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PC
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ASK THE
COMMUNITY
Sometimes, it’s best to ask your
fellow PC enthusiasts for help. With
1.6 million members, Reddit’s Build
a PC subreddit is one of the largest
collections of PC-building enthusiasts
on the Internet. It’s one of the best
places to go for buying advice, tips,
and tricks from other PC builders.
The community is known for
its friendly, welcoming approach,
whether you’re a newcomer, a
seasoned pro looking to take your
build to the next level, or someone
who needs help troubleshooting.
At the top of the page is a menu
bar with links to the community’s
PC-building wiki and its Discord
server. Be sure to also check out the
“Resources” link—as well as links to
old favorites such as PC Part Picker,
you’ll find user-written guides on
everything from picking an operating
system to putting the finishing
touches on your build. There’s also a
helpful video guide to building a PC.
Reddit has a number of other
excellent PC-related communities.
We particularly like Build a PC Sales
(www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales),
which highlights price cuts on PC
hardware, and GameDeals (www.
reddit.com/r/gamedeals), which
does the same for games. Reddit’s PC
hardware group (ww.reddit.com/r/
hardware) is a great place to visit if
you want to discuss PC components.
There are plenty of other good
places to go for support. The forums
at Tom’s Hardware, Linus Tech Tips,
and HardForum are all well-known
places to go to discuss all things PC-
related. Try your luck there; you’re
sure to find the answers you need.PC Building Simulator let s you tr y your hand at building a PC in a vir tual environment.PC Building Simulator lets you put
yourself in charge of a virtual PC-building
company, taking orders from customers
with everything from simple upgrades to
complete system builds, all while trying
to remain profitable.
The game was created by a member
of Reddit’s Build a PC community (see
“Ask the Community,” on the right) and
went viral, with over 650,000 downloads
of its pre-alpha demo. If it sounds like
something you’d want to try, it’s available
on Steam and GOG.USERBENCHMARK
http://www.userbenchmark.comOne tried and tested way of checking
a computer product’s quality is
through benchmarking. And what’s
better than running one or two
benchmarks? Sourcing millions of
benchmarks from PC users all around
the world, of course.
That’s what you get with
UserBenchmark. It enables users
to test their components, utilizing
this information to build up a
massive database of almost 92
million benchmarks for almost every
component on the market. You can
select a product and see how it scores
across a wide range of benchmarks,
plus how suitable it is for gaming,
desktop, and workstation builds.
What’s more, UserBenchmark
becomes even more valuable when
you compare two products. It breaks
down the comparison into a ton of
useful categories, both basic and
advanced, all using that same user-
submitted benchmark data. It’s ideal
if you need a quick way to tell which
product is better and don’t have time to
read lengthy reviews.
Like Builds.gg and PC Part Picker,
there’s a PC builder section that
creates a score for your build as you
put it together. You can see prices for
each of the components, helping you
meet your goal for quality, and stay
under budget.PC BUILDS’ BOTTLENECK
CALCULATOR
http://pc-builds.com/calculatorWhen it comes to PC building, a
bottleneck is when either your
processor or graphics card is too
slow for the other component. If your
CPU is bottlenecking your graphics
card, for example, your GPU can’t
reach its potential, because the CPU
will be holding it back.
To find out if your build has
a bottleneck, use PC Builds’
bottleneck calculator. Just pick
your processor and graphics card,
click “Calculate,” and the website
shows you where the problem lies.
That’s all very useful, but PC
Builds goes further. Once you know
the weak link, the website suggests
an alternative that you can upgrade
to. This isn’t necessarily the latest
and most powerful component—
it’s carefully picked to be at an
appropriate level for your other
components. Alternatively, if you
wanted to downgrade the more
powerful component to save money,
there are suggestions for that, too.
PC Builds also has a database of
games to check your components
against. Click “Can You Run It” and
pick a game to see what FPS you’re
likely to get at various quality
settings and resolutions—perfect
for checking whether your build is
going to meet your targets.maximumpc.com OCT 2019 MAXIMUMPC 33