Blog entries

The Parts List have been Updated!

Admin2 — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:12:10 +0100

RAM has gone up in price but is still reasonable. The higher end SSDs have gone up a little as well but are still a great deal at just over $1 per GB. We upgraded the AMD CPU on the $800 Computer. The rest of the changes were minor price changes and replacements for discontinued models. You can find the main Parts List page here.
http://www.homepcbuilder.com/build-your-own-computer-parts-lists.html

We've updated the parts lists

Admin2 — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:36:42 +0100

We upgraded the AMD CPU for the $800 and above computers to the latest 8 core model which now runs at 4GHz out of the box. The video card on the $800 computer is upgraded to a 650 Ti. RAM prices are up a little but still very cheap. Other changes were to replace discontinued models with current ones.

You can find the main Parts List page here.

The Parts Lists have been updated

Admin2 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:29:14 +0100

Prices for components were down overall as usual. We changed the Intel CPU model on the $250 Upgrade and $500 Computers to the next model up, G850 (2.9GHz) to G860 (3.0GHz). We updated the SSDs on the $1800 and above computers to the latest models from OCZ and Crucial. I prefer the OCZ Vertex 4. It has better write speeds and doesn't slow down when handling compressed data.

The rest of the changes were to replace discontinued models. You can find the main ...

The Parts Lists have all been updated

Admin2 — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:06:08 +0100

Prices overall have stayed about the same. A few parts up and a few down. The only changes made were to update the video cards in the $1200, $1800 and $2300 Computers to the latest generation of cards. 7000 series for ATI (AMD) and 600 series for Nvidia.

You can find the main Computer Parts Lists Here

The Parts Lists have been updated!

Admin2 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 03:05:49 +0100

Hard drives and solid state drives continue to come down in price. RAM prices have leveled off at what is an all time low. CPU prices dropped slightly as well. The only change we made was on the $1200 computer. We changed the CPU from a 2nd gen Core i5 to a 3rd gen Core i5 3570K along with the motherboard of course.

You can find the main Parts Lists page here.

The Home PC Builder 2012 DVDs are on their way to us!

Admin2 — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 07:00:00 +0100

They are scheduled to be delivered on Thursday, June 14th. It has taken longer than usual to get these DVDs completed and duplicated. We will continue to offer free online video access for those waiting for the DVDs to be delivered.

All of the Build your own Computer Parts Lists are Updated!

Admin2 — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:27:55 +0100

Hard drive prices are finally starting to go down. 1TB hard drive prices have dropped $30 in the last two months. It will take longer for the prices to get down to the pre-flood levels but they will get there. The rest of the changes were price fluctuations and replacement of discontinued parts with newer, faster, better versions.

On the video card front the 2 GPU cards are gone from stores. Single chip Nvidia GTX580's and ATI (AMD) Radeon HD 7970's are t...

We've updated all of the parts lists

Admin2 — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:20:32 +0100

We changed the recommended CPU for the $250 upgrade and $500 computer from a Socket 775 CPU to a Socket 1155 Pentium G850. This brings even the basic computer up to a point where in the future you could upgrade to a quad core, Core i7 CPU. The motherboard and RAM changed as well to accommodation the CPU change. The rest of the changes were to replace discontinued models and the usual price changes, mostly down.

You can find the main Parts Lists page here.&n...

All parts lists are updated. Hard drive prices have nearly doubled!

Admin2 — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:16:00 +0100

We've gone through and updated all of the parts lists. We changed the CPU, motherboard and RAM on the $1800 and up computers to the new Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz LGA 2011 Six-Core CPU. We also upgraded the video cards on the $2300 computer to the latest 2 chip model cards from Nvidia and AMD (ATI).

There were of course prices changes, mostly down with the exception of hard drives. In the past 2 weeks prices for hard drives have almost doubled. ...

New Bulldozer/Zambezi CPUs from AMD are available.

Admin2 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:24:57 +0100

They are pretty hard to come by. I'm not sure if AMD just didn't ship very many or there really are tons being sold. The good news is that they perform pretty well. Not as well as an Intel's current CPUs but pretty well. The high end AMD model FX 8150 (8 core) is close in performance to Intel's Core i5 2500K (4 core).

Benchmark Reviews.com has a well rounded and fare review

The even better news is that the procedure to overclock these new CPUs...

All of the Computer Parts Lists are Updated

Admin2 — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:16:48 +0100

We added a SSD section to the $1200 and up computers and upgraded the AMD CPU on the $800 computer to a quad core model. The rest of the changes were replacements for discontinued models and price changes, mostly down.

You can find the main Computer Parts Lists page here.

I just Updated all the Computer Parts Lists

Admin2 — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:47:21 +0100

There were a lot of price changes, as per usually, mostly down. One thing I noticed that is just baffling. On the $1800, $2000 and $2300 lists it is cheaper to get 12GB of RAM than 6GB of RAM. We replaced a few discontinued models and on the $800 computer we upgraded the video card from a 6850 to a 6870.

You can get to the main parts list page here.

The SSD and RAID videos are Online Now!

Admin2 — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 05:03:00 +0100

The videos are intended to teach anyone how to setup a SSD or SSD RAID array in their computer. SSD or Solid State Drives are much faster than hard drives and greatly improve your experience using your computer. Using a RAID setup with SSDs can improve speed even more.

Lesson 1 - SSD and RAID Basics
Lesson 2 - Other Features of SSDs and RAID
Lesson 3 - SATA and RAID Configuration
Lesson 4 - Finding Drivers and Installing Windows
Lesson 5 - Installing Drivers, disabling Defrag...

All Computer Parts Lists have been updated

Admin2 — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 04:03:25 +0100

As usual most of the prices went down, between $1 and $20 since the last update of the lists. The only changes were updating a few of the motherboards and the recommended DVD burner. AMD is set to release the new Bulldozer CPUs, which will run on socket AM3+, very soon. We changed out the AMD motherboards to the socket AM3+ equivalents of the socket AM3 motherboards that were in the lists. The LG burner that was in the lists has been discontinued. ...

The RAID and SSD Videos are coming along nicely

Admin2 — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0100

We've got most of the video shot with Lesson 3 through 5 close to being finished. Lesson 1 and 2 are similar in format to the Internal Component video lessons from the Home PC Builder 2011 videos. They are pure information. We're planning to have all 5 videos on the site and available for members to watch by the end of July. It will take about week after that to get them on DVD.

The Computer Parts Lists are All Updated

Admin2 — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:15:07 +0100

This month it was mostly price changes. Some a few dollars and some $10 and $30 changes. The only changes to the hardware in the lists was the video card and case recommendations in the $250 Upgrade and $500 Computers. An Nvidia 9500GT was replaced with a Radeon HD 5670. The cost went up about $20 but I think its worth it. The 5xxx series supports DX11 and can play all the latest games, just with all the bells and whistles turned off. The case was replaced ...

RAID and SSD videos are in the works!

Admin2 — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:45:02 +0100

We just ordered two Kingston SSDs. We're going to make a set of videos showing how to configure RAID 0 or 1, install Windows 7 onto the array and show some tips for getting the most performance. RAID 5 won't be possible with just two drives but we can still tell the steps for setting up the area. We'll also show a few different configuration utilities. The steps are the same but the look is different in various utilities. In RAID 1 or 5 if a drive fails there is ...

All of the computer parts lists are updated

Admin2 — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:14:08 +0100

The main changes were switching from the socket 1156 to 1155 CPUs on the $800 and $1200 computers. For the $1800 computer and above we are sticking with recommending socket 1366 until socket 2011 comes out later this year. Going with a socket 1155 motherboard and Core i7 2600K is definitely an option for higher end systems.

We also doubled the recommended amount of RAM on the $1200 and up computers. This is made possible by low RAM prices. Windows 7 64bit loves ...

Reviews Needed! The Home PC Builder 2011 DVDs are available from Amazon.com

Admin2 — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:25:15 +0100

The more reviews a product on Amazon.com has the higher it appears in searches. We need your reviews! If you have watched the 2011 videos on the site or on DVD you can give your opinion.

Here is the link to the 2011 DVD on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Home-Builder-2011-Michael-Cooper/dp/B004VBUGLC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1302803172&sr=8-2

As always your help is greatly appreciated. If there is something you don't like about the ...

New Low end Nvidia GeForce GT 520 cards are coming

Admin2 — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:00:00 +0100

This brings basic DirectX 11 support to the sub $80 market. These cards only need 29 watts to run so they will work even on systems with 300W power supplies. This makes them an easy upgrade from the on-board graphics that most $500 computers come with.

It won't play the latest games in high resolution with all the bells and whistles on but should be able to play the latest games set to lower resolution with most of the bell and whistles turned off.

Anandtech....