The TBG DIY PC Build Guides

Introduction to the PC Build Guides

Welcome to TBG’s DIY PC Build Guides! This is where you’ll find all the best PC builds on the ‘net, from ultra-compact home office PCs to massive gaming towers. In total, we offer 24 distinct DIY PC Build guides, updated with the latest and greatest components. And while we know our readers stumble upon a lot of other sites during their research, what we do is completely different: we professionally curate every build based on relationships we have with dozens of manufacturers and our constant testing of the latest products. That means our PC Builds are the most up-to-date builds you’ll find anywhere, and actually perform the best, too.

A Word on the GPU Situation

No, things have not gotten better in the GPU market, where it’s still impossible to buy video cards at retail, despite the paper launch of even more GeForce GPUs in early June. On eBay, every GPU is still selling for 2-3x its MSRP (including 5-year-old entry-level models!), despite the cooling of the crypto coin market. We strongly discourage people from paying eBay prices, but that doesn’t mean you can get started on your next PC building project! While GPUs won’t arrive back at retail until the end of Summer 2021 based on our latest estimate, there’s a lot of great gear you can get now, and frankly, some of it you should get now to avoid coming price hikes.

TBG’s Four Key Tips for PC Builders This Month

Now on to the latest updates! Here are four key factors to consider regarding component picks this month:

• Intel launched its new Rocket Lake CPUs in March, and while the top-end Core i9 was a big failure and the Core i7 was “meh”, the Core i5 models are excellent, and clearly knock AMD’s old Zen 2-based CPUs out of contention. Perhaps the most important part of these Core CPUs is their built-in Intel graphics, which is priceless these days, and something AMD does not offer in most of its CPUs. For this reason, we recommend Intel over AMD without hesitation in the mid-range market. For high-end gaming and content creation machines, we recommend AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X, and Ryzen 9 5900X, which are now all available in decent quantities, but you’ll need to provide your own GPU.
• RAM prices are going up, and SSD prices are starting to as well, so picking up these components now is a great idea. Hard drives are also selling out worldwide due to their use in “Chia” coin mining, although we rarely recommend hard drives except for long-term media storage.
• The price of high-end power supplies, while impacted by tariffs in the US, is actually starting to fall, and availability is improving. We think this is a sure sign that the crypto mining market is weakening. All high-capacity PSUs vanished instantly from the market in early 2021 due to their use in mining rigs.
• OEM manufacturers continue to gain access to a select number of GPUs, so at least for now, you can get a pre-built gaming PC with a great GPU today. But don’t take that for granted… we’ve seen stock dwindling and prices rising even on these machines.

Our guides therefore offer two different approaches: for small office and mainstream content creation systems, there’s actually never been a better time to be building your own PC thanks to Intel’s newest CPUs. For gaming PCs, we’ve identified a number of great pre-built PCs that you should definitely consider in lieu of building your own PC, or if you’re committed to building, you can get started using an older GPU that you have on hand.

More In-Depth Content From TBG

Note that many of the PC builds we profile are Small Form Factor models, and while they are all listed below, you can learn more about SFF PCs by jumping over to our monthly guide to the Small Form Factor PC Market.

We’re spending all of our editorial and review time over at YouTube, which is where we’ve rolled out overview videos for many of our builds. You can post any question in our latest channel trailer here and we’ll answer it! And don’t forget to subscribe while you’re there to make sure you don’t miss out! Moving forward, only our very popular build guides will continue to get the “written” treatment, and if you appreciate the work we do on these, don’t forget to use our Amazon and Newegg links to support continued publication of these guides.

Using the TBG PC Build Guides

Whether it’s your first, tenth, or hundredth time building a PC, these guides will set you up with the best components you can buy. Our build guides fall into five price ranges. To find the right PC for you, feel free to browse all of the options below, or alternatively choose specific criteria from our filter browser below, which will display just the builds that meet your needs. You can then click on the “View Specs” button to see a quick view of prices, parts, and dimensions, or click the “View Guide” button to jump straight to the full Build Guide for that build. Happy hunting, and good luck with whichever build you choose!

We’d like to express special thanks to SilverStone Technology Co., which sponsors the TBG PC Build Guides. Founded in 2003, SilverStone has made major contributions to PC case design, small form factor PC development, and power supply innovation!