PC Builder

The things that stop a build working. It checks that the processor and motherboard share a socket, that the memory standard matches the platform, that the cooler has a mounting kit for your socket, that the motherboard fits the case, and that the power supply is large enough for what you have chosen. It also scores the build for gaming and for productivity, so you can see whether the money is going where you intended.

No. They are indicative figures for comparing one build against another, not current retail prices, and they are not fed from any retailer. Treat the total as a rough sense of where a build sits rather than a quote. Always check current pricing before you buy, particularly for graphics cards, where the real price and the nominal price frequently have little to do with each other.

It means the components are strong relative to each other, which is not the same thing. The score weights processor and graphics tiers plus memory capacity and speed, split into a gaming figure and a productivity figure. A build can score well and still be wrong for you — an expensive processor paired with a modest card scores respectably on productivity and disappoints in games. Read the two figures separately and pick the one that matches what you actually do.

The builder gives a quick estimate from the processor and graphics card plus an allowance for everything else, with a safety margin on top. For a proper figure, take the build to our PSU calculator, which works from real PL1/PL2 and board power values, models transient spikes, and accounts for your drives, fans, cooling and memory. The quick number here is for sanity-checking a selection; the PSU calculator is for deciding what to buy.

The compatibility checks and the performance score will show you when a pairing is lopsided, but for the actual percentage take the same processor and card to the bottleneck calculator on the home page. That gives you the figure at your chosen resolution, which is the part that matters — a pairing can be perfectly sensible at 4K and badly mismatched at 1080p, and only the resolution-aware calculation tells you which.

On LGA1700 you can, if the specific motherboard supports it. Intel’s 12th to 14th generation processors have memory controllers that handle both DDR4 and DDR5, and the board decides which — so you need to check the board’s specification, not the processor’s. AMD is stricter: AM5 is DDR5 only and AM4 is DDR4 only, with no boards bridging the two. The builder flags the AMD cases as incompatible and allows the Intel ones.

A basic filter usually just hides parts it has decided are incompatible without saying why. This tool lets you pick anything and then tells you, in a written sentence, exactly which two components conflict and what the mismatch is, whether that is a socket, a memory standard, a cooler mount, a case size or a power shortfall.

Because the platforms are genuinely different. AM5 motherboards only ever support DDR5, so a DDR4 kit cannot work there regardless of the specific board. AM4 is the reverse, DDR4 only. LGA1700 is the exception where the board itself determines which standard is supported, so the same blanket rule does not apply.

The builder gives you a quick estimate from your processor’s TDP plus your graphics card’s TDP plus a 150W allowance for the rest of the system, and flags it if your chosen PSU falls short of that figure. For a number to actually buy against, run the same parts through the PSU calculator, which uses real PL1/PL2 power limits and board power figures instead of TDP and accounts for transient spikes.

No, and they are not meant to be identical. The builder’s figure is a fast sanity check based on TDP and a flat system allowance. The PSU calculator’s figure is the more rigorous one, built from real power limits and modeled spikes, and is the one to size a purchase against.

No. They are indicative figures meant for comparing one hypothetical build against another, not a live pricing feed from any retailer. Always check the actual current price before buying, particularly for graphics cards, where the listed price and the street price often differ significantly.

It is a relative score built from your processor’s benchmark tier, your graphics card’s benchmark tier, and your memory’s capacity and speed, calculated once with weights that favor gaming and once with weights that favor productivity and rendering work. It tells you how the components compare to each other for that use case, not a guaranteed frame rate or render time.

Not automatically. It means the components are strong relative to each other for that scoring method. A build can score well on productivity and be a mediocre gaming choice, or the reverse, if the processor and graphics card are unevenly matched for your actual use. Read the gaming and productivity scores separately and use the one that matches what you do with the PC.

Not necessarily. Several mid-range and budget processors ship with an included cooler adequate for stock behavior. If you plan to overclock, run sustained heavy loads, or you simply want lower noise and temperatures, an aftermarket cooler with headroom is worth it, and the builder will still check that whatever cooler you select has a mounting kit for your socket.

The tool tells you directly that the cooler you selected does not include a mounting kit for your processor’s socket. Cooler compatibility does not carry automatically between socket generations, so a cooler bought for an older platform may have nothing to attach to a newer board.

M.2 drives using NVMe connect directly to the motherboard’s high-speed lanes and are substantially faster for loading and file transfers. SATA drives, whether 2.5 inch or M.2 form factor, are capped by the older SATA interface and are slower but often cheaper per gigabyte. Most current motherboards support both, so the choice usually comes down to speed versus storage budget rather than compatibility.

Match the motherboard’s form factor (typically ATX, Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX) against the sizes the case supports. The builder checks this automatically and tells you directly if the case you picked does not support the form factor of the motherboard you picked, rather than leaving you to check a spec sheet yourself.

No. A case built for Micro-ATX or smaller boards does not have the mounting standoffs or clearance for a full ATX board. The reverse is usually fine: a full ATX case will generally fit Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX boards as well, since cases are built to support their stated size and everything smaller.

Because the two workloads lean on different parts of the system. Gaming performance depends more heavily on the graphics card, while productivity and rendering work leans more on the processor. Weighting both the same way would hide that difference and produce a single number that fits neither use case particularly well.

Both are factored in separately. Capacity is scored in bands, with 32GB and above scoring highest, 16GB in the middle, and 8GB scoring lowest. Speed is scored on its own scale, with faster kits earning a small multiplier on top of the capacity score, reflecting that both how much memory you have and how fast it runs affect real performance.

Generally components with higher benchmark tiers score better, but price and tier are not the same thing, since prices shown are indicative rather than live, and a part can be an expensive niche product without a correspondingly high benchmark mark. Do not assume the priciest option is automatically the best-scoring one, check the actual tier the score reflects.

Recency does not guarantee a socket match. Sockets change across generations even within the same brand, and two parts released around the same time can still use different sockets if they belong to different platform generations. The tool checks the specific socket string on both parts, not how new they are.

The performance score needs at least a processor and a graphics card selected to calculate anything meaningful, since both feed directly into the tiering. The compatibility checks run on whatever pairs of parts you have filled in, so you can catch a socket or memory mismatch early without having chosen a case or cooler yet.

Yes, it is free and there is no account or signup required at any point. Nothing is held back behind a login, and there is no email capture to see a result.

The catalogue here is curated rather than exhaustive, covering common motherboards, memory kits, storage, cases, coolers and power supplies, plus the processors and graphics cards drawn from our own hardware benchmark database. It is smaller than PCPartPicker’s catalogue, which lists a far wider range of individual SKUs from many manufacturers. What this tool prioritizes instead is getting the compatibility rules and the performance scoring right for the parts it does include.

You can use it to work out a compatible, sensibly matched parts list and rough total cost, but treat the prices as a planning reference rather than a checkout price. Look up current pricing and availability for the exact models before ordering, since prices here are not a live retailer feed.

It is a flat allowance for everything in the system besides the processor and graphics card: the motherboard, storage drives, case fans, RGB, and memory. It is a simplification rather than a per-component measurement, which is exactly why the more detailed PSU calculator exists for anyone who wants a tighter number.

Because the score is driven by benchmark tier and memory specification, not price. Two builds costing about the same can land in different processor or graphics card tiers, or differ in RAM capacity and speed, and those differences show up directly in the gaming and productivity scores even when the total cost is close.

Four things that account for most failed builds: whether the processor matches the motherboard socket, whether the memory generation is supported by that board and CPU, whether total power draw fits the supply you have chosen, and whether the processor and graphics card are balanced enough that neither is wasted. It checks the parts against each other rather than simply confirming each exists.

Not entirely, and no honest tool should claim otherwise. A compatibility checker confirms the generation and socket are right. It cannot confirm that a specific memory kit has been validated on a specific board revision at a specific speed, which is what the manufacturer qualified vendor list exists for. Use the checker to narrow the field, then confirm the memory kit against the board before you order.

It checks the combination you choose rather than assembling a list for you. That is intentional: recommendation engines tend to steer toward whatever is in stock or affiliated, and a build is a set of trade-offs only you can weigh. Where it does offer direction is on balance, flagging when one part is meaningfully held back by another so you can spend the budget where it changes the result.

The checker above verifies socket, memory generation, power draw and CPU-GPU balance. For the wider question of what genuinely needs checking, see CPU and GPU compatibility.

Only if the new processor uses a different socket. On AM4 many chips drop straight into an existing board after a BIOS update. Our AM4 vs AM5 comparison covers when staying put beats switching platform.

Only on a DDR4 board. AM5 and most current Intel platforms use DDR5, and no board accepts both. See DDR4 vs DDR5 for what the difference actually delivers.

Run the pairing through the bottleneck calculator at your target resolution. Under 20 percent is well balanced; above 30 percent one component is being wasted by the other.

It is a pc builder focused on whether parts work together rather than on pricing. If you have used a pc part picker or an online pc builder before, the difference is that this one also reports whether the processor and graphics card are balanced, not just whether they physically fit. As a custom pc builder or pc configurator it works entirely from part names.

Select your components above and the pc compatibility checker verifies socket, memory generation, power draw and balance together. Used as a pc build checker before you order, it catches the mismatches that are expensive to discover later. As a pc builder compatibility checker it covers the four things that account for most failed builds, and pc parts compatibility questions beyond those are usually about physical clearance in your specific case.

No, and that is deliberate. Recommendation engines tend to steer toward whatever is in stock or affiliated. This checks the combination you chose and flags where one part is held back by another, so you can move budget to where it changes the result.