$2,000 PC Build Spotlight: Rising Phoenix

As you get older, certain items start to hold meaning in a way they didn't before. Sometimes, these are old things. Every morning, you find yourself reaching for that coffee mug you’ve always hated. And even though you’ve just got a new bicycle, you just can’t muster the willpower to bring the old one with the bent wheel and creaky sprocket to the dump.

It’s difficult to let go of the past, but sometimes, it’s not only things from times before that get more meaning as you get older – you start to observe it in your everyday life -- when you’re going through a particularly noteworthy event and you just know: this moment, right here, right now, is meaningful.

For myself, this build is a moment like that, and it’s taken me far too long to complete it because I almost didn’t want the moment to end. To you, the build you’re about to read and watch might just be an assortment of pretty parts and some leather, but to me, this build represents a new beginning for our new series of builds.

Builds are Coming to Tom’s Hardware

Things are changing up a bit, and over the next few months, you’ll be seeing more and more of these builds – I already have a handful planned, but before I get into the details about this first build, I just want to give you an explainer. Or maybe a disclaimer—I’ll let you interpret it however you prefer.

Inspiring Creativity

Building a PC can be approached in many different ways. If you simply want the most performance per dollar, have a look at our Best Builds page, where we’ve compiled a powerful build for every budget.

This build, however, and the other builds in the series are not entirely meant to give you a parts list that offers the most frames per dollar, but rather to inspire creativity.

In this new series, I’ll be assembling some computers that might not entirely make sense. Not because I can’t build a normal computer, but because I’m bored with building the same computer. Oh, is that another 9800X3D build I see with 32GB of memory in a fishtank? Yawn.

You can build a computer in so many different ways, and my goal with this series is to showcase as much different hardware as possible, and in doing so, help you figure out what you really like in a PC. It’s easy to grab the Best CPU, pair that with the Best Graphics Card, grab some of the Best Memory, along with the Best SSD, the Best Power Supply, and the Best Case, but where’s the fun in that?

If you’re a reader of Tom’s Hardware, then a PC is something that’s, in all likelihood, highly personal to you, so stop building something generic and go create something unique.

All that being said, the goal is to inspire attainable creativity. I won’t be showcasing ultra-high-end Threadripper systems in this series, nor will I be delving into custom liquid cooling. Any modding that I do here has to be optional to the build, so my dream of slapping a motherboard onto a hand-carved piece of oak will also have to wait for another day.

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