Welcome to Build Week 2015

Build Week lead

The PC has always been the platform of choice for the tinkerer. It’s always been the platform for cutting-edge technology: the mouse, the graphical user interface, the dedicated graphics processor. Most importantly, it’s always been the platform for cutting-edge experiences: 3D, first-person shooters, online communities, and now virtual reality. PC gaming today is more vibrant and diverse than ever. If you don’t own a PC, there’s never been a better time to build one. If you’ve built your own PC in the past, you know that it saves you money, gives you complete freedom of customization, and the end product is something to be be proud of. If you’ve never built a PC before, well, we promise it’s not as hard as you think. And we want to make it even easier.

That’s what Build Week is all about. Throughout the week, we’ll be posting articles aimed at making the PC building experience easier, better, and cheaper. We’ll tell you why we think you should build your own PC, offer parts suggestions for budget, mid-range, and high-end PC builds, and even walk you through the process of building a PC for the first time.

Even if you're a veteran builder, stick around. To go along with Build Week, we have a ton of hardware coverage lined up: reviews, features, and guides to other aspects of PC gaming. You’ll be able to find them all on our Hardware page, or on this tag page dedicated to Build Week.

If there's anything you've ever wanted to know about building a PC (but were too afraid to ask), let us know in the comments. Whether you’re about to build your first PC or have been doing this for 30 years, we want to help you be a better PC gamer.

Build Week stories so far

How to build a gaming PC: a beginner's guide

Why you should build your own PC

Turning the Raspberry Pi into a $35 streaming PC

PC build guide: budget gaming PC

PC build guide: recommended gaming PC

PC build guide: high-end gaming PC

X99 motherboard roundup: seven motherboards reviewed

PC Gamer's guide to gaming on a Mac

How to set up a Windows 8 refresh point

25 of the best cases for your next build

The best reader submitted PC building pro-tips

15 of the best PC builds from around the web

Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).