Build a pc articles

Building a PC in 2026 means navigating inflated RAM, storage, and GPU prices. We assembled four balanced systems that prioritize performance, value, and sensible upgrade paths.

Nvidia's shift away from PC gaming wasn't driven by AI alone. Slowing GPU gains, rising manufacturing costs, and longer upgrade cycles made gamers a far less attractive business.

Your DisplayPort 2.1 monitor and graphics card may support UHBR20, but that doesn't mean you're getting it. Here's how a seemingly harmless cable choice can change everything.

Intel's Core Ultra 7 270K Plus pushes beyond the 250K Plus with more cores and cache for $300. It costs more, but could be a strong value for high-end productivity workloads.

Intel's Core Ultra 5 250K Plus fixes what the 200 series got wrong, delivering blistering productivity performance and competitive gaming at $200, making it one of Intel's most compelling budget CPUs yet.

Platform longevity helped define Ryzen's rise, but was it really the secret sauce? As Nova Lake and Zen 6 approach, we revisit AM4 to see how much socket support truly shaped the CPU market.

With DDR5 prices quadrupling as AI demand drains supply, we tested CXMT Chinese RAM to see how it stacks up against premium and budget kits in gaming.

We revisit the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 5700X3D to see how they hold up in modern games, updating our benchmarks and comparing them against today's CPUs across multiple generations.

DDR5 pricing has pushed gamers back to AMD's AM4 platform. With Zen 3D chips gone, CPUs like the 5600X, 5700X, and 5800XT are resurging, so we retested them across 14 games.

As modern games push memory harder, choosing the right amount of RAM matters more than ever. With DRAM pricing in flux, we revisit the big question: is 16GB still enough for gaming?

AMD's CPU binning spree continues with the Ryzen 5 7500X3D, a cut-down, cache-heavy offshoot of the 7800X3D lineage. An OEM chip that somehow landed at retail, it raises plenty of questions.

We once told people to avoid the Ryzen 5 5500. Years later, it's a top-selling CPU. With DDR5 prices spiraling, has this budget Zen 3 chip become the right choice after all?

Almost no one asked for it, but curiosity won out. We're taking a close look at Intel's Core Ultra 5 225F – a locked, budget-focused CPU that's been quietly sitting on shelves for nearly a year.

DRAM prices just doubled, pushing many builders to consider running a single 16 GB stick. We test how much performance you give up when running a Ryzen system in single vs. dual channel.

With DDR5 prices still rising, DDR4 vs. DDR5 is back in focus as we test whether pairing DDR4 with a budget Intel Core i5 CPU can offset the cost of DDR5 and challenge the Ryzen competition.