Marcus Johnson
Marcus is a content creator and workstation specialist who builds PCs for video editors, 3D artists, and machine learning engineers. With a background in professional video production, he understands the real-world demands of creative workloads and optimizes builds accordingly.
Build Guides (10)
Best Gaming PC Build Under $3,000 (2026)
The best gaming PC build under $3,000 in 2026 pairs an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an RTX 5070 Ti at $2,950, delivering 100+ FPS at 1440p Ultra and an AM5 upgrade path. The RTX 5080 version is $2,961 at August 2026 prices.
2026-07-07
Best Back-to-School College PC Build (2026)
The best PC for college in 2026: an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with an RTX 4060 — a compact, quiet, dorm-friendly build that flies through coursework and multitasking and still plays modern games at 1080p High. Includes an APU-only, GPU-free variant for pure productivity.
2026-07-07
Best 4K Gaming PC Build (2026)
The best 4K gaming PC you can build in 2026, about $3,036 at August 2026 catalogue prices: a Ryzen 7 7800X3D paired with an RTX 5080 on a B650 platform, with 32GB of DDR5-6000 and a 2TB NVMe. It averages 98 FPS at native 4K across our ten-game benchmark set, with 8 of the 10 above 60 FPS before any upscaling.
2026-06-08
Best Budget 1080p Gaming PC Build (2026)
The best budget 1080p gaming PC build for 2026 on a modern AM5 platform: a Ryzen 5 7600X and Radeon RX 7600 that deliver smooth high-settings 1080p gaming with room to grow.
2026-06-03
Ultra Budget PC Under $600
The absolute cheapest new gaming-capable PC you can build — perfect for a first build, a kid's gaming PC, or basic 1080p gaming on a tight budget.
2025-07-14
Music Production & DAW Workstation
A low-latency workstation for Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, and Pro Tools — built for large sessions with many tracks and virtual instruments.
2025-07-07
Best PC for Fortnite & Valorant (Competitive Esports)
A focused build for competitive multiplayer gaming where high frame rates and low input latency matter more than visual fidelity.
2025-06-30
AI & Machine Learning Workstation
A workstation built for training neural networks, running large language models locally, and serious data science work — anchored by 24GB of GPU VRAM.
2025-06-21
4K Gaming Powerhouse
No-compromise 4K gaming at ultra settings. This build pairs the fastest consumer GPU with Intel's flagship to push every pixel.
2025-06-11
Streaming and Gaming PC
Game at high frame rates while streaming to Twitch or YouTube without dropped frames, thanks to NVENC encoding and plenty of CPU threads.
2025-05-31
News Articles (2)
Best PC Cases of 2026: What We'd Actually Buy at Today's Prices
Twelve picks from $59 to $239, priced against the live PlanMyPC catalog on August 1, 2026 — plus an honest accounting of which of our 2025 picks survived the year and which quietly disappeared.
2026-08-01
Are PCIe 5.0 SSDs Worth It in 2026? What the Prices Actually Say
The cheapest Gen 5 drives now undercut mainstream Gen 4 at 1TB and 2TB — but the median Gen 5 still costs 23-34% more. The generation label has stopped being a useful shortcut.
2025-06-08