The best thing about being a PC enthusiast—beyond, of course, the never ending joy of serving as the personal support technician for friends and family—is being able to assemble a system from the ground up with the perfect mix of components for a given budget. That mix of components will vary depending on your needs, but with today's market so rich with high-performance hardware at affordable prices, it's easy to spec a custom system that will blow the doors off pre-built boxes from major PC vendors.

For those who lack the expertise to pick the best available components, we compile regular system guides outlining our recommendations at various price points. These guides are a great starting point for seasoned PC hobbyists contemplating a new build, but they're an invaluable resource for less savvy users seeking guidance as they step into the enthusiast realm.

Users new to building systems from scratch need more than just a shopping list, though. There's an art to assembling a rig from bare components. Building a PC can be a daunting task for a newbie who has never put a system together before. For those folks, we've crafted a step-by-step guide covering the basics of system assembly. Keep reading as we show you how to build a PC from scratch.