Announcing The Tom's Hardware Best PC Builds 2017 Update
Update, 2/16/2017, 8:10am PT: The submission period is over, and were now accepting votes. Thanks to everyone who submitted a best build. The competition is fierce this quarter, making it difficult to decide which were the best builds in each category. Click here to cast your vote for the best build in each category. Remember, we'll be picking two builds to test and giveaway from the two categories that get the most activity, so please make sure to vote.
Update, 2/3/17, 12:54pm PT: We've got about one week left for submitted builds. The editors have decided to buy some of the winning builds, and to test them and write about them, and then we'll do a drawing to give them away. We'll likely base the categories to buy from on how many submissions and subsequent votes a category gets; in other words, whichever categories get the most activity will show us which ones have the most interest, and we'll buy from there. This will be limited to just a couple of categories and will be based on our budget and the ability to keep doing this each quarter. So keep submitting your build ideas, and make sure to vote.
The Best PC Builds. Our title is practically self-explanatory. Unlike the System Builder Marathon, these configurations are not chosen by Tom's Hardware's editors. They are submitted and selected by our forum members based on defined pricing tiers. Every so often, we ask the community for its help picking parts based on performance and features for the price.
It's a new year, and although certain parts of the industry could be labeled as stagnant (yes I'm looking at you CPUs), there has been drastic progress in form factors and distribution. With the introduction of "mini" graphics cards such as the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX and the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 Mini, as well as the near standard requisite of space for full sized graphics cards, mini-ITX is now a viable form factor for any budget. The coming advent of true on-demand streaming from the likes of Nvidia further solidifies the mainstreaming of m-ITX. And so, for the first time ever, mini-ITX and SFX builds may compete in every single budget category. Are you up to the challenge?
The submission period will run until Wednesday, February 15, so be sure to post your submissions by that date. Please be sure to read and follow the rules in each submission thread. Your build can and will be disqualified if you do not follow the rules. Here are links to all eight of our build categories:
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Good luck and may the best build win!
Joshua Simenhoff was a former Tom's Hardware community manager. He covered a wide range of topics, including PC hardware how-tos and articles with a focus on community engagement. His expertise lay in connecting with readers and providing practical, informative content about the latest technology.
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yeticorn Looks to be a typo on the date. February 15th was yesterday and is definitely not a Friday.Reply -
Jsimenhoff Reply
Fixed the typo. Thanks!19306382 said:Looks to be a typo on the date. February 15th was yesterday and is definitely not a Friday.
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ElectrO_90 This competition needed to wait 1 more month for the release of Ryzen. It's pretty much going to be a huge game changer which makes these systems out of date before it will get published.Reply -
Jsimenhoff Reply
While I think all of us in the enthusiast community are cautiously optimistic for Ryzen, AMD's upcoming architecture is far from a sure thing. If it is successful it will certainly shake up the CPU market, but how that will unfold is very much up in the air. Given that, and the fact that we plan on throwing one of these Best PC Builds contests roughly every quarter this year, it would be a missed opportunity to delay the Best PC Builds for a month, failing to provide resources for builders who aren't waiting for yzen and building now.19310959 said:This competition needed to wait 1 more month for the release of Ryzen. It's pretty much going to be a huge game changer which makes these systems out of date before it will get published.
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why_wolf If anything comparing this quarter to next quarter (which will probably feature Ryzen heavy builds) will be a good way to figure out just how much performance for price gain has been made.Reply -
peonmyhall Once we get the results will any of this even be relevant? AMD has quite a bit of new releases on the horyzen than will really shake these builds up.Reply -
Jsimenhoff Reply
The results will be even more relevant and serve as a baseline for expectations in comparison to Ryzen builds.19354105 said:Once we get the results will any of this even be relevant? AMD has quite a bit of new releases on the horyzen than will really shake these builds up.