Newegg Gaming PC Finder Claims To Help Pick The Perfect Prebuilt, Here’s A Test Drive
Over time, Newegg has made an effort to help shoppers wade through its selection of PC components to piece together a system with compatible parts. It will even build the system for you (for a reasonable $99 fee), based on the parts you select from a curated list of components as part of a service it introduced last July. Now almost a year later, Newegg has launched a "Gaming PC Finder" tool that aims to helper buyers wade through a sea of prebuilt configurations.
Finding a prebuilt PC on Newegg or any other vendor that sells pre-assembled systems isn't difficult. However, one of the challenges for inexperienced shoppers is knowing if a specific build is good enough to play the games they like to play, and at what resolution. That's what the this new tool aims to resolve.
"Shopping for a new gaming PC can be daunting with all the system options available and decisions required. We’re educating customers and minimizing challenges through a wealth of information to truly personalize the experience and give players exactly what they want," said Oscar Wong, Senior Director, Product Management for Newegg. "The tool is simple and easy. All the necessary information is provided to enable customers to understand the decision process and select the PC that works best for them."
How Newegg's Gaming PC Finder Tool Works And Taking It For A Test Drive
How it works is, shoppers choose up to four games they want to play from a limited list of titles, and whether they're interested in playing at 1080p, 1440p, or 4K. The Gaming PC Finder tool will then highlight three recommended PCs—Starter, Mainstream, and Enthusiast—with some vital stats for each one, followed by a wider assortment of less detailed recommendations.
We gave it a quick test drive and came away with some mixed impressions. To start, there are only 18 games to choose from, though they include a bunch of popular titles. We selected Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Elden Ring, and Far Cry 6 at the 4K option, and these are the PCs it recommended...
One thing to note is that the prominently displayed frames per second figure at the top of each one is a best case scenario. Looking at the Starter configuration, only Elden Ring is listed as hitting 60 fps on that setup, whereas Cyberpunk 2077 shows just 25 fps. So if you're relying on this tool, you'll want to make sure you look at the individual averages.
A nice touch is being able to switch between 4K, 2K, and 1080p to quickly refresh the recommendations without reloading the page. When we flipped the switch to 1080p, the tool claimed the Starter configuration would perform at up to 140 fps, which it attached to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and bumped Cyberpunk 2077 up to 55 fps.
Bear in mind that these are rough estimates without any information on in-game settings. They seem generally accurate though, and perhaps even conservative in some cases. For example, the Starter config lists a 3DMark Time Spy score of 9,517. In our own GeForce RTX 3060 Ti review, we scored 12,096 in Time Spy, albeit with a burlier processor and more RAM.
We like the layout of the tool, though we think the inclusion of an Enthusiast rig should be more obvious. The first time we ran the tool, we weren't even aware that a third config existed. It wasn't until we maximized our browser window (on a 1440p display) for a screenshot that we saw it. There's a tiny dot underneath the setups to scroll over to the third config if it doesn't fit on your screen, but it's easy to miss. Or maybe it's just us. Anyway, heads up.
The other thing worth noting is that you'll want to thoroughly research any recommended configs. User reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, but at the very least it's a good idea to scan them for common complaints. If multiple users all complain about the same thing, such as cooling, then it could be a red flag.
All that said, we can see where this could be helpful. While not perfect, it at least gives shoppers more data to analyze than just shopping prebuilts based on specs alone.
Newegg's Gaming PC Finder tool is live now.
