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| Hopefully, your PC will look a little better than this one did... |
I spend a lot of time on Reddit giving advice on PC building and troubleshooting. I recently saw some build guides on YouTube that are great but don't address many of the common questions that new or inexperienced users have.
Additionally, many websites and YouTube hardware enthusiasts focus purely on the theoretical performance per part and, in my opinion, while the scientist in me loves that data, it doesn't necessarily help these segments of the consumer base make legitimate purchasing decisions.
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| An old photo, now... but I was still pretty happy with the way this system turned out. Plus, it turns out that white builds have a pretty good resale value! |
How to Buy a PC in 2025...
Let's start with the actual purchasing order: try not to buy parts piece by piece over an extended period of time. This is also a common refrain on the various YouTube guides I alluded to above. The reason for this is that you can potentially screw yourself with regards to the return window of the parts your buying - i.e. you can't test the parts when you get them.
Now, there is a caveat to this advice and it's that you can buy certain parts in small groups depending on which specific parts you're buying. e.g. If you're buying a CPU with integrated graphics, you don't need to purchase a GPU to test the CPU + motherboard + RAM combo.
Additionally, if you are stuck in one area, just jump to that section and read what you need ;).
But what should you purchase first?
Assuming that you're a complete newbie or someone who's going to build in a new form factor, the first thing you should nail down is...
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| From the amazing game, The Occupation... |
The Case...
The case defines the rest of your components, it sets your style and aesthetics, it affects the budget for your parts. It's also the only part that can potentially be purchased and left to lie around for months or years without being "built", and it's also one of the only parts which can last a decade and/or several PC builds, without fail.
That's one of the reasons why I am always on the lookout for deals on cases. I am not building PCs right now, but when I see a good price on a good quality case, I pounce. Who knows when I will need one!
In fact, just this last week, I bought one for my dad - did he want it? No! He wanted to keep using his old case from 2009 (of course - see my point above) but that didn't make the new case any worse of a deal and it's going to be there for me (or him) for years to come if and when I need it*...
*Don't come to me for financial advice...
Coming back to the topic at hand: once you have your case, you can plan the rest of your components around it. What power supply and motherboard form factor does your case support? How tall is the case? Do you need cable extensions? Is your case a specific colour? What length and height of GPU does it support? How high of a CPU cooler? How large of a radiator and what size fans does the case support?
It's the single component that can define your plan going forward and I have one piece of advice left: don't buy the cheapest case that looks simply okay. Get a decent case but not super expensive. For me, that price range is typically €50 - 90 but try and steer clear of no-name brands unless you can get a really good look at the case and/or an impartial review.
When you're buying a case, look at the design to determine if it will have what you need and/or want.
So, for example, you may want to use your PC as "cold" storage for projects with large amounts of information. That means you will be using spinning platter hard drives (HDD). Many modern cases don't even ship with an HDD mounting cage, meaning you'd have to buy an over-priced add-on (if it exists).
Another thing to look out for is airflow. Do you want to focus on aesthetics or do you just care about performance? This will dictate what types of fans you want in your system (and potentially, how many). If you plan on buying your own fans so that they all match, then you don't care whether a case has them pre-installed or not. Otherwise, you can focus on cases that have fans pre-installed. Of course, just because a case includes fans doesn't mean they are any good. Maybe they're noisy, maybe they can't be controlled by the fan curves you can enable in software, so they will just sit at maximum speed when they're turned on. Related to this are the mounting systems in the case itself: can you mount a 240 or 360 mm long radiator? Can you mount 140 mm fans in multiple locations?
One last thing to think about - How much airflow do you want going through your case. I've mentioned before that airflow really isn't as complicated as people want to make it. It just takes a little thought to optimise things a lot. Personally, I dislike the "goldfish tank" style cases as you are reducing the number of air volume changes per unit time due to the fact that the airflow has to "turn", which reduces velocity. The simplest configuration is a straight line of airflow from front to back or top to bottom.
These are all things you should consider when deciding on the appropriate case for you.
Cheap cases are often not worth the money you "saved", either in literal blood*, or in terms of compromises you'll have to make, usually later on once you try to do something and realise you can't.
*The finishing of the cut metal makes a big difference in user experience, you can really hurt yourself when working in some of the really cheap cases...
Expensive cases, like most other components that will be covered on this list are not anywhere worth near their cost.
Speaking of which, the next thing you should understand as part of your build is your...
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| Large or small, your budget is important to keep in when making all decisions.... |
Budget...
Now, here's the thing: many YouTube personalities will say things like, "Just spend the extra $50 - 100 for part X over part Y because either the performance/cost ratio is better or because part X is the better choice for Z reason.
They often justify this by saying something along the lines of, "If you can afford to spend X amount on a PC, then you should be able to afford to spend X + X/Y on it". However, that's not how the majority of humans manage their money - they decide how much they are willing to spend, and then spend up to that... with sometimes a little discretionary spending above that limit.
Also, these conversations that are essentially moralising over how you should spend your money aren't really useful. If I need a laptop to work/live, etc and my budget is €500 but your argument is that if I can't afford to spend €650, I shouldn't be even buying the €500 models because they're not worth it. What's the alternative? I get a crappy Chromebook for €200?!
That's not a solution and that assigned budget is there for a reason. Listen to what your customer/audience member is telling you. You only see a small sliver of their life, you don't know how they came to that decision.
You need to trust them.
So, here's my imperfect solution: set your budget based on how quickly you need your PC up and fully running.
The shorter the time you need your PC ready and finished, the more "extreme" your budget needs to be - that works both ways! Either be prepared to pay over the odds, or sacrifice performance and optimisation to go cheaper.
Once you've got those two things settled, let's look at the platform that you will build your PC around:
The Workload/Intended Use...
This defines the main components in your system. Is it going to be a gaming-focussed machine, or will it be split between gaming and work? Will it be only work-focussed? What sort of work?
For office type tasks, an integrated GPU (iGPU) on the CPU is an advantage and might suffice for your specific use case - you don't need to spend on a dedicated GPU (dGPU)!
Research your specific workload - does it benefit from lots of CPU cores? Does it utilise a dGPU? Most professional software vendors will have a minimum and recommended specification on their website - just like games!
Only you know your intended use case and programmes, start by googling those and "what hardware does it need?" or "system requirements".
You can always go to forums and ask, but have this info in hand to help those who will help you otherwise you're just being lazy and making the kind random strangers do the legwork for you.
Once you know your use case, you'll be set to spec out your...
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| Yes, it's a GPU. So, sue me... But, in all honesty, with the way the Intel leaks are panning out, it seems like CPUs are heading the way of GPUs... |
Processor (CPU)...
Now, many people will wax lyrical about what is the better generation of processors but, in my experience this just comes down to a recency or brand name bias. What is "best" is not cut and dry and, in my opinion, your processor can be the easiest purchase or the most difficult, depending on how far down the rabbit hole of "optimisation" you want to burrow...
The reason for this is that testing of CPUs is not as straightforward as for any other part: most gaming reviews primarily review performance once in game. Even then, reviewers need to make the CPU the bottleneck by playing games at low resolutions and/or low graphical settings.
The problem with this is that things happen with more data being driven around the system that aren't represented in these testing environments. Yes, your CPU that won at low resolution and settings might perform better when you're in a situation where there's a CPU bottleneck at the higher resolutions, but it actually may not because a different part of the CPU or I/O system could be being stretched...
Most application reviews focus on super-niche professional applications and not on windows and office applications or they are standardised proprietary tests which are essentially black boxes and unavailable for the vast majority of users to even be able to confirm or invalidate.
Additionally, for gaming, the number of cores themselves doesn't matter too much compared with the quality (performance) of each individual core. A 6 core current generation part can outperform an 8 core high end part from several generations ago. The one aspect where more cores are generally better is for game shader compilation - where more cores will allow a faster first-boot process into the game. But again, core performance (newer usually equals better) also has an effect on this aspect...
All of this means that CPU reviewing is very difficult and currently mostly focusses on the theoretical, instead of the practical and while that does have a lot of value, it's not necessarily reflective of the user experience.
We have various commentators, like TechYesCity who think they can feel or prove that certain generations of processors are inferior in terms of application latency but, of course, these things are not clear cut and there are many counter-arguments regarding the root cause of any user-observed issues - not least of which is the OS itself!
From what I can understand of the situation, "latency" fixes appear to mostly be in the same arena as audiophiles that use nonsensical* devices that are essentially placebo effect generators**. i.e. People are seeing things which are not there. In fact, I would bet that a large proportion of issues could be traced back to system setup and storage/RAM choices.
*From a physics point of view...
**Apologies if this comes across as dismissive but there's a complete lack of methodology and a huge focus on anecdotal experience...
From my point of view, here are the important things to consider:
- More cores are better for productivity applications (think video editing, CAD, software compilation)
- Faster single core frequency is better (more cycles per second means more work done!) - Games typically want this aspect.
- Local memory (cache) on the CPU is important - generally, higher equals better. - Games DEFINITELY want this!
- Newer generation of processor does not always equal better - the architectural design of the CPU makes a difference!
- Paying more won't always give you more performance (and vice versa)
I've touched on some of this before but what I am looking out for when buying a PC is the best combination of all of these factors for the price point I want to achieve. Most of my time on Reddit is spent over at r/buildapc which is essentially a forum for troubleshooting new builds and PC upgrades, as well as giving building/buying advice. The sad thing (from my perspective) is that most people just go for the "best". It doesn't take any skill, nuance of understanding or challenge to pick a system comprising of "9800X3D + 32 GB DDR5 6000 CL30 + RTX 5080 + 2 TB gen 4 SSD"...
While outlets like Hardware Unboxed are correct that "in the here and now" gamers don't need more than 6 CPU cores to game well, that's also not so forward-thinking. We can make the same argument back in 2020 with 4 core CPUs and I would not like to be gaming on a 4 core CPU now, in 2025.
Then there is the question about upgrading. Many people put a lot of emphasis on the fact that on AMD systems, you have an upgrade path. However, you have to think about your cost of ownership. The upgrades available on the AM4 platform (famous for its longevity) only really made sense because the initial three generations of CPUs were not that great: They were great for competition and consumer choice but performance-wise, they kinda sucked. The Ryzen 5000 (Zen 3) series fixed that and, quite frankly, the move to Zen 4 and Zen 5 hasn't seen so much of an improvement in gaming applications beyond what those CPUs were capable with when paired with high-end system memory and storage SSDs.
So, what does this mean in modern terms?
It means that core-wise, you're better off not buying a 6 core CPU in 2025 because frequency and performance are plateauing and applications are only going to get more multithreaded as time goes on. Nowadays, cost- and performance-wise, in-platform upgrades only make sense if you originally purchased a very cheap, low-end CPU near the beginning of the platform's life and upgrade to a more expensive high-end CPU near the middle-to-end of the platform's life.
That means, if you want performance don't buy a Ryzen 5 7600 in 2025 because you're paying too much for too little. Similarly, don't buy a locked-down Intel CPU, with very limited operating frequency when unlocked, more performant parts of a previous generation will perform better. However, saying this - because of the e-cores, 6 p-core unlocked CPUs are sufficient for gaming.
Speaking of Intel, their CPUs are complicated by the fact that they moved to a heterogeneous core design - i.e. they have some "performance" cores (p-cores) and some "efficiency" cores (e-cores) and, really, you only want to count the performance cores when it comes to gaming. Conversely, for AMD, you only really want to count the CPU cores which are on the same chiplet*.
*There are some games that benefit from more cores, even spread across the chiplets, but they are not that common at this point in time...
Circling back around to on-processor memory (aka "cache") more is better - when it's associated with specific CPU cores. You will see a general increase in cache each generation because of the need to improve performance beyond just core architectural design. However, cache is not an easy win - it's expensive to put on the silicon as it takes a lot of area and it requires a lot of transistors dedicated to input/output data management and synchronisation of that data between each level of memory.
From a user perspective, you also have to take into account where that cache is located. For AMD, they have chiplets, meaning that any cache not on the chiplet with the cores that are being used is not really fundamentally going to provide that boost. For Intel, cache is dedicated to either e-cores or p-cores. That's quite a big deal because, like core count, the bigger number doesn't necessarily mean better.
Yeah, it's not easy to pick a CPU for the uninitiated.
So, here are my buying guides for right now in 2026:
For a bigger budget:
- Get a modern platform (i.e. DDR5 motherboard)
- If you plan to only game, an 8 core CPU is sufficient
- If you plan to use productivity applications, then more cores is generally better (do research)
- Get an unlocked processor with a high operating frequency
For a more frugal budget:
- There's absolutely nothing wrong with going with older generations
- Try not to go low-end on those older generations as it's not worth the money to upgrade later - get the best you can now and you will actually probably save money
- 6 core, current generation CPUs are fine but still get unlocked parts, if they fit into your budget
The one caveat to the frugal advice is price of associated components. DDR4 has recently doubled in price (compared to where it was earlier this year) as it has reached End of Life (along with the current supply shortages). That extra expense will likely kill any savings you could have made by going to an older platform... so maybe bite the bullet and go DDR5.
Speaking of which...
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| Your motherboard needs to fit in the case you buy! Don't be the person who buys an ITX case but gets an mATX motherboard... |
Motherboard...
The motherboard will be defined by the features you want. For the most part, you'll know if you want an expensive board because you'll be in the market for a high end or professional application. Similarly, don't cheap out on a low-end board model as it should only be paired with low-end parts that will have a shorter lifespan in terms of usefulness.
Low-end boards will also lack features that may make you regret the purchase. Examples of these are: lack of M.2 SSD slots, PCIe expansion slots, USB ports, processor support, and wifi/bluetooth support.
Unfortunately, motherboards have increased in price over the years, meaning that a "low-end" board is up to around €110.
I typically advocate for getting a mid-range model. These are typically denoted with a 50 or 60 at the end of the model name (e.g B650, B660) but things may change, going forward.
If you want to use faster system memory, generally speaking, motherboards with two memory slots will have better compatibility due to fewer electronic signal issues. However, there's generally no downside to having four slots if you're not trying to break records.
Try and get motherboards with heat spreaders (heatsinks) on the various chips on the board. It's not 100% needed but is generally better as an indicator for both the quality of the motherboard and also the longevity of the components. You don't need a lot - some motherboards absolutely overdo it in this department but you'll be able to weed those out by how expensive they are!
Integrated backplates are nice (you won't accidentally lose them) but try and get a motherboard which does not hide the CMOS battery underneath this backplate as it will make removal/replacement more complicated for no reason.
Two last things for purchasing a motherboard - it is VERY nice to have both a BIOS flashback button and troubleshooting error LEDs on the board. The former allows you to fix BIOS issues without even neeeding a CPU in the system and allows you to recover from otherwise unrecoverable situations. The latter helps you diagnose problems with your system - especially during the initial setup when you're putting all the components together...
Ultimately, the buying advice for motherboards is simple:
- Don't spend too much
- Make sure you have enough expansion slots for m.2 SSDs
- Try and get a motherboard with BIOS flashback and/or error LEDs
- Make sure you get the motherboard size which will fit in your case! (You have ATX, mATX and ITX)
- Make sure you get the motherboard which is compatible with your CPU!
In general, you should always check compatibility of both CPU and system memory (usually referred to as RAM) on the manufacturer's website. These lists are not exhaustive, nor exclusionary - RAM kits not on the list can and will frequenty work - but they are a good starting point... If you're ever in doubt - either post on one of the many subreddits that are dedicated to helping people in these situations (far too many, IMO) or use a free service like PCPartPicker (it has various regional versions, too).
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| Stick with two and things'll be good for you... |
System Memory...
Otherwise (partially incorrectly and) informally known as "RAM", system memory is the backbone of your computer. In the past, the quality of the memory was of the utmost importance but, in my opinion, I think this is much diminished with DDR5 and newer technologies.
For example, on DDR3 and 4, you needed to work in dual-channel mode (two sticks) because otherwise you could (and frequently would) encounter bottlenecks due to CPU access with one stick. Two sticks allowed the CPU to alternate the channel being utilised, improving latency to memory and, thus, performance - usually by quite a large margin.
DDR5 technologies don't suffer as badly from this problem. Ancient Gameplays have shown the difference (or lack thereof) of a single stick of DDR5 but it does seem that newer games and combinations of more powerful CPUs and GPUs are showing that dual channel configurations are, indeed, more optimal. Meanwhile, Hardware Unboxed (and others) have shown that DDR5 doesn't even benefit that much from increased frequency or lower latency*. This is mostly due to the way newer memory technologies are designed - with DDR5 already operating effectively like dual channel mode on a single stick through increased "ranks". Add to this the error correction on these more modern RAM designs and you get more robust performance, in general.
*Though both lower latency and higher speed are definitely good, the extent to which they improve are very minor in 99% of applications... and generally not worth the extra cost.
To put it simply, though you'll find everyone under the sun proclaiming that DDR5 6000 CL30* is the best overall DRAM to be purchasing, DDR5 speeds at or above 5600 MT/s are fine, combined with a CL (CAS Latency) of 40 or less will also be fine for the majority of applications.
*Even I am guilty of this - mostly because it's at a sweet spot for price/performance and also highly compatible with both AMD and Intel CPUs and platforms. But it's mostly risen to fame because it's the exact specification that AMD recommends for its CPUs...
DDR4 also has this issue - people will over-emphasise the importance of both speed and latency but, in my testing, these are not necessarily the most important factors. As for DDR5, anything at or above DDR4 3200 MT/s and CL16 or 18 is fine.
[Addendum December 2025] The big problem right now is that memory prices have gone through the roof, meaning that even buying a single 16 GB capacity stick has shot up by more than 100% in just a couple of months as of this post. What this means for actually being able to complete a PC in 2026 remains to be seen but let's just say that, when I started this post, saying that "system memory is the backbone" of the PC was a major understatement!
So, in this environment, don't worry about losing 16% of performance by going for a single stick instead of two. Try and get through this period as best you can...
And that's it:
- Anything above DDR4 3200 with a CAS Latency at 16 - 18 or above is fine
- Anything above DDR5 5600 with a CAS Latency below 40 is fine
- A single stick is okay, even if you potentially lose a little bit of performance
- Don't get less than 16 GB capacity - it's not worth the hassle
System memory is actually one of the easier items to choose in the process of building a PC, as is...
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| The humble HDD has been firmly supplanted by any form of SSD for OS installation, general storage and data transfer. The only place left for it, in general is super cheap builds, and cold(er) storage... |
System Storage...
YES! Everyone knows the term "Hard Drive" or "Hard Disk" (HDD). It's such a ubiquitous term that people (myself included) use it incorrectly to mean "storage". Much like the humble 3.5" floppy disk became known as the "save icon", your hard drive is where you store data.
To be honest, there isn't even much for me to talk about with this one.
There are certain things you need to know about SSDs. SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC are the formats of bit storage on the NAND flash memory: Single Level Cell, Multi-, Triple-, and Quad-Level Cell technologies... What these essentially boil down to is a trade-off between speed, storage size, longevity, and reliability.
You see, SLC is the fastest, longest lived, most reliable but least storage dense technology and QLC is the most storage dense, slowest, shortest lived* and least reliable technology. What this translates to is that SLC is effectively reserved for national defense and military applications, whereas QLC is the means by which SSD manufacturers bring low-cost storage to the masses...
Now, for many years I was quite concerned about the longevity of SSDs** but it seems to have been a mostly unfounded fear in terms of the typical consumer use-cases. Consumers just aren't performing writes to their drives enough of the time and in enough volume that high error levels can occur or that write wearing appears to have a big impact on the performance and lifetime of the drive.
*"Shortest" still meaning years, here.
**I'm still concerned about the Xbox and Playstation console SSDs which are soldered to the motherboard, thus cannot be replaced, and which consoles feature constant recording features which are always writing to the drive!
The reason for this is a little complicated but to put it in a relatively short form, SSDs use a few tricks to help a) with performance; and b) with longevity.
First up, let's start with longevity. All SSDs use algorithms in their onboard controllers to manage where and how data is written physically on the NAND chips. This helps individual NAND cells to not become worn-out. Additionally, many SSDs used to use onboard DRAM chips as a buffer in order to reduce the amount of unnecessary writing to the NAND storage (which also had the effect of improving throughput performance). Finally, SSDs can sometimes be over-provisioned - meaning that their true capacity is larger than their real capacity*.
*Remember that storage sellers don't sell you the accurate number of bytes converted into Megabytes or Terabytes for historical reasons. That means that when you buy a 1 TB drive, you're getting 1,000,000,000 bytes - which is equivalent to 931 Gigabytes (because division by 1024^3 for GiB in the operating system), not 1,000 GB. For a true 1 TB drive, this would be a Tebibyte - equal to 1.100 TB (as reported in the OS). Any extra capacity beyond these may be indicative that your drive has some amount of over-provisioned quantity of NAND cells**...
**But this isn't a fool-proof way to determine it, as sector size can have an impact on how many "gigabytes" are actually recorded on your drive! Also, make sure you use System Information to check for the actual size of the drive. Otherwise, Windows, especially, can mislead you based on partitioning... The only way I find reliable to understand if there is any over-provisioning is from a review... but then, manufacturers can post-review change SSD components....
Now, with performance, things become a little tricky. As I mentioned above, SSDs are not all created equal. SATA devices will be limited to around 500-600 MB/s maximum sequential transfer speeds and the out of order (random) transfer speeds will also possibly be quite a lot lower. PCIe-based NVMe devices have much greater performance potential partially due to the specialised protocols of the PCIe standard used and partially due to the greater bandwidth of the PCIe bus compared to the SATA bus .
Additionally, features such as on-device DRAM enable faster reads and writes by implementing data buffers; reserving a portion of the drive as an SLC cache* to improve I//O performance, and by utilising the system memory to improve performance for SSDs without a DRAM cache. All of these features ensure that PCIe-based SSDs perform well, despite not working with top-of-the-line technologies.
Hell, NAND technology is so mature now that even QLC NAND devices are both super reliable and performant... The ONLY thing that you really DO need to be concerned with is how full you allow your drive to become!
Seriously, all of these measures fail when an SSD is full - to be fair, HDD performance also drops as the drive fills up but to a lesser extent due to relative ratio of performance!
I typically keep my SSDs not more than 70-80 % full and, ideally, not more than 70% full. This enables most of these technologies to function well and also allows the drive to shuffle data around without issue. This provision also technically applies to HDDs but you can get closer to the maximum capacity.
The last thing to note about performance is that it just does not have much appreciable impact on gaming. Nope. Nothing. It's all about three things in the following order: GPU/CPU/RAM. Storage speed and performance is a distant fourth and the gap is unlikely to be bridged any time soon!
Speaking of which, the last thing to talk about is capacity.
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| As you go down the stack, you will find that things fall apart... don't buy small SSDs! |
The thing with SSDs is that capacity is not all about just the amount of things you can store, it's also related to performance and longevity. You see, NAND not only comes in various types of technological implementations but also NAND manufacturing technology has changed over time, with more "layers" being able to be incorporated into a single chip.
The problem here, is that the more layers you have, the fewer NAND chips you have, as each layer contains additional cells, which means you have more capacity per chip. This means that you have fewer data channels in your SSD to the SSD controller chip because channels are limited per NAND chip!
To summarise, as NAND technology advances, fewer chips are required to satisfy the rated capacity of the SSD and thus larger capacities are required to increase both data throughput and SSD longevity - as you can see in the image above. With more channels, you have faster read/write speeds; you have better random input and output operations; you have better endurance.
The ultimate conclusion of this is that in the older days, an SSD of a particular capacity perfomed better as a ratio of the drive's overall maximal performance and had better longevity than a modern drive of the equivalent capacity.
Short version: a 512 GB drive in 2018 gave better relative performance to the top-of-the-line models than a modern 512 GB drive does today.
[Addendum December 2025]
NAND prices are now facing a similar, if less pronounced, fate to that of DRAM. Therefore, you'll have to shop around to find a decent deal on storage. Normally, I wouldn't recommend less well-known brands like Orico or Netac) but get what you can from where you can - they're mostly alright and you'll be able to identify the dodgy brands by the reviews and unrealistically "cheap" prices...
Adding to this, Crucial have decided to discontinue their consumer products and these were historically a great, cheap alternative to Western Digital, Samsung, and Sabrent. This will be a major blow to storage prices as Micron (the owner of Crucial) will divert NAND production to server products, leaving a supply hole in the consumer space.
Thus, my recommendations for buying an SSD in 2026 are:
- Don't worry about NVMe Gen 3, 4, or 5 - just get at the price you want
- Get at least a 1 TB drive but preferably 2 TB for modern devices released 2024
- Don't be afraid if you're not buying from "the big three" storage brands
The Graphics Card...
Back in the good old days, when you bought a new GPU, it was like buying a window into a new world filled with wonder and boundless performance - before being forced to do the same thing again 6 months to 1 year later. The difference was that you spent $300 or less to get that experience.
Nowadays, it's all incremental. Many people will tell you it's
because manufacturing advancements are slowing but I do not believe that
this is the root cause of the situation. In my estimation, the real
root cause is increased greed on the part of the manufacturers (just go
and see their profits), they (and their shareholders) are not happy with
30-50% profits, they want more. Which, you know, is fair enough but can
arguably be not only an untenable situation but also an unrealistic
goal.
Unfortunately, the cost to design, make, and ship
a GPU has become much greater. This means that to keep the same or
larger margins, any process or design gains are lost amidst the drive to
increase profit instead of keeping the ratio of profit the same. This
results in a race to cut product value and, at least in the GPU
environment, spend more on "intangibles" like the software stack (i.e.
ray tracing, RTX voice, upscaling, etc.).
So, taking everything into account, the hardware gains are still present. They're just not being delivered to the same consumers. A consumer who is in the market for $300 is not the same consumer that is spending $700 but the position in the product technical stack can be similar*.
*i.e. silicon size is similar, and relative performance position in the product stack is similar.
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| The RX 6750 XT > RX 9060 XT and RTX 3060 Ti > RTX 5060 Ti difference is pretty pathetic... |
The issue is that, at that sub-$500 price point, we're talking of getting a 10 - 20 % performance improvement (and sometimes VRAM regression in the same tier!) over a period of 5 years*. That improvement does come at a slightly reduced cost meaning that the real generational improvement is essentially non-existent because you could get very similar performance at the same price in the previous generations.
For example the jump from the RX 6750 XT to the RX 9060 XT is around 0 fps in rasterised performance. For the RTX 3060 Ti to the RTX 5060 Ti, it's 20 fps. At 1080p.
*Not all of the low-end cards released at the same point in the generation but I'm counting from when each generation starts because those consumers had no upgrade until the part was released and the technology for each generation is set at the start of the generation - they don't change the architecture half-way through a generation...Coming back to the topic at hand: if you want to game at 1080p High settings or 1440p medium settings, then it's likely that the same card can manage the performance you want. If you want better quality, ray tracing and higher resolutions/framerates, then you're going to have to move up a GPU performance tier.
Here's the thing with GPUs: every product is good at the right price.
So, mostly, when people are saying that GPU X is bad, what they're really saying is that "it's bad at that price". If you buy an RTX 5050 for €250 when the RTX 5060 is €280-290 and it's almost 30% more powerful with the same quantity of VRAM, you really should stretch your budget to the 5060... However, drop that 5050 to below €200 and you're looking at a pretty great deal - especially if you're only focusing on 1080p resolution and certain types of games.
Speaking of which, esports titles (Counter Strike 2, DOTA 2, Valorant, etc) typically run better on Nvidia GPUs - not always, but often. Meanwhile, certain game engines work better on AMD GPUs (the Call of Duty games spring to mind). So, always look at reviews and try and find reviews that specifically show your game (if it's graphically demanding). Sites like TechPowerUp, TechSpot and YouTube channels such as Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Kitguru, Hardware Canucks and eTeknix are all good, reliable places for general information. Places like these will give you an idea for productivity and gaming workloads. If you want more specialised information, then you're going to have to search for it.
Regarding ray tracing, since its introduction to gaming, Nvidia have been on top at each price point but AMD have caught up with the RX 9000 series, so there's not much of a problem going either way. Where the products really begin to separate is in other use cases.
For example, AMD is the clear choice if you are going to be using a Linux-based Operating System (OS). This includes SteamOS, where Nvidia cards are difficult to get working. On the other hand, Nvidia cards are typically more performant and compatible with professional programmes, programmes using the CUDA programming framework (created by Nvidia) and also most locally running* AI programmes.
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| Yes, we'd all love a huge, performant, cheap GPU with lots of VRAM but we also need to face reality... |
Cicling back to the case, you need to double check the GPU size, to make sure it fits and that your PSU has the requisite wattage and cables to support the GPU (more powerful GPUs typically need more power and cable connections - unless you're running a new-style 12VHPWR or 12V-2x6, in which case you'll either need an adapter to connect 2 or 3 8pin PCIe cables or a compatible PSU with the appropriate cable.
*As in, running on your PC, not in the cloud, on a server...Aside from the actual performance of the GPU core itself, the quantity of VRAM is also important, as it allows higher quality textures to be used by the game, along with more concurrently used features, at higher resolutions, and also overcomes some PCIe/memory bottlenecks as data needs to be shuffled to/from the GPU less frequently and so operation becomes more efficient. You only need to look at some of the testing performed by reviewers to see the effect of too little VRAM versus having enough...
The issue with VRAM is that it's too easy to get hung up on it and make a poor purchasing decision. For example, I've seen people buying the RTX 3060 12 GB or RX 7600 XT 16 GB instead of an RTX 5060 8 GB or an RX 9060 XT 8 GB - the latter two both handily outperform the former duo. The reason why this is bad is because you won't be encountering many situations where the added VRAM will be benefitting you over the decreased performance of the GPU core.
Similarly, you don't want to pick an RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB over an RTX 5070 12 GB - the latter as more than 25% better performance. If you want the raw fps, you can turn down a couple of settings to bring a game within the 12 GB VRAM capacity and enjoy generally higher quality graphics and higher framerate.
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| It's important to not take the GPU vendors' performance claims at face value and instead wait for independent reviews to come online before making most purchasing decisions... |
It's also good to be aware of how many PCIe lanes the GPU uses to connect to the system (the GPU connects directly to the CPU using the topmost PCIe 16x slot on the motherboard. It will work in lower slots if they're the correct size but will generally lose performance as these are slower and connected through the motherboard chipset) and also the PCIe generation of both the card and motherboard.
You don't need to match the generation - PCIe is a forward and backward compatible standard. However, lower-end GPUs typically have a cut-down number of lanes which means if you go too far back in generation on the motherboard side of the connection, you'll throttle the data going to and from the GPU, potentially reducing its performance.
Lastly, you need to take into account the cooling solution on the GPU. At this point in time, most GPUs are very performant at the power envelope they are working in. i.e. modern GPUs are power efficient. This means that most of them don't actually need huge coolers. However, GPU AIBs (Add-In Board partners - the companies that actually combine motherboard, cooling solution and VRAM into a finished product) will make these huge coolers with lots of flashy stuff on them in order to be able to charge a premium because their profit margins per item sold are pretty tight. Not to mention that there's no meaningful performance difference between variants of the same GPU from different vendors (e.g. ASUS versus MSI).
Therefore, for most of the current generation cards, you're better off buying the cheapest version of the GPU you want. You can also look for reviews that test noise levels of GPUs as a larger cooler will typically (though not always) allow for cooler operation and thus quieter operation.
Lastly, there are intangible/minor features of GPUs that you may want to consider:
- RGB lighting will add a premium to the GPU but provide no benefit;
- A VBIOS switch will allow two VBIOS profiles to be loaded on the GPU - while this is nice to have in case your VBIOS becomes corrupted (I've never had this happen in over 30 years of gaming) the actual different VBIOSes loaded onto the card from the vendor are usually a nothing burger and not useful despite supposedly being "different" and the user isn't really able to make their "own" VBIOS - having to rely on any official ones provided by the vendor;
- Connectivity is important - make sure you have enough HDMI/DisplayPort connections for your use case.
This last point can be important - you can get adapters which convert from HDMI to DP and vice versa but if you only have three video-out ports on your GPU and you require four, you're screwed. Another, sometimes invisible item is the multi-monitor and multi-programme performance of GPUs.
While all modern GPUs, including integrated graphics included on the CPU will easily handle multiple monitors when running at the desktop and office/web browsing programmes, GPUs in the low end will begin to crumble once you start running 3D programmes (e.g. games).
Examples of this can be running two high refresh rate monitors on a low-end card and trying to play an esport title. You'll get a big performance loss on an RTX 5060 Ti level and below unless you reduce the refresh rate of the secondary monitor to 60 Hz or less. Leaving it running at 120+ Hz will cost you dearly.
Also, running other programmes that are typically considered "light" on the GPU at the same time can result in big drops in performance. Watching YouTube or Netflix whilst running a game on an RX 9060 XT may result in improper playback of the video content as the GPU struggles to run both the game and the video playback.
So, if you plan on running multi-monitor setups, keep these things in mind.
Streaming and video editing also have their own demands on the hardware and it's typically advised to go higher-end when doing so but is not required if your time is not the utmost concern. Lower end cards will still do a decent job but slower and/or of less quality.
In my opinion, this generation, the best value GPUs are the RX 9060 XT 16 GB, RX 9070 XT, RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti. But, as I mentioned, at the right price, you can justify most GPUs.
Here are my general pieces of advice for choosing a GPU in 2026:
- Get a card with at least 12 GB of VRAM for 1080p and 1440p resolutions, 16 GB is better for long-term viability
- 16 GB VRAM is the minimum for 4K
- Treat widescreen resolutions (2560x1080 and 3440x1440) as being the resolution above - so, performance of a GPU at 1440p can be a guide for widescreen 1080, and performance at 4K can be a guide for widescreen 1440
- If you're only playing (or mostly targetting) esport titles, get Nvidia cards - 8 GB VRAM may be sufficient for these titles
- If you want to Stream, get a stronger video card than required to play the game as this will take some resources away from running the game
- If you want to do a lot of video editing, you likely want to have a higher end Nvidia card as they include two encoders/decoders for outputting the finished video (RTX 5070 Ti and higher)
- In general, it's advised to not get the cheapest card, nor the most expensive cards (i.e. the RTX 5050 isn't the best choice unless you know exactly what you're getting into; meanwhile, the RTX 5090 and 5080 are pretty poor value for performance)
- If you want good ray tracing performance, any card at or above the RTX 5070 level of performance will do
- You can absolutely go to older generations and second hand cards but you might need to repaste the thermal compound on the GPU core in certain cases
- If buying second hand, always ask for benchmarks and to see the GPU running
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| A bigger, flashier GPU construction with a meagre factory overclock will never bridge the gap with the crappiest version of a higher tier GPU... Don't fall for this trick from the vendors! |
Conclusion...
And that's how you build a PC in 2026!
Two topics I haven't touched upon in this post are Monitors and peripherals such as keyboards and mice. If I find the time, I will get onto writing something up for those, as well.
I
hope this light guide helped some prospective buyers make easier
decisions during the construction of their PCs.
Two last pieces of advice:
- You are not required to buy the latest and greatest technology. If your PC works for your use cases, don't spend money on things you don't need - unless you really want to! Also, older technology works just fine (up to a point) for modern gaming. If you can find cheaper deals on older platforms and CPUs/GPUs that you think will do you just fine, then take them.
- Platform longevity isn't everything and, often, it isn't I feel like people focus too much on it. If you're buying a platform towards the end of its life, you don't benefit from the much vaunted "longevity". If you rarely buy computers - let's say, every 5 years, you may not benefit from the longevity. Longevity is best if you buy into the platform early.
In contrast, the AM5 platform hasn't been so great, so far, because the 7000 series started off in a great place and the 9000 series couldn't perform that much better for the same price (the exception is the X3D chips). So, if you're buying into AM5 now but don't plan on upgrading for five years, then your best option from a value for money point of view is to get one of the X3D CPUs. In which case, your upgrade options are going to be slim going into the 10000 series and (if it's supported) the 11000 series.
If you buy the Ryzen 5 7500F, you'll have a better upgrade but then will you actually save money over that five year period by going cheap? I'd argue that the benefits are going to be minimal.
Of course, this conversation becomes moot when the competition fail to provide a decent alternative choice - Intel's latest platform is a big disappointment for gamers, in general. Though, there are those who claim that you can tweak it to perfection but you need to know what you're doing and want to spend the time and energy to do so...
And that's it!
See you next time and
leave your comments below or find me on Twitter/Bluesky...
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