The TBG DIY PC Build Guides

The Builds

DIY PC Builder's Update, October 12, 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 was plenty of big news in terms of product releases during the past few months, including Intel's new "Comet Lake" processors, and among our favorites are the Core i3-10100 quad-core, the Core i7-10700K eight-core, and the Core i9-10850K ten-core chip. But luckily, there's a ton of competition right now, and AMD is getting ready to release its new Zen 3 CPUs (see our coverage of the pre-launch event here!), which may just edge out even the mighty 10850K in gaming while taking a solid lead in content creation. We'll see once they land in reviewers' hands! There's also some huge news from Nvidia, which "launched" its new Ampere series of RTX 3000 series GPUs. We put that in quotes, because it was as close to a paper launch as we've ever seen from Nvidia, with stock being vaporized in less than 1 second. We mean that quite literally. You can learn more about this situation in our YouTube recap of the 3080 launch! For now we're recommending people take advantage of EVGA's generous Step-Up program to buy an older GPU now and get in queue to trade it in once the 3080/3090 actually arrive at retail. 

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. 

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:

  • 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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