The TBG DIY PC Build Guides

By Ari Altman | Published March 3, 2024 | Updated March 3, 2024

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 20 distinct DIY PC Build guides, constantly updated with the latest and greatest components.

The March 2024 Updates

Early 2024 saw a few major product updates, but nothing that shook up the PC industry in a serious way. We’ll get to those in a moment, but first, what doesn’t change are our primary CPU picks. The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is simply the fastest, most cost-effective, energy-efficient gaming CPU ever made. We recommend it in a bunch of our higher-end gaming builds. We have a few other picks for lower-budget system (mainly AMD CPUs as well), and for our high-end professional or mixed-use systems, we go with Intel’s latest Core i7 and Core i9 CPUs.

Now back to new releases, in the gaming market, Nvidia released some GPUs in January under their “Super” branding, which ended up being minor refreshes rather than major revisions. The good news is that the 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super are new and better, and we recommend them in a few builds. The 4080 Super, on the other hand, was a disappointing paper launch, with no inventory long after release, and it’s not because these are flying off shelves. That combined with the discontinuation of the original 4080 leaves a gaping hole in Nvidia’s lineup between the $800 4070 Ti Super and the ~$1900 RTX 4090, leaving the RX 7900 XTX from AMD to take the crown at the $1000 pricepoint. Oddly, AMD also took a turn releasing products that did nothing to move the ball forward, namely the RX 7600 XT and RX 7900 GRE, which landed with a “meh” among enthusiasts due to their failure to offer more price/performance than existing products.

With all this said, the biggest news in the DIY PC industry, and at CES 2024, was the advent of a new cabling system for PC cases. Sounds mundane, but for builders who are serious about cable management, this is a true revolution. The new standard uses behind-the-motherboard connections for all cables, from 24-pin all the way down to front panel cables, and everything in between. In makes for a virtually cable-less interior view (other than the GPU cable, although there’s a solution brewing for that too), and it is very likely the long-term future of PCs. For now, there are only a handful of motherboards and cases that have adopted the standard, and we feature a great pairing in our totally-revamped $3000 Elite Gaming PC Build. This is definitely a “fashion-forward” system, so while similar performance can be had for a lower price, there’s no beating the aesthetics of this build!

Finally, there is a bit of bad news on pricing. The solid-state drive market is undergoing a complete reset after a steep drop in prices in 2023. We’ve seen prices on Gen 3 and lower-end Gen 4 SSDs jump well over 50% (!) since their historic lows in October 2023, and high-end PCIe Gen 4 drives are now up about 40% and continue to creep up weekly about 5-10% every month. The one exception is PCIe Gen 5 drives, which debuted at twice the price of the best Gen 4 drives, and clearly had a ton of margin built into that price. So if you’re shopping in this market, you’ll see prices very similar to launch. The upshot of all this is that there’s no such thing as a bargain SSD anymore, so just get the capacity you need now and look for prices to drop again in about a year!

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!

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