PLANYOURPC BUDGET RECOMMENDER — RELEASE 1.14
Updated 5 November 2026. Offers retain individual review dates. Currency GBP. New desktop tower components.

SCOPE
The recommendation searches the complete combinations of a curated, priced shortlist, not every product in the larger manual catalogue and not every UK retailer. Dated UK retailer observations are supplied for 33 entries (including the conditional included cooler). Prices include VAT; delivery, operating system, peripherals and additional fans must be covered by the editable extras allowance. Retailer pages may be cached and stock is not guaranteed. No live feed, automatic purchase, affiliate tracking or price-update schedule is installed.

Visitors can inspect exact model codes and retailer evidence, replace each price or clear it to exclude the part, and copy matching prices from their manual parts list. Comparison prices last for this page session. Applying a build copies its part prices and budget into the existing list, which can be saved locally or exported. Reference price provenance survives save/load while the amount still matches the reference; editing an amount changes it to a user price.

PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE
Gaming ranking uses a single comparable CPU game-test suite: ComputerBase, 6 November 2024, 15-game geometric mean, 720p CPU-limited RTX4090/Windows11 24H2. Included published aggregates: 9800X3D 152, 7800X3D 134, 9700X 112, 9900X 110, 9600X 107. CPU index = aggregate / 152 * 100. GPU index = Steel Nomad / 14636 * 100. CPU/GPU weighting: 1080p 40/60; 1440p 25/75; 4K 15/85. Original model-specific memory settings and methodology remain at the source. These scores do not predict FPS for the recommended build.

CPUs missing from this same game suite are excluded from the comparable gaming ranking. If no game-suite build fits, the general-purpose fallback is labelled. Creator/everyday and this fallback use exact Geekbench 7 CPU and Steel Nomad DX12 GPU references. Single-core / 3,067; multicore / 26,171; GPU / 14,636 are normalized separately, multiplied by the following editorial weights, summed and multiplied by 100. The CPU anchor is Ryzen 9 9950X; GPU anchor RTX 5090. Model 2.0 uses the same scoring module as the DxDiag analyser and the manual parts list. Display is rounded to one decimal; reference baseline = 100, with no cap on newer faster results. Identical hardware/settings/basis/version produce identical estimates. All weighted benchmark inputs are required; incomplete totals are not reweighted. RAM capacity and compatibility remain separate. Scoring settings survive build saves and exports. Old editorial totals cannot be compared with this model.

Single-core / multicore / GPU weights:
General CPU fallback, gaming 1080p: 30% / 10% / 60%
General CPU fallback, gaming 1440p: 20% / 5% / 75%
General CPU fallback, gaming 4K: 12% / 3% / 85%
Creator balanced: 20% / 45% / 35%
Creator CPU-heavy: 15% / 70% / 15%
Creator GPU-heavy: 15% / 20% / 65%
Everyday: 80% / 20% / 0%

Defaults: gaming 32GB RAM / 1TB NVMe; creator 32GB / 2TB; everyday 16GB / 1TB. The visitor can change these minimums. They are requirements, not performance-score bonuses. Gaming and creator require a discrete GPU. Everyday requires manufacturer-recorded integrated graphics and a shortlisted board with display outputs. No invented GPU score is assigned to integrated graphics. A preferred GPU vendor can restrict gaming/creator choices.

OPTIMIZATION
Enumerate all qualifying complete systems. Reject known compatibility conflicts, missing required parts and missing prices; enforce the extras-inclusive budget in integer pence. Within each identical CPU/GPU pair, gaming and creator prefer up to 2TB storage then rated endurance up to 1200TBW when affordable, with lower price breaking ties. Everyday retains the cheapest support combination. Performance ranking takes precedence over these support upgrades. Rank by weighted benchmark utility, then lower total cost. Show the top three CPU/GPU combinations, with alternative card brands at the same model score represented by the cheapest qualifying exact offer. If no build fits, show the least expensive qualifying complete cost or explain which category has no eligible option. Never create a partial build as a budget success.

COMPATIBILITY AND LIMITS
Reviewed fields cover sockets, CPU families, RAM generation/module form/capacity, board and case size, GPU dimensions, cooler socket/height, NVMe support, PSU size/wattage and supplied GPU connector options. The RM750e 2025 has alternative native-16-pin or dual-8-pin cable arrangements; these are not counted simultaneously. CPU included coolers require exact offer evidence. The air-cooled shortlist excludes CPUs above 120W published TDP. TDP is not actual system consumption. BIOS versions, exact revisions, memory QVL/EXPO/XMP, cooling suitability and fan clearance under the real workload, cable routing and installation still require checking. One tower, one RAM kit and one SSD are selected; no reuse or multi-GPU assumption.

Steel Nomad is a raster graphics reference, not game FPS, ray tracing, CUDA, Blender or video-encoder throughput. Geekbench is general CPU performance and does not capture every game or the full effect of X3D cache. Resolution settings change editorial weighting; they do not simulate games at those resolutions. Creator users must check the software's backend, VRAM, codec and RAM requirements. The optimizer does not certify workload performance or diagnose bottlenecks.

SOURCES AND MAINTENANCE
Exact retailer URLs, stock observations, VAT evidence, cache caveats and excluded offers are retained in data/prices in the source repository. The browser's Prices used panel exposes selected offer sources. scripts/compile-price-book.mjs produces the price book from those reviewed records; it does not fetch prices. Review exact SKUs, VAT, eligibility and stock before updating. Manufacturer supplements are retained in data/catalog/manufacturer-verifications.json. Prices older than 30 days trigger a visible prompt to update them. There is no automatic refresh.
Geekbench source: https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks
Steel Nomad methodology: https://support.benchmarks.ul.com/support/solutions/articles/44002528064-how-is-the-3dmark-steel-nomad-score-calculated-

CPU gaming source: https://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-test.90151/seite-2