The highest-performing PC components you can buy today.
One of the PC’s greatest strengths is its extreme flexibility. There’s a vast selection of hardware out there, of all different shapes and sizes and makes and models—so much so that even if your budget’s not a concern, buyer’s paralysis very well could be.
Fear not, fellow enthusiast. We’ve got your back. These are the highest-performing PC components you can buy today, from Intel’s Core i9 chips to supercharged storage. We’ve even done the homework to ensure they all work fine together if you’re looking to really splurge. (If, on the other hand, you prefer your power to be more portable, check out PCWorld's list of the best gaming laptops.)
Editor’s note: This article was most recently updated to add Nvidia's Titan V, Intel's Optane 900P, and the 12TB Seagate BarraCuda Pro.
The heart of a PC is its processor. And when it comes to consumer PCs—business and data-center rigs are a whole ‘nother beast—there’s never been a CPU as potent as Intel’s beastly 18-core Core i9-7980XE, and that should be the case since this monster costs a cool $2,000 on Newegg. This monster reigns supreme in single-threaded performance, and since its 18 cores outnumber anything else currently available from Intel or AMD, the 7900X’s comes out on top of our multi-core tests, too.
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