat, you might find that it doesn’t sit right or slopes off.

Alternatively, there are high-quality desks at this price point that won’t come with any of the usual ‘gaming’ branding or features but will do the job just as well.

Best mid-tier gaming desk: Flexispot Pro Plus E7

Flexispot Desk Setup
The Flexispot desk makes work and play a joy.

Coming in at around $580, the Flexispot Pro Plus got a cool 9/10 in our review. It can be raised and lowered as you see fit, while the overall desk is solid to take on a dual monitor setup.

In the review, our intrepid games editor Lloyd Coombes found it the perfect sweet spot for work and gaming, allowing him to set the height to whatever he needed at that moment in time. He also mentioned that for parents, there’s a child lock to prevent the little tykes from pressing what they shouldn’t.

Alternative choice: Arozzi Arena ultrawide desk

To get around the issue of curved desks having that irritating slope, Arozzi has fitted the whole desk with a microfiber mousepad. Yes, the whole surface is a mouse pad.

This super large gaming desk is perfect for those ultrawide monitors or triple monitor setups. If you’re not a fan of the gaming accents, there’s an all-black version to keep things looking relatively normal.

Best premium gaming desks

These are quite elaborate or just very well made. There’s no real middle ground in terms of ridiculousness and usability. These are going to cost way up there, but the best thing about an expensive desk is that you can rely on it to be there for a long while.

We’d recommend these if you have incredibly specific needs, like, if you really want to house a whole PC inside your desk. That, or you’re really into standing desks.

Best premium gaming desk: OSP Checkpoint Battlestation L-shaped gaming desk

OSP battle station

This desk is usually $805, but Best Buy currently (as of 08/19/22) has it on sale for $307. A massive L-shaped desk, it features a raised platform for monitors and plug sockets, as well as wireless charging pads for your devices. It’s essentially an all-in-one, bringing in a low-key design as well.

On the side is a headphone holder, while the charging pads also have USB ports. OSP has also included a storage tray and cupholder, just to complete the battle station motif.

Alternative choice: LIAN LI DK-04 desk case

The Lian Li DK-04 is more of a PC case than a desk. Seriously, other than resting your monitors and drinks on top of it (which makes us nervous), it offers a supremely excellent desk experience by containing everything within its smart film glass housing.

It’s also able to be turned into a standing desk, or lowered to your preferred height. It’ll also support huge components like an RTX GPU and water cooling, while also having a built-in fan. What you choose to put inside is up to you, as it supports a variety of motherboards. Recommended options mostly revolve around the ATX size, as that’s what PSU can be fitted.

Flexispot Q8 Standing Desk

flexispot Q8 standing desk

A gaming desk doesn’t mean that you need to be seated all the time. Flexispot Q8, as the name suggests, is a premium gaming desk that is extremely easy to assemble. The desk comes with a bamboo top and a steel frame.

It is a sit-stand desk that smoothly transforms into a standing desk and is large enough to house a couple of monitors, CPU, Keyboard and mouse easily.The bundled cable management tray can neatly tuck the dangling cables out of sight. Our review finds it worthy for a person who’s a long-time standing desk user that’s looking for something spacious and sturdy with neat features such as memory presets and built-in wireless charging.

Secretlab Magnus Pro desk

Magnus Pro full desk overview
When paired with the Secretlab monitor mounts, magpad, and cable management accessories, the Magnus Pro makes for a beautiful setup.

The Secretlab Magnus Pro desk is another convertible gaming desk that can be transformed into sitting or a standing desk on demand. If you prefer a metal table, then you might have a special liking for the Magnus Pro.

The table comes with a very capable wire management system that doesn’t let loose wires disturb you or the aesthetics of your gaming setup. It also has custom RGB lights built in collaboration with Nanoleaf – adding that extra oomph factor.

Our review details that the table has amazing cable management, super easy controls to adjust height  and premium build makes it one of the best gaming desks. However, incompatibility of non-Secretlab accessories could be a deal breaker for a table priced at $800.

What makes for a good gaming desk in 2023?

Whether or not a gaming desk is worth it to you can be divided into a few categories, as listed below.

  • Support for multiple monitors
  • Large surfaces for you keyboard and mouse
  • Built-in cable channels for easy management
  • Space for accessories
  • Somewhere to put your PC & consoles

These are just a few factors that go into what makes a gaming desk good. Just be warned that having support for RGB is not on the essentials list, so stay away from the cheaper, “gamer”-looking desks that might have the looks, but none of the features.

Also, make sure to check out our other guides 

Best gaming chair | Best cheap gaming laptops | Best gaming keyboards | Best gaming monitor | Best gaming headsets | Best gaming laptops | Best Wireless Earbuds | Best gaming mouse | Best power bank for steam deck 

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About The Author

E-Commerce Editor. You can get in touch with him over email: joel.loynds@dexerto.com. He's written extensively about video games and tech for over a decade for various sites. Previously seen on Scan, WePC, PCGuide, Eurogamer, Digital Foundry and Metro.co.uk. A deep love for old tech, bad games and even jankier MTG decks.