Sir Francis Bacon once famously said that knowledge is power. Then he died from pneumonia while studying the effects of freezing meat. The important thing to remember, however, is that he died on a quest for knowledge.

When it comes to building a PC, knowledge not only brings power (in terms of hardware performance), it brings savings in both cost and time.

At Logical Increments, our job is to recommend the best hardware for building a PC on any budget. That requires a lot of knowledge, and there’s no way we could gather all the necessary information by ourselves.

When new hardware launches, we often cross-reference a long list of reviews and benchmark data to determine how the new release compares to our current recommended hardware, and where it might fit on our parts list.

This list includes many of the sources we read on a regular basis to stay informed:

Best All-Purpose Sites: News, Reviews, Benchmarks

TechPowerUp: One of our favorite sites for benchmarks. They test their graphics cards on a huge range of games, and we’ve found them to be thorough and reliable over the years.

Tom’s Hardware: One of the biggest names in hardware news and reviews, and for good reason. The forums are also very active and contain a wealth of knowledge.

AnandTech: Another highly regarded name in the hardware review space. Anandtech’s Bench tool is very useful for comparing performance of parts.

Hardware Secrets: Excellent hardware reviews. They dive into the details of the hardware. Want to know who made that power supply, and how accurate the specs are?

Bit-Tech: Reviews and benchmarks from a British perspective! Another great source for quality benchmarks.

Kitguru: Solid benchmarks. Honest reviews.

Guru3D: Great photos with their reviews. Huge list of comparisons in their benchmarks.

PC Perspective: Great reviews, plus a top-notch YouTube channel and podcast.

Legit Reviews: Not only legit reviews, but legit benchmarks. Also some occasional surprises, like underwear reviews. The important thing is they use lots of data to back up their reviews, regardless of the product.

Hexus: Venerable publication from the U.K. with thorough reviews and detailed, visually appealing benchmarks.

TechReport: Well-respected reviews and benchmarks.

TweakTown: Tons of tech reviews, including PC hardware and beyond. One of the few places to provide a 0-100 rating on at least some of their hardware reviews.

HardwareCanucks: More great benchmarks, especially for 1440p and 4K gaming. A nice resource, if you can look past the fact that they’re Canadian. (Just kidding, guys!)

HardOCP: More quality reviews and benchmarks, and a good forum.

Maximum PC: More of a general PC news site, but that’s not to say they don’t have excellent reviews with solid benchmarks.

Techspot: A news site about hardware, software, gaming, and general technology (with reviews mixed in).

Sites with a Specific Focus

CPU World: An amazing resource for information on CPUs, including a great CPU comparison tool, like this.

PassMark CPU Benchmark: A pure benchmark comparison, but excellent range of CPUs.

PassMark GPU Benchmark: The same pure benchmark (no real world comparisons), but still a very wide range of GPUs.

Videocardz.com: Quick, easy specifications for every graphics card on the market.

GameGPU.ru: A Russian site with some excellent GPU benchmarks. They’ll sometimes have benchmarks that no one else has, period. Parts of the site are very outdated, but the latest stuff will be on the main page.

TFT Central: An excellent resource for monitor reviews — possibly the best monitor reviews around.

Prad.de: A fantastic German-language resource for monitor reviews. Unfortunately, the English version of the site has not been updated for years, but your browser should be able to translate the German version.

Game Debate: An awesome site for data on games and GPU benchmarks. The site can be a little tricky to navigate, but some of the information is invaluable. For an example of their game data, check out their page on the Witcher 3.

RealHardTechX’s PSU Review Database: Is your power supply dependable, or is it going to jeopardize all your expensive hardware? Get all the basic information here.

JonnyGURU: Some of the best PSU reviews.

Hardware Insights: More excellent PSU reviews.

Performance PSU: A broad array of benchmarks and component reviews with a special focus on overclocking.

FrostyTech: Some of the best heatsink reviews.

SilentPCReview: Great case reviews.

AnandTech’s SSD Benchmarks: See how almost every SSD on the market stacks up against the competition.

What did we miss?

This list covers just about all of our favorite information resources, but we surely left out some great sites. We didn’t even cover great places to get feedback on your build ideas, such as r/buildapc, but we might save those for a separate blog post on the best places to get feedback and ask questions.

So, did we leave off any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments!