The TBG DIY PC Build Guides

Introduction to the TBG 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 screaming-fast gaming towers. In total, we offer over 20 distinct DIY PC Build guides, constantly updated with the latest and greatest components.

The September 2023 Updates

There’s no doubt about it, now’s a great time to be building a PC, because competition has driven down prices for both CPUs and GPUs, and all the next-gen gear has been released. If you want something more advanced, you’ll have to wait until next year! Adding to the fun are the stunning price drops on RAM and SSDs (on the order of 10-20% per month!), which give PC builders more value than ever before. But that doesn’t mean every deal is a good deal, so let’s jump into our recommendations!

Here are the details: while we had been pushing serious gamers, as well as most content creators, to Intel since Fall 2023, AMD has responded with major product releases (including the X3D CPUs focused on gaming) and massive price cuts on existing models to make it very, very hard to recommend Intel in just about any price bracket. There is one hole in AMD’s lineup, around the $300 pricepoint, where Intel’s 13600K sweeps the floor with AMD’s 7700X in terms of price/performance. Otherwise, though, we’ve updated nearly all of our guides to AMD, starting with our least expensive build, the $500 Home Office PC, featuring AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600G, and going through all of our premium gaming PCs, which use AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D or Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

In the GPU arena, there is renewed competition with new releases from Nvidia and AMD at around $250 and up, but you have to pick carefully between these, because some are great and others are duds. Generally, under $500 AMD offers much better value. At the high end, there’s a bit more competition. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 at $600 reshaped the price-performance equation in a way Nvidia has been unwilling to do for years, and we recommend it. But step up a bit in price and it’s AMD winning again with the RX 7900 XT at just under $800, and the 7900 XTX for under $1000. And then above that, Nvidia has its RTX 4080 16GB, which offers similar rasterization performance and better Ray Tracing performance than the 7900 XTX, and is also amazingly efficient. At the ultra-high-end, there’s the overpowered RTX 4090 24GB, which is so far ahead of any other GPU that it might as well be from the future. And while it’s priced accordingly, starting at $1600, that price is actually more than fair for the performance on tap!

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. 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!

Our DIY PC Build Guides are updated monthly, and sometimes daily, to ensure you get the most up-to-date info. 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. And if you’re specifically interested in Small Form Factor PCs, definitely check out our monthly guide to the Small Form Factor PC Market as well.

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!