Changelog

SSD presets now keep price meaningful. Rebalanced capacity, throughput, endurance, and price so premium 8TB drives no longer appear to be the default best-value answer when a mainstream 1–4TB drive better fits the job.

Hard needs stay in your hands. Capacity and interface filters express requirements; the Value formula ranks the eligible options without model-specific penalties or hidden price caps.

Unknown SSD data fails closed. Missing speed, endurance, warranty, capacity, or price is no longer replaced with a plausible-looking default when that field affects the selected ranking.

More useful SSD and RAM buying paths. Product, versus, tier, and best-for pages now cover current generations with clearer workload guidance and mobile-friendly comparison tables.

Real out-of-pocket cost calculator. Upgrading hardware isn't about sticker price: it costs the new item's price minus what your current part sells for. Enter what you currently own, your estimated resale price, and your top-up budget to rank candidate upgrades by performance gained per dollar actually spent out of pocket.

Deep historical hardware catalog. To evaluate upgrades accurately, the engine covers discontinued parts as well as current store inventory. Owners of classic hardware (such as GTX 1660 Super or Ryzen 5 3600) can select their exact model from our catalog of 180 GPUs and 539 CPUs.

Smart compatibility filtering. Automatically filters out datacenter cards without display outputs from gaming recommendations, and warns if your power supply or processor will limit your new graphics card.

Embeddable upgrade widgets for articles. Bloggers, tech reviewers, and publishers can drop an interactive upgrade planner directly into their articles and guides.

Analytical Head-to-Head redesign. Over 123 direct "X vs Y" matchups feature a clean comparison layout with aligned A/B spec headers, decision bars, crossover prices, and alternative recommendations.

Mobile-first comparison tabs. Easily switch between Summary, Price, Performance, and Specs tabs on smartphones with a sticky comparison bar for effortless navigation.

Multi-product Compare matrix (/compare/). Compare 1 to 6 hardware models side-by-side with a searchable picker, per-category navigation (GPU, CPU, SSD, RAM, Motherboard), and clear separation between raw capability grades and price value.

Verified offer timestamps. See observed retailer prices with explicit capture dates so you always know how fresh a price snapshot is.

Five PC component categories live. Graphics cards, Processors, Solid State Drives, RAM Memory, and Motherboards now update daily across major retailers (Amazon, Newegg, B&H, Central Computer).

Dynamic price verification. Online store prices are verified in real time to ensure you only see reliable, dated market snapshots without unverified price guarantees.

Cleaned listings. Automated filters strip out non-component accessories (docks, cables, water blocks) and motherboard socket conflicts.

Every product now shows its grade, not just its price. The calculator displays capability grades (S to F) directly on each row for your selected job. Expanding a card reveals its full performance set across all scenarios.

Ray tracing asks which resolution. An RT grade depends on resolution: a card can earn an S grade at Full HD and a D grade at 4K. Select **Full HD / 2K / 4K** in the filters to view resolution-specific RT scores.

Dedicated Ray Tracing & Creator buying guides. Ray tracing and creator workloads now have standalone buying guides. Every gaming guide displays the ray-tracing grade for its specific resolution alongside an Upscaling · frame-gen column (DLSS 4, FSR 4, XeSS).

Measured power on CPU pages. 59 processors list independently measured power consumption in games and under sustained all-core load with work-per-watt metrics, replacing inaccurate TDP marketing numbers.

Budget guides with permanent addresses. Replaced dynamic budget pages with permanent Budget / Mid-range / High-end guides whose price bands update dynamically based on live market pricing.

Readable tier tables: Tier lists feature heat-mapped matrices to highlight strengths and weaknesses per scenario. Re-rank tables instantly by clicking any scenario header.

Best-under-budget pages: Dedicated guides like Best GPU under $600 highlight top value, peak performance, VRAM capacity, and efficiency at current market prices.

Used price guide: GPU and CPU pages display a calculated used-price ceiling (80% of cheapest new offer) to evaluate second-hand listings.

Expanded head-to-heads: 38 new comparison pages covering Core Ultra vs Ryzen 9000 and RTX 50 vs RX 9000 vs Arc B lineups.

Per-model value pages: Popular GPUs and CPUs have dedicated pages featuring target prices, dated offer snapshots, calculated alternatives, and compatibility checks.

Best-for buying guides: Specialized rankings like Best GPU for 4K gaming or Best DDR5 RAM for gaming sorted by value.

Components megamenu: Easily navigate calculators, guides, tier lists, and comparisons from the top menu.

Homepage hub: The root page introduces the full PC hardware value platform with focused calculator sub-pages.

Widget gallery & Embed builder: Public widgets page featuring live previews and a no-code builder for Deal Monitors, Value Badges, and Top-N lists.

Shareable views: Share exact calculator states, active filters, and pinned comparisons via unique URLs.

Public methodology page: Detailed documentation on how the Value Score formula functions across categories.

Group Models toggle: Collapse duplicate variant listings into a single base model card showing offer count, best Value Score, average price, and price range.

Offer accordion: Expand grouped cards to review individual retail offers, store sources, price points, and direct links.

Compact / Full mode: Dense scanning mode focusing on essential specs, price, and value for rapid deal evaluation on desktop and mobile.

Relative Compare Mode: Pinning two or more items automatically enables Compare Mode, displaying relative performance and price deltas (e.g. +21%, -15%).

Detailed compare tooltips: Hovering over delta metrics reveals detailed item-by-item spec breakdowns.

Tabular spec layout: Fixed-width left-aligned spec labels for quick scanning across comparison columns.

CPU Value Engine: Dedicated calculator for desktop processors analyzing multi-thread, single-thread, gaming performance, core counts, and L3 cache.

Offer snapshots: Integrated 150+ real Amazon and Newegg offer snapshots with recorded capture timestamps.

Condition separation & bundle filters: Independent tracking for New, Refurbished, and Used listings with safeguards against CPU+Motherboard combos.

AI / Compute Index: Dedicated performance metric evaluating tensor throughput for AI workloads and local LLMs.

Recency-aware presets: Presets factor in model release dates so older bargain parts do not unfairly dominate rankings.

Price capture dating: Display recorded capture dates on every retail offer so stale numbers are never presented as guaranteed live checkout prices.

Privacy & compliance: GDPR consent-gating for analytics and cookie preferences with one-click withdrawal.

Workstation accuracy: Generation-aware matching preventing cross-matching between workstation (Quadro, RTX-A, Ada) and consumer GPUs.

Hardware fingerprinting: Custom card variants inherit reference scores based on shader counts, VRAM, and bus width.

Universal Value Engine: Modular engine calculating relative Value Scores (good factors divided by price and power).

TCO Calculator: Optional 3-year electricity cost calculations based on component TDP and electricity rates.