I stumbled across a pretty cool website today. Aspiring PC builders, take note: this website is the only thing you’ll ever need to use to put together a PC build for any budget.
The website is called ChooseMyPC.net and it’s very cool. You go to the site, adjust the slider based on your maximum budget, and then the website recommends all of the following parts for you:
CPU / CPU cooler
Motherboard
RAM
Solid State Drive
Hard Drive
Graphics Card
Case
Power Supply
All the parts are chosen because they’re compatible with each other. They’re also chosen to maximize price/performance.
When you’re ready to buy all the chosen parts, you can click “Buy with PCPartPicker.com”, in which case you’re redirected to a build on PCPartPicker that’s already completed for you. That website shops from all the major retail websites to find the lowest prices for each one, and then you simply order the part from each retailer.

Of course, if you find a retailer that price matches (a lot of computer parts retailers do), you can simply order all your parts from the same site and save yourself a headache.
Hovering over each part also tells you more information about why each part was chosen. You’ll see messages like “A high end closed loop cooler. Good performance allows for high end overclocking without the bulk of large air coolers.”
You’ll also see messages like “This build is overkill for gaming on a single 1080p monitor”, which is what you see if you try to buy two GTX 980s.
The only parts that aren’t included on this site are your peripherals, including monitors, keyboard, mice, and speakers. If you already have those, then who cares? But if you don’t already have them, then you’ll need to add these onto the price.

As low as $400

The lowest ChooseMyPC.net will currently go is $400, which gives you a pretty pitiful rig – but still a real, legitimate PC.

At the other end of the spectrum, you can go as high as $2500, which is where the site recommends buying 2 x GTX 980s, a 256GB SSD, an i7-5930K hexa-core processor, and a water-cooling system.
 

Extra features and options

Need some extra features on your PC? There are a few different buttons you can press on ChooseMyPC.net. You can click “I want to overclock” or “I’d rather not overclock” if you plan on pushing your PC to the limit (you may need extra cooling).
You can also choose to add a Windows license key, add an optical drive, or show and hide rebates.

Works in multiple countries

If you’re based in Canada, ChooseMyPC.net redirects you to http://www.choosemypc.net/ca. If you visit that site, your parts are listed from Canadian retailers with Canadian prices.
Versions of the site are also available in the United Kingdom and Australia, both of which use local retailers to deliver accurate pricing information.
Some parts even come with a “Mail-in rebate” disclaimer, which shows how you can save a bundle of money with a simple manufacturer’s mail-in rebate form.

I still can’t believe how minimalistic the site is. But if it’s not simple enough for you, you can switch to a “Plain Text” version of the site.
Anyways, if you’re building a PC at any point in the near future, then ChooseMyPC.net is an excellent resource to use. There are hundreds of PC building websites out there, but if you’re looking for clean, simple, unbiased advice, I don’t know if it gets any better than this.