The TBG DIY PC Build Guides

The Builds

DIY PC Builder's Update, September 2, 2020

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 up 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.

There's been plenty of big news in terms of product releaeses during Summer 2020, including Intel's new "Comet Lake" Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. The headliner Core i9-10900K 10-core was paper launched, and we don't expect it to ever be stocked in serious quantities, as Intel likely can't actually manufacture it as specified. Luckily, the very similar Core i9-10850K was just launched to fill the void, and we've added it to some of our ultra-high-end gaming PC guides. The Intel CPUs we like best, though, is the Core i7-10700K, which is last-gen's 9900K in disguise (at a much lower price!), and the mid-range Core i3-10100, which offers four cores and 8 threads at a great new pricepoint, just $130! Right now, our builds are about evenly split between AMD- and Intel-based models, which goes to show how great this competition is for consumers. There really are good choices from both teams, and when AMD launches its Zen 3 CPUs at the end of 2020, things will get even more interesting!

And there's the huge news that came from Nvidia, with the release of their new "Ampere" series of RTX 3000 series GPUs, starting at $500 for the RTX 3070! That model won't appear until October, but the $700 RTX 3080 10GB arrives on Sept. 17th, and the gargantuan RTX 3090 24GB arrives on Sept. 24th at the $1500 pricepoint. You can learn more about this launch in our YouTube preview! 

The SFF Builds

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. Another quick note for long-time readers of TBG: all of our editorial content going forward will be available exclusively on our YouTube channel. That's also where you can get your PC assembly questions answered. We've rolled out videos for many of our builds at this point, as you'll see in each guide, but you can post any question in our Summer 2020 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 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:

  • The Low-Cost Builds ($500-$750): if this is your first build, or you have modest needs, these systems will be ideal for home office, home theater, or gaming.
  • The Mid-Range Builds ($1,000-$1,250): you want a PC that will be faster and quieter than just about any off-the-shelf system, but you still want it to be easy to build.
  • The High-End Builds ($1,500-$2,000): you're looking for serious gaming chops, or a very powerful office PC.
  • The Ultra-High-End Builds ($2,500-$5,000): you're looking for cutting-edge technology and extreme gaming performance.
  • The Supreme Dream Machine (~$10,000): you have a truly unlimited budget, or you just want to know what you could buy if you did!

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!

 

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