Computer Hardware Buying Guide

Min-max your computer hardware buying dollars.

We have built many computer systems for friends, family and clients.
Some systems are destined to be servers, some systems are gaming rigs.
All the systems have one thing in common, good hardware from good sources, and a good value.
We decided to put this site together to help you find high quality computer values. My current top two sources for quality hardware are Amazon, and Tiger Direct.
The biggest issues when building your own computers are

• Finding high quality hardware
• Finding the best values for each piece of hardware
• Making sure you have all of the pieces you need
• Making sure everything is compatible

In the interest of making life better, I intend to put some resources here to help answer these questions.

Quality

It can be difficult to judge quality of product. As a rule of thumb, go with a trusted brand names that you have personal experience with, use products you have used before, or rely on customer ratings. If the site you are buying from allows customer comments, definitely glance at them to see if anything is relevant to your build.

Best value

Generally speaking, most sites will allow a price sort from the lowest to highest prices. Shipping can often add a bit to your cost, especially with heavy parts like a power supply or UPS. Make sure you factor shipping into costs when you can.

Tiger direct will often feature "barebones kits" where the total package is cheaper than buying the parts seperately. You just need to make sure the pieces meet your standards.

Checklist

This is our handy shopping checklist. It is far to easy to forget a niggling detail like a cable.

Compatibility

Not every computer piece will work in every computer. Most hardware goes through an evolutionary process where interfaces change. It is important to make sure that all of your pieces will happily work together, hopefully before you invest a lot of money into them.