I am neither knowledgeable nor up to date. :\
My reply was refering to
Patrick and why it might not be terribly useful for someone like him, while it
is ueful for someone like you and me.
Use Logical Increments to get a basic idea of what components go together price/performancewise, so you don't end up with a CPU that's half as good as your CPU. Use pcpartpicker to make sure your choices all work together. Use tweakers or whatever price watch site you prefer (I think tomshardware also has a price watch?) to make sure you order everything from the best place.
For LI: be aware that within each level, the different options given for the same part aren't
strictly ordered from worse to better, but from cheap to expensive, and that usually, they'll always try to include "different" options to accomodate opinions and taste - they'll list an AMD and an nVidia card for almost every level, unless there really isn't anything remotely equal. So within a given level, which part you pick might be up for debate, or opinion on brand ("I've never had issues with an AMD card!" said no-one ever
), or whatever. Also, don't forget to mouse-over, the text often has a bit of info indicating why they picked that particular part instead of one cheaper/better/whatever, which may help guide your decision. And whatever you decide on, no doubt
some guy,
this guy and
another guy will offer three different opinions on what part to replace/improve/change out.
