It's felt like an agonizingly slow five years, but SSDs are finally affordable for most PC builds. The 2009 consumer launch saw the arrival of Intel's X25 SSD, built atop SLC architecture and priced accordingly. I remember testing some of the first X25 SSDs and the resulting stack of $1200 paperweights that had accumulated. Thankfully, things have come a long way since then. With the advent of new NAND types that can pack multiple bits into a single cell, affordability and flexibility of use have arrived to the SSD marketplace.

This year in particular has seen the rapid expansion of consumer-ready SSDs, particularly with a refresh of Crucial's budget-class SSDs, ADATA's forward positioning, and Corsair's updated Force lineup. And there's more, too -- Seagate, Samsung, Kingston, PNY, SanDisk, and Mushkin have continued to ship into 2014, with Samsung planning more releases in short order.

With all these choices and the beginning price-war, it's an ideal time for consumers to jump on the constant SSD sales and the rapidly collapsing price-point. This buyer's guide will introduce the best SSDs for the price in gaming and enthusiast uses, hopefully helping with tips on selecting an SSD. We're going to stay away from the high-performance / professional marketplace in this guide.

Intel has started acting a bit strangely as a result of its uncontested dominance in the mid-to-high-end marketplace; as discussed in our Z97 vs. H97 chipset comparison, this is the first Intel platform in recent memory that has expanded compatibility between CPU and chipset generations. Haswell, the Haswell Refresh, Devil's Canyon, and Broadwell are all LGA1150 socketed chips, and although there will be some incompatible 8/9-series board/CPU combos (check before buying), a lot of these will work together.

Devil's Canyon (detailed here) is yet unreleased and Broadwell still looms on the 4Q14/1Q15 horizon. Intel has released its "Haswell Refresh" CPUs in the interim, including the new i7-4790, i5-4690, and i3-4360; the CPUs are effectively replacing the i7-4771, the i5-4670, and the i3-4340 respectively. Astute readers will notice that the refreshed CPUs are each xx2x higher in number count than their championed component.

In this Intel CPU buyer's guide, we'll look at whether the Haswell Refresh CPUs are worth buying for gamers given their unique positioning between HW, Devil's Canyon, and Broadwell. We'll also talk about overclocking options and lack thereof on the i7-4790, i5-4690, and i3-4360.

First, the specs:

There were a few major PC hardware trends at CES this year; gaming monitors supporting higher resolutions and new technologies (G-Sync, FreeSync) were among those trends. While at CES 2014, we reported on nVidia's G-Sync and how it actually works, a hardware solution to decrease frame tearing and stuttering by using a variable refresh rate (rather than a fixed 60 Hz or 120 Hz solution). Technologies like G-Sync (and FreeSync) are absolutely something I can get behind -- the overall experience delivered to the gamer is far smoother and very noticeable in gameplay; visuals lose that choppiness exhibited when using a fixed refresh rate and frame tears largely vanish.

In this round-up, we'll walk through some of the best G-Sync gaming monitors of CES 2014, with a heavier focus on 1440p and 4K resolutions (though 1080p is still most prevalent). We've already written about a few of these new monitors, including ASUS' ROG and BenQ's options.

As the year nears its end and our gaming PC guides get their yearly revamp (see: CPU, video card, & case buying guides), it's time for a new Enthusiast's Holiday Gift Guide. Similar to our "What Next? Post-Build Upgrades" article, this guide explores expansion and upgrade options for your recently-completed PC build. If you've got people who don't know what to buy for your gaming PC, send 'em this way and give them some ideas.

We'll cover functional and aesthetic upgrade options in this guide. This page will be dedicated to more aesthetic-focused components; page 2 contains video cards, coolers, mechanical keyboards, mice, gaming headsets, and CPUs.

Let's get started with our Gifts for PC Gamers holiday hardware guide!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are upon us, and there are many great deals out there to choose from.  We've already rounded-up the best gaming CPUs and video cards (along with their sales), but now we're selecting the best gaming cases for your hard-earned dollar.

Having assembled many PC builds this year, I realize that the case is the one component that you will see daily, so the aesthetic appeal takes high priority. Next, we look for a case that fits into your allotted budget, and the last thing we check for is proper air flow to ensure the temperatures inside the case remain as low as possible.

Continuing our Black Friday sales coverage (previous: gaming CPU sales), we now look to what is arguably the most critical component of any pure gaming PC: the video card. In this round-up, we'll cover some of the best video cards for gaming in 2013 (and the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales), including GPUs specifically for Battlefield 4, Assassin's Creed IV, and other games.

This coverage spans the budget range through the high-end and enthusiast options. We're mostly focusing on single-card setups, but will make SLI/CrossFire suggestions as things move along. First, a list corresponding to the below items:

Having written many PC build articles this year -- and building even more on our forums -- we've seen just about every CPU + board combination out there right now. For anyone looking to swoop in on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, we've rounded-up a list of the best processors for gaming as of 2013. These CPUs span the budget spectrum up through high-end video editing and production rigs, so we should have your price range covered.

A quick table of what's below:

We previously published an article that gave a top-level overview of motherboard selection for new PC builds. In this year's revised edition, we'll approach the topic with a bit more depth than previously and will account for Intel's Haswell CPUs and AMD's FX line of CPUs.

Selecting the best motherboard for your gaming PC build is important to ensure upgradability going forward, access to Haswell/AMD overclocking features, and overall system stability. Chipset selection is tied-at-the-hip with motherboard selection, but if you need help finding the right chipset, check out these previous two articles (Intel - Haswell; AMD - FX).

Update: See the CES 2014 edition of this article here.

Update: Our new Buyer's Guide for gaming cases was recently posted. Check out both guides for the biggest case selection range.

CES 2013 was a killer show for enthusiast and mid-range system builders, and with all of the great new content we've posted in the past week, we decided it's time to write a round-up. This post looks at all of the best gaming PC cases due for release in 2013, as revealed at CES. For those looking for advice on how to choose the best computer case for your needs, view our "How to Choose a Gaming Case" article.

We'll specifically look at mid-tower and full-tower cases here, but a post (by popular request) covering mini-ITX and mATX HTPC-grade cases will follow. Let's get to the products and photos!

Update: Please refer to our 2013 Motherboard Buyer's Guide for updated information.

Scoping out parts for a new system is an exciting time: Everything's shiny, fast, and thoroughly disgraces the previous build's specs for the same (or less) investment. The CPU should be an easy choice - grab something that makes sense for the budget and the utilization of the PC, then move on. It's often a toss-up between two different CPUs, but once that's decided, it's smooth sailing. Sort of.