Have you ever wondered what hardware to buy for your new machine, what components are going to get you the best bang for the buck, or how to build the baddest box on the block? Ars Technica’s System Guide is just the thing for you.

System recommendations are harder to do than most people think, but we’ve diligently worked to keep our guides up-to-date with the most mouth-watering hardware.

But reader beware: we’re not going to just choose the cheapest stuff or the best stuff and throw it together and call it a system (as many “recommenders” are wont to do).  Rather, our guides are meant to reflect real world issues.  For example, we’ll tally up prices for you based on what we glean from our own online comparison shopping engine, not vendors that we have special deals with, or even worse, MSRPs.  Real-world prices, baby. 

And, of course, this is Ars Technica.  We are not concerned with what you should be buying your 500-person company for your next mass upgrade. These are the systems that WE, your fellow enthusiasts, either have, plan to have, or would love desperately to have. 🙂  We know how you think, ’cause we think that way, too.