StoneMountain64's PC Build/Parts Recommendations

The just-about-average spec: $1,000

By by jumping up another $200, you will finally enter the realm of high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming, as well as low-settings RTX gaming. Additionally, Windows is going to feel a lot snappier now that we can include a good SSD boot drive

The previous esport titles will run flawlessly (achieve monitor refresh rate) at almost any resolution you choose, at almost any setting. Emulation? No problem. You could even start to get into 1440p 60fps gaming on some triple-A titles. At 1080p, however, this tier will most likely hit at least 120-144fps on most games with medium settings at a minimum in triple-A titles. 

The 2021 average spec: $1,200

After increasing the budget another $200, we find ourselves at the middle of the bell curve when it comes to parts. This tier will absolutely crush 1080p gaming at any refresh rate, ultra settings, RTX (with DLSS), and will able to play almost any triple-A title at a great framerate (120-144+ fps on Warzone).

Increasing to 1440p, it will still hold respectable frame rates even at medium to ultra settings (although you may have to decrease settings to achieve your refresh rate). How does 50-60fps on Cyberpunk 2077 sound? Or 144+ fps on Doom Eternal?

The "this is a great PC" spec: $1,500

Once you increase your budget to $1,500, the high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming sphere starts to be achieved. This tier of PC is almost not worth wasting on 1080p, but if you play games with a 240hz monitor, this tier would be the sweet spot for that. 

At 1440p you're talking 120-144fps+ in most Triple-A titles, even at ultra settings. You're still in respectable-frame-rate territory even with ray tracing enabled in some titles (games like Cyberpunk 2077 are an outlier, due to their poor optimization; this spec would get 50-60fps in that title with ultra ray tracing settings).

The 1440p144 ultra-settings crusher spec: $2,000

This spec absolutely destroys 1440p in any game it encounters. Cyberpunk 2077 all maxed out, ultra ray tracing (with DLSS)? 65-80fps. Microsoft Flight Simulator, all ultra/maxed out? 55-65fps. Any other triple-A title that's not notoriously hard to run? Easily 120 to 144fps, without breaking a sweat, completely maxed out. We went over by $20 here, but, oh well.

It's at this tier we can even start discussing getting into playable 4k gaming at tolerable frame rates. Expect to see 60fps+ in most titles at 4k, although you may need to turn some settings down. In games that support DLSS, you may have to set that feature to "performance" to see good/more-playable frame rates.

The extreme enthusiast/productivity/streaming spec: $2,500

Have a 4k monitor/TV and need a rig to play 4k games? Want to stream to Twitch/Facebook/YouTube all on one PC? Need an absolutely blazing-fast video-editing rig? This build will do all of that and more. We went over by about $27, but at this price point, does it really matter?

At this tier, you don't actually see a ton of framerate improvement in gaming over the previous tier (the 5900x and 5800x are pretty similar in most games). Where you see a difference is in applications that utilize all/multiple CPU cores, like streaming+gaming/video editing/scientific/programming applications. This is a tier of system that popular streamers most likely have.

The "I am unbelievably filthy rich and you are not" spec: $infinite

Have your $GME or crypto gains padded your bank account? Trust fund account accessible with the touch of a button? Won the lottery? Mid-life crisis? Extra $100 bills burning holes in every pocket of every article of clothing you own? No problem, this build will satisfy all of those situations. This is the best PC money can buy for the average consumer, period. 4k gaming is a reality with this build.

With infinite money, the only option for a CPU is the AMD Ryzen 9 5950x. You could stream 1080p60, Play Crysis 3 Remastered, render a 4k video in Adobe Premiere, and have 300 Chrome tabs all open at the same time and still have CPU power to spare. Our motherboard is the most feature-rich and expensive X570 board available, the Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero. Our RAM is the best Samsung B-Die (translation: it's really good) kit you can buy: 64GB of G.Skill's Trident Z Royal 3600MHz CL14. 

The storage situation on this build would make a data-hoarder's mouth water. Want a shiny, new PCI-E Gen 4 SSD? With 4TB, and 4.9/3.5 GB/s sequential read/write speeds? Sure, let's do it. Actually, let's do 2 of them, because we can. Have a ton of memes about rich people being better than poor people? You can store them on the 18TB HDD from Seagate that's included on this build.

The "I want to buy a pre-built system and not build a PC" spec

You've finally made it down to the pre-built systems. To start, it's important to note that in most cases, you are probably going to pay what's called the "pre-built tax" when choosing to not build your own system. This is an upcharge on a computer that a company charges on a prebuilt PC. Usually, it's a few hundred dollars over buying separate parts and building it yourself. But sometimes, that difference really isn't that much. 

The main reason folks buy a prebuilt system is for the convenience. You won't have to spend an entire evening putting together a system if you haven't done it before. It shows up to your door, you plug it in, you plug your keyboard/mouse/monitor in, and it just works. No driver issues, no BIOS issues, etc., everything works out of the box. Additionally, in early 2021, the other big reason to buy a prebuilt is to actually buy NVIDIA 30-series GPUs, or AMD 6000-series GPUs. System integrators get access to those parts and include them in prebuilt systems, while consumers buying them separately are out of luck.

One very crucial point about pre-build PCs is that some manufacturers cheap out on certain parts to keep costs as low as possible. That prebuilt you found that includes a Ryzen 7 3700x and 3060Ti for a decent price? It may have a 550W 80+ White power supply from a company you've never heard of before, or a cheapo mini ITX sized B450 motherboard in a full ATX case (usually the cheapest motherboards you can find, with the least amount of slots/ports/features). 

In our opinion, if you really have your mind set on a prebuilt system, you will want to look for a few things. First, if the power supply in the specs mentions "80+ white" or "80+ efficiency", without including the words "bronze" or "gold", it is almost certainly a garbage tier power supply. Going along with that, if your parts are similar to the more expensive tiers listed above (including a GPU like an RTX 3070 and above) and the power supply on the prebuilt is 500W-600W, it is absolutely too small of a wattage amount. One other thing to watch out for is the use of a "mini ITX" form-factor motherboard being used in an ATX form factor case. Mini ITX motherboards are tiny, and have minimal or no room for further expansion. It's a cost-cutting measure that the consumer bears in the end.

With that all said, here's a list of some reputable prebuilt manufacturers where you can price/customize a system. Each link should take you to the place to start configuring a system. We recommend sticking to the parts we've identified in the tiers above; in early 2021, AMD really has the edge over Intel at almost every price point for CPUs.

• NZXT
• iBuyPower
• CyberPowerPC
• Maingear
• Origin PC
• Xidax
• Digital Storm

With the tiers all out of the way, I want to thank you for reading my guide about PC builds/parts. And thank you to Alex and Brock for spending the time to compile all of this info for me and help organize everything for you guys to digest. I hope you're able to learn something from this guide!