The MSI Gaming RX 470 ARMOR OC
You’re in the market for a new GPU and want to spend less than $200. In that case, the main choices would be the GTX 1050 Ti (~$140) from NVIDIA and the RX 470 (~$170) from AMD. Given the differences in price and performance, which of these mid-range graphics cards is the better deal?
We’ve made a minor update that disrupts our entire list of PC parts recommendations: The Monstrous tier (our most powerful, most expensive tier) is now more Monstrous.
The Red Ring of Death: We don’t want this console curse to happen to your PC.
Readers often ask us some variation of the following questions:
What PC would be equivalent to the PS4 / Xbox One? Can you really build an equivalent PC for the same price as a console?
This is a great question, and one that we are happy to answer.
Amazon has a few nice deals on its PC components for Cyber Monday. To be totally honest, Amazon has some amazing deals, but most of them are not related to PC parts, so we are sad. If you know of any good deals that we missed, let us know in the comments section!
Please note: The best deals are dependent on rebates. Such rebates are reliable, but only if you follow the instructions exactly and submit everything on time, so better be careful!
Ladies and gentlemen, it has begun! We’ve have been waiting a year for Black Friday sales, and Newegg’s current Black Friday deals are great!
These sale prices are guaranteed to be the best prices on these parts through Black Friday, which means you can safely buy them now without worrying about a better deal showing up on Black Friday.
So sad to see you go!
The day has come for even more AMD CPUs to be removed from our PC parts guide, to be replaced with Core i3 alternatives. We do not want to see AMD represented less and less on our guide, but we have no choice until they have a new release. Our Good and Very Good tiers have been updated to recommend Intel Core i3 builds, replacing AMD’s Vishera CPUs in that price range.
The GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti have both launched.
This is not an “exciting” launch where a new $150 card beats last year’s $500 card, but it is a good launch nonetheless. NVIDIA has new $110 and $150 cards, and they both perform well for their respective price points.
Our Minimum, Entry, and Modest tiers have been updated with Intel’s Skylake Celeron and Pentium CPUs. These are cheap, low-tier CPUs that are decent for a tight budget.
PLEASE NOTE: While this article (and its example builds) are some years old, we now have a thorough, regularly updated big guide article on building a PC for Music Production over on our main site. Check it out!
Now that you have read our warning, you may return to the content of the outdated article:
One of the most popular requests we receive is a build guide for a music production PC that will power digital audio workstation (DAW) software and sometimes external hardware similar to external preamps, My friend would use Graham Slee HiFi here. These are computers specially built for editing and working with audio and music.
Professional music production PCs often come with plenty of RAM, powerful CPUs, and the quietest components you can afford. If you’re looking to build your own professional music production PC, we’re here to help you get started.
Note: before we start, don’t forget to get the right equipment to accurately monitor your mix. It is always a great idea to get the best studio monitors so you have the most authentic representation of your mix without it being coloured by lower quality equipment. Accurate frequency reproduction is paramount to allow the mixer to be very precise with their stereo image.
