The Comparator

Changelog

Changelog

What you can do now that you could not do before — newest first. Only things you can see or use. What is still ahead is on the roadmap.

Updated October 19, 2026

October 2026

Market picks open the whole current market next to the verified models, power supplies become the sixth category, the Canadian site speaks French, and you choose how the site looks.

Oct 26

New

Monitors (beta)

Monitors join the site in beta, with the same two views as every category: Verified models and Market picks.

  • Pick a job (office, reading, competitive gaming, movies and more) and every model gets a grade for it, explained: what is strong, what limits it, which facts the maker does not publish.
  • Value weighs the facts you care about against the price. A fact the maker does not publish is never filled in for it; a model resting on too few facts is marked limited evidence.
  • Compare adds what fits your desk: viewing distance and the picture technology of each screen.
  • Offers come from Newegg and the ASUS Store.

Oct 15

New

Market picks: the whole current market, next to the verified models

Every category now has two views. Switch between them with the Verified models and Market picks tabs above the list, or open Market picks directly, for example for graphics cards.

  • Verified models are products we matched exactly and whose specifications we checked. They carry grades, Capability and Value from our methodology.
  • Market picks are current offers as the stores list them, from every connected retailer, including models and configurations we have not verified yet. Accessories, bulk lots and implausible prices are left out, each retailer shows one offer per configuration, and older generations stay out of the main view.

How to use Market picks:

  • The list opens sorted by price, low to high. Under Your priorities, move a slider (video memory, board power and so on) and the list re-ranks by what matters to you.
  • Specifications come from the store’s listing and are unverified unless marked. An offer missing a fact you weighted gets no score and is listed after the scored ones. An offer missing a key fact is marked Limited details and never passes a filter on that fact.
  • The page loads a selection first. Load all adds the rest of the current market, and a search always covers all of it.
  • Filters, priorities and sort are kept in the address, so a link reopens the same view.

Why it mattersYou see everything you can buy today, not only what we have already verified, and you can always tell the two apart.

Open Market picks for graphics cards →

Oct 9

New

Power supplies, the sixth category

Power supplies now work like graphics cards, processors, memory, SSDs and motherboards, in the US and Canada and in every language. Open Power supplies from the Markets menu.

  • Filter by rated output, size (ATX or SFX), 80 PLUS rating, modularity, ATX 3.x standard and native 12V-2x6 connector.
  • Rank with a ready profile (Balanced, Strict Budget, Gaming, High-end GPU, Small form factor, Workstation & 24/7) or set your own weights for price, output, efficiency, standard, warranty, modularity and length.
  • Each tracked unit has a product page with a grade for every job, and the power supply tier matrix shows them all at once.
  • Market picks for power supplies show the wider market as well.

Why it mattersA build is not finished without a power supply, and now you can choose one the same way as everything else.

Open Power supplies →

Oct 7

New

The Canadian site in French

Everything on the Canadian site is now also in French (Canada): the market explorer, product pages, comparisons, tier matrices, the Academy and the tools. Open the French site, or choose Canada and then Français in the country and language menu at the top of any page.

  • Prices come from Canadian stores, in Canadian dollars, written the French way: 1 283 $ CA. A US price is always marked $ US.
  • Country and language are separate choices: switching to French keeps you on the Canadian market and on the same page.
  • One French glossary keeps every term the same across the whole site.

Why it mattersFrench-speaking Canadians can use The Comparator in their own language, with their own market’s prices.

Open the French site →

Oct 6

New

Choose how the site looks

The gear button at the top right of every page, next to the light and dark switch, opens Appearance with two settings:

  • Theme: System, the default, follows your device and changes with it from day to night. Light and Dark stay fixed.
  • Style: Editorial, the default, with warm paper tones and serif headings, or Classic, the site’s earlier look on white.

The dark theme was also reworked: calmer colours, striped rows and thin column lines make long tables easier to follow. The sun and moon switch still flips between light and dark in one tap. Your choice is remembered in this browser and applies in every market and language.

Why it mattersRead the site the way that is comfortable for you, day or night.

Oct 3

New

Academy: learn it by doing

Step-by-step lessons on the real interface: choose hardware, shop within a budget, compare two products, check a price you found, plan an upgrade, and read every grade, Value and offer correctly.

Why it mattersYou can start knowing nothing about the tool and finish with a short list you trust.

Open the Academy →

Oct 2

New

A new way to use The Comparator

The home page is now a small working Comparator. Tell it what you need, your budget and what it is for, and it shows the products that fit today, with the reason each one is there. From the same page you can:

  • move the price weight and watch the same products reorder
  • compare two products
  • check a price you found elsewhere
  • plan an upgrade. Each option now says whether it drops into your platform, needs a new motherboard, or could not be checked

A new How it works page explains where every number comes from.

Why it mattersYou see what the tool does in a minute, and an upgrade that needs a new motherboard no longer looks like a drop-in.

Open the home page →

Oct 1–2

New

Tier matrices and Best views

Tier lists for all five categories are now matrices: every product graded for every job, with price left out. Best pages became eight shortlists by task (gaming, creation, platforms). Each is a saved view of the live market that shows its criteria, and you can change them.

Why it mattersA shortlist is only useful if you can see why each product is on it.

Open Best views →

Oct 1

Improved

Products that left the stores keep their page

A product with no current offer keeps its page: specifications, grades, the last offer we saw with its date, and the closest alternatives that are on sale now.

Why it mattersYou can still score a used price against a product stores no longer sell.

What "no current offer" means →

Sep 30 – Oct 1

New

Compare up to six products, or two in depth

Compare shows two to six products under the same priorities and keeps only the rows that differ. Head-to-head pages add the price at which the answer would flip and whether a small change in your priorities would swap the winner. Both can copy the comparison for an AI assistant.

Why it mattersA close decision gets the number that matters: how far apart two products really are.

Open Compare →

Oct 1

Improved

Offers show when they were last seen

Every offer shows when we last saw it. An offer that has left the store stays visible in grey with its date, and no longer counts toward Value.

Why it mattersYou can tell a live price from an old one.

September 2026

Every category became a market you can explore, in two countries, with a new design.

Sep 29–30

New

A market explorer for graphics cards, processors, SSDs, memory and motherboards

Each category opens as a market: the products and offers we track, filters for what matters, Value under priorities you set, every offer per product, and a way to try your own price.

Why it mattersOne way of working for everything you might buy for a PC.

Open the graphics card market →

Sep 30

New

One design, with light, dark and Classic

The whole site moved to one design, with light and dark themes and a Classic style if you prefer it.

Why it mattersThe same, readable layout everywhere, day or night.

Sep 20–27

New

Product pages built around a decision

Product pages now show capability by job, the current market, where to buy, alternatives and upgrade paths. A block appears only when there is data for it.

Why it mattersA product page answers “should I consider this?”, not only “what are its specifications?”

See an example →

Sep 14–28

New market

Canada

The Comparator for Canada shows Canadian offers in Canadian dollars. A US price is never used in place of a missing Canadian one.

Why it mattersPrices you can actually pay where you live.

Open the Canadian site →

Sep 9–28

New market

More stores

Newegg feeds, the ASUS Store (US and Canada) and more sources joined the market. Every price names its store and when it was checked.

Why it mattersMore places to compare, and none of them anonymous.

  • Sep 11No third-party analytics — Google Analytics was removed. The site counts only anonymous, aggregate use: no cookies, no persistent identifier.

August 2026

The site learned Spanish, and Value became something you can check.

Aug 22

New market

The Comparator in Spanish

The whole site is available in US Spanish, with the same markets and the same data.

Why it mattersThe same tool in your language.

Abrir en español →

Aug 22

New

A Value formula you can check

How Value is calculated is documented in full. Grades that rest on an estimated figure are marked as estimates.

Why it mattersYou can see why a product scores what it does, and how much of it is measured.

Read how Value works →

Aug 4

New

Upgrade planner with out-of-pocket cost

Start from the product you own, say what it could sell for, and see what an upgrade really costs: the new price minus the resale.

Why it mattersThe cost of an upgrade is not the price on the box.

How to plan an upgrade →
  • Aug 13More accurate SSD Value, more component guides — Drive rankings were calibrated against the real market.

July 2026

Grades for every product, a market view for every category, and tools for publishers.

Jul 22

New

Capability grades on every product

Each product is graded S to F for each job: 1080p, 1440p and 4K gaming, ray tracing at each resolution, local AI and more. Grades never look at price.

Why it matters“Is it good enough for what I do?” has its own answer, separate from “is it cheap?”.

Capability vs Value →

Jul 31

New

Compare several products at once

Head-to-head pages were redesigned, and a new tool compares several products side by side.

Why it mattersOne tool for a pair, one for a short list.

Open head-to-head →

Jul 27

Improved

Five categories, one way of working

Graphics cards, processors, SSDs, memory and motherboards now share the same market view, and each store’s last check is visible.

Why it mattersLearn it once; it works everywhere. And you can judge a price by its age.

Jul 9

New

Publisher widgets and an embed builder

Sites can embed live comparisons and market views, configured in a builder.

Why it mattersThe same live data wherever people read about hardware.

Publisher tools →
  • Jul 15Tier tables, budget guides and used-market guidance — The first tier tables and price-band guides, with advice for buying used.
  • Jul 12A page for every model — Each model got its own page, and buying guides arrived.
  • Jul 3Grouped models and a compact view — A denser table for scanning many products at once.

April – June 2026

Processors, dated prices and the first trust features.

  • Jun 25Processors, and dated offers — The calculator grew beyond graphics cards, and every offer got a capture date.
  • Jun 18An AI compute measure for graphics cards — A comparable measure of local-AI throughput.
  • May 14Every price shows when it was captured — Privacy-first controls arrived with it.
  • Apr 9Workstation cards identified correctly — Partner and workstation cards now inherit the right specifications by their hardware, not by their marketing name.

The beginning

One question: which graphics card is the better value for me?

  • v1.0The first graphics card value calculator — Weights you choose, a ranking you can change. Everything since has grown from this.

What comes next is on the roadmap.