re: Build the Best Gaming PC Your Money Can Buy: A Detailed Guide (Updated Sep 2014)

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++++ALERT: You are reading an out-of-date version of the guide and wasting your time. Read the PDF for the most accurate up-to-date info.It's best to download the PDF and use a proper PDF reader. Google's formatting of PDFs breaks all of the links. Link to directly download the PDF. I have stopped updating the text in the thread because the forum's limited code makes it far too time-consuming to change images and add text.++++
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Budget

As part of this guide, we are going to configure gaming PCs at three different budgets: $600, $800, and $1,000. I feel that these budgets best represent the performance range of mainstream custom gaming PCs, with the lower end being an ideal comparison to the next-gen consoles, and the higher end representing a powerful gaming PC with a fair amount of built-in future proofing for the evolution of next-gen games.

====///====Some Notes about the Budgets====\\\====
> The budget includes the PC only[/b] – That includes everything inside the case. Monitors, keyboards, mice, and headphones/speakers vary widely in personal preference and price, so those peripherals are not included.

> The sample build prices will have a deviation of about 10% from their respective budgets – When you save a configuration on PCPartPicker, you can monitor its total price and even see a graph showing its price history. You’ll notice that it changes often—it’s like watching a company’s stock, as I’ve seen hardware prices change multiple times in a 24-hour period. The price changes are the result of constantly cycling promos, rebate offers, basic supply and demand, and new releases. Because it changes so often, any particular set of components I recommend today could shift up or down in price tomorrow, or an hour from now. That’s why this is a guide, and not just a compilation of PCPartPicker builds for you to blindly accept.

> Promos are included – As I said above, one of the reasons PC hardware prices change so rapidly is because of the constant limited-time promos that cycle in and out. The promos can provide considerable savings and are reliable enough that if a promo ends on one part, you’re bound to find a promo on some other component that will offset the difference and not decrease performance.

> These budgets take rebates into account – Yes, I know rebates are annoying. But they are rampant in the PC hardware market. A $10 rebate here and there may seem like more trouble than it’s worth, but they add up to be a fair sum of money that can sometimes equate to getting the performance of a $700 PC for $600. If you follow directions, the companies do reliably make good on their rebate offers, and the whole process shouldn’t take you 30 minutes if you just mail them all at once. The only real drawback is that you have to temporarily tie up more money than your budget allowed (6–8 weeks unless you pay a couple of dollars to each company for rush processing). Regardless, I have decided to include rebates by default and urge you to find the wiggle room to include them yourself.

> The budget does not include an operating system – I wanted to focus on the hardware performance, since the operating system is pretty much a given. Most gamers are still using Windows 7 at this point. How you acquire the software is up to you. Of course, it would be wrong of me to suggest acquiring it illegally, so I won’t. Stealing is wrong, after all. I know it’s tempting to pirate Windows 7 because it’s incredibly easy to use one of many torrent sites to download and crack a fully working copy that even delivers updates—but is it right? Even if you’ve already dropped hundreds of dollars into hardware, and you’d rather just download a torrent of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit because it’s incredible easy, you should consider the money you’re taking from Microsoft by this devious act. Could you really just visit www.kickass.to and do a simple search for a “Windows 7 Loader by Daz,” download it in minutes, and fully activate any copy of Windows 7 without feeling guilty?

So, with your $600, $800, or $1,000 PC, how much money should you allocate to each component? That’s an important question and one that first-time builders often ignore when they allocate too much of their budget to components that should be treated as lower priority. The pie graph below shows a general percentage range you should be aiming for when selecting parts for your budget.



I decided to lump hard drives, optical drives, and solid state drives into the same category, because the percentage will still be the same in lower-budget machines (you simply remove the solid state drive from the equation, because a $600 budget will allow for a $60–$70 hard drive and an optional $15–$20 optical drive).

Some of the percentage ranges are wide by design. They account for variances in budget and premium options. For example, you’d probably spend 12% on the motherboard in a $1000 machine, but likely a few more percent in an $800 build because motherboard prices won’t scale down much in these performance ranges, and neither will memory or cases. Percentages can also vary due to discounts and rebate deals at various times of year (common with power supplies and video cards). Consider the chart as a basic sanity check to ensure you’re not making a common newbie mistake, such as putting too much money into the CPU, motherboard, or memory.

This guide will explain the thought process behind selecting each component. If the chart doesn’t make sense to you now, it should by the time you finish reading.