My mission to buy a desktop PC started out simple: I wanted a powerful work computer with support for three monitors. Getting a PC within my budget seemed reasonable.

But then, temptation set in. With a slightly better processor and graphics card, this desktop could play the latest video games. And with a solid state drive instead of hard disk storage, everyday work performance would be breezier. Of course, boosting those specs at any configure-your-own PC site made the final price skyrocket. After days of searching for a powerhouse PC under $1,000, I admitted the truth to myself: If I wanted it, I’d have to build it.

Today, I write to you from my homemade, high-powered rig, built last Thursday. It has a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i5 2500K processor, an AMD Radeon 6870 graphics card, 8 GB of RAM, a 120GB solid state drive and a basic DVD burner. The total cost, after taxes and rebates, was about $920. (I got parts from MicroCenter, an electronics retailer, which meant paying sales taxes but getting everything immediately.)

Building my first desktop PC wasn’t just a means to an end, it was also a learning experience. If you’ve ever thought of building your own PC, here are some things to consider.

1. It’s Not as Daunting As It Sounds

Conventional wisdom on Internet message boards says that if you want the best desktop PC for cheap, you need to build it yourself. I always figured that wasn’t so much advice as it was a way for geeks to boast about their engineering talents. But as someone who lacks said talent, I was surprised by how simple setting up a PC can be. I used a recent how-to from The Verge for general guidelines, and consulted my manuals–mainly for the desktop case and the motherboard–when I needed more detailed explanations. In most components, everything’s labelled well enough to be self-explanatory, and the only tool you need is a Phillips-head screwdriver.

2. Picking Your Parts is the Hardest Part

If you’re building a PC for the first time, the real daunting part is the initial commitment, in which you decide not to buy a pre-made rig and start trying to figure out what parts you need. I spent a lot of time trawling through message boards for suggested builds. Hours were lost obsessing over the balance between power and prices. And after deciding on specs, I still had to pick decent parts, which meant scanning through countless user reviews on Newegg to make sure my power supply and RAM wouldn’t crap out on day one. By the time I’d lined up all my components, the building process didn’t seem so scary.

3. Needed: A New Kind of CPU and GPU Review

I have immense respect for sites like AnandTech and Tom’s Hardware, which churn out exhaustive reviews of graphics cards and processors. But those reviews cater to a highly technical audience, which is to say not me. When picking a processor for a gaming PC, I only need two questions answered: What’s the newest game I can play at the highest settings, and what do I gain by spending $30 more on the next model up? Of course, lots of other variables affect the answer, but I’d love to see more short, sweet graphics card and processor reviews that explain what an extra 0.3 GHz gets you in the real world, not in benchmarks.

4. The Mail-In Rebate is Alive and Well

My big electronics purchases of the last few years–phones, tablets, a laptop and a TV–have come without mail-in rebates, which makes me think that retailers and vendors are doing away with this noisome practice. But when buying individual PC components, mail-in rebates are everywhere–$10 here, $20 there. In total, I’ve got $90 in rebates across five vendors to deal with. My guess: component makers hope it’s enough of a headache that some people won’t bother.

5. There Are Parts You Don’t Think About (And They Add Up)

The specs I bragged about at the top of this story aren’t the only parts of the machine, off course. You also need a motherboard, a power supply, and a case. Depending on your setup, you might also want extra USB controllers, a built-in SD card reader, and a wireless network adapter. And don’t forget about a copy of Windows 7. (Most online retailers sell the OEM version for about $100, which is roughly half the price of a retail copy, but can’t be transferred to another computer.) This stuff can get expensive, quick.

6. Sage Advice: Don’t Force Things, and Build in the Buff

Before building, I asked folks on Twitter if they had any tips. I liked Brian Katz’s advice, which is common-sense but worth being reminded about:

@OneJaredNewman take your time. Everything fits. Don't force anything and have fun…plus ping if you have an issue—
Brian Katz (@bmkatz) January 19, 2012

Also, PCWorld’s Patrick Miller had an interesting recommendation:

@OneJaredNewman Strip down to your skivvies. Oddly enough, everyone I know, myself included, does this. cc: @pcwlabs @NateRalph—
Patrick Miller (@pattheflip) January 19, 2012

The Verge’s how-to also suggested stripping down if you don’t have an anti-static wrist wrap. I have no idea if these claims of static danger are overblown, but I didn’t take any chances. I assembled on my kitchen table–where there’s no carpeting around–in my underpants. It was a weird scene, especially with all the electronics strewn about, but at least nothing got fried.

7. You Are Your Own Tech Support

I wish I could say everything went smoothly. Unfortunately, my new PC showed a tendency to get choppy after waking from a few hours of sleep. I tried updating drivers, updating the BIOS, and fiddling with settings, but to no avail. Eventually I reinstalled Windows, which seems to have fixed the problem. Also, one of my fans was behaving sporadically, until I found the lose connection to blame. Calling up the PC manufacturer would have been nice, except in this case, the manufacturer was me. This may seem stupidly obvious, but if something goes wrong, you’re on your own.

On that note, good luck!

HP announced a 3D PC display and a 3D PC today. To me, at least, the most interesting thing about them is that the company chose a different flavor of 3D for each device.

First the display. Its official moniker is the HP 2311gt 3D monitor, and it’s a 23″ LED-backlit display. Like most 3D movies you see in theaters, the 3D is passive, which means that its uses polarized glasses that don’t have any embedded electronics and don’t cost a lot of money. In fact, the display and two set of glasses go for $299.99, or about what you might pay for two pair of active-shutter glasses alone.

A month later, the company fired its CEO, Léo Apotheker, and replaced him with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. She didn’t take a year and a half to make a decision–and the decision is that HP will stay in the PC business.

“HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

(Sadly, the reversal doesn’t seem to have any impact on Apotheker’s other big PC-related decision: Killing the TouchPad tablet after six weeks.)

I always found the breakup plausible–if for no other reason than that it’s an idea that’s been around for a least a decade–but I’m glad it’s not happening. And it always suffered from a fundamental flaw: How could it make sense for HP to want to be an enterprise software and services company that also happened to be heavily dependent on profits from ink cartridges sold to consumers?

The next few years of the PC industry are going to be some of the most interesting ones since the beginning of the PC business, since it’s so very unclear what’s going to happen to the PC we’ve known for all these decades. I hope that HP takes that as an opportunity, not an existential threat to its PC business–and that it builds some cool machines in the years to come.

That was the line of thinking that led me to title my TIME.com column for this week “The PC Isn’t Dying–It’s Just Evolving.” I don’t see the iPad as a not-PC; I see it as a PC that happens to come in a new form factor, run new software, and be optimized for somewhat different use case scenarios than a garden-variety laptop.

(At the moment, I’m at the IFA electronics show in Berlin, and my iPad is my PC–it’s the computer I’ve been taking to the show floor each day, and the one I’m writing these words on. And I’m…happy! In some ways happier than if I’d lugged a Windows laptop or a MacBook to the conference. More thoughts on that experience in a separate post.)

I think that the roots of my stubborn way of thinking date back to the late 1970s. The two dominant computing platforms were the TRS-80 (which I used) and the Apple II (which I despised). As different as they were, they both involved a one-piece case design, with the electronics inside a case with a built-in keyboard, that later went away. But when those platforms were joined (and eventually replaced) by others, I didn’t think of it as the PC dying. I thought of it as the PC morphing into something better.

A few decades later, I became the editor of PC World magazine, a publication which, I’ll cheerfully admit, was largely dedicated to Windows. But this experience too left me inclined to define “PC” loosely. Unlike Macworld–a sister publication which is unquestionably about Apple products–our mission statement didn’t mention any particular operating system or company. I didn’t want anyone to think that our fate was tied to the success of Windows, and I always said that our readers were the ones who got to define what “PC” meant. Not us, and certainly not Microsoft.

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler has blogged about the notion of the post-PC era, saying a lot of things I agree with. He notes the rise of the iPad as a general-purpose device, and says it’s a “clear and present danger” to Microsoft’s dominance. He’s right. He also references my TIME column, and thinks, I believe, that by saying the PC was evolving I was taking an at least somewhat Microsoft-friendly stance. I wasn’t, really: I’d feel that way even if Windows evolved its way into irrelevance.

MG says I pussyfooted my way around the topic, and in at least one respect I’d agree with him: I didn’t take a stance on Windows 8, the upcoming version which will attempt to split the difference with the iPad by providing both a traditional interface and one based on Windows Phone’s “Metro” look. The fact is that Microsoft has only provided fleeting glimpses of Windows 8 so far, and I haven’t had any hands-on experience with it yet. I hope to come home from Microsoft’s BUILD conference in a couple of weeks with a Windows 8 beta; if I do, I may feel either that it’s given Windows a new lease on life or that it’s an ungainly mess that’s likely doomed. But for now, anyone who has strong feelings about Windows 8 one way or the other is extrapolating from incomplete information.

In the column, I also mentioned the notion of a “PC plus” era, as defined by Microsoft’s Frank Shaw. It involves tablets and phones being less useful than (Windows) PCs, and serving as “companions” to them. In another piece, I said what I thought of “PC plus”–which is that it’s a very Microsoftian notion that doesn’t jibe with where we are and where we’re going.

The very fact that it’s unclear whether Windows 8 is going to cut it is a healthy sign about the future of the PC. For years, Windows was such an unavoidable fact of life that it was difficult to contemplate any immediate scenario in which Microsoft didn’t have an outsized influence on the future of computing. (That’s how we ended up with the train wreck that was Windows Vista–a piece of software that would never have existed if Microsoft was running scared rather than fat and happy.)

Today, though, it’s entirely possible that Windows–even if it remains on gazillions of computers around the world–will begin to feel less and less relevant to typical consumers over the next few years. With the iPad, Apple has presented us all with an alternate take on what personal computing should be. I think it’s entirely possible that it’ll supplant Windows, and it could happen more quickly than any of us would have guessed.

But even if the iPad someday outsells Windows-based machines 9-to-1, I won’t talk about the death of the PC. Sorry, I’m just pigheaded that way…

So here we are. Razer’s hyped up product turned out to be the Razer Blade, a $2,799 gaming laptop with a 17-inch display, cutting-edge specs and an eye for design. Inside, there’s a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-2640M processor, Nvidia GeForce GT555M graphics and 8 GB of RAM. The outside is built from a solid slab of aluminum that Razer wants to shave thinner than a MacBook Pro. A customizable touch pad and set of LCD keys are on top, next to green backlit keyboard.

PCWorld’s Nate Ralph got a demo of the laptop and liked what he saw. So did Kotaku’s Joel Johnson, who wrote that the Razer Blade “might not just be the future of PC gaming—it may be the future of PCs.”

Maybe for him. But when I think of the future of PC gaming, I don’t see one that’s dominated by portable gaming rigs with price tags of $2,000 and up. I something completely different.

Part of that future might consist of streaming video game services like OnLive, whose remote servers have their own graphics processors to provide the muscle for modern PC games. The technology isn’t ready for prime time yet — whenever I try OnLive, I can never ignore its tiny bit of input lag — but some day, it will be ready. And when that happens, the need for super-expensive hardware will evaporate for the vast majority of gamers.

The other part is a broader change in the way we use computers.  I don’t particularly care for the phrase “post-PC era,” but I like the idea behind it: The definition of a computer is expanding beyond desktops and laptops to include smartphones, tablets and televisions. In time, these devices may share the same content. They may even become modular, allowing the peripherals to change while the core computing device remains the same. (Hey, that’s good news for Razer’s mouse and keyboard business.) All those changes will dilute the importance of owning a laptop with expensive internal components.

I’m not saying all this to dismiss what Razer has created. It is what it is — a very expensive machine with some very impressive features — but that doesn’t sound like a savior to me. And who said PC gaming was in peril, anyway?

The recent rumors that Samsung Electronics will be taking over Hewlett-Packard Co.’s personal computer business are not true.

We hope this clarifies any confusion that may have occurred.

Now, it’s certainly news when the world’s largest PC company decides that it’s no longer happy being a PC company at all–even if it’s only coming to the same conclusion that a fair number of Wall Street analysts reached years ago. It helped to prompt Microsoft VP of Corporate Communications Frank X. Shaw to blog contending that we live in a “PC plus” era rather than a “post-PC” one, and arguing that smartphones, tablets, and e-readers are “companions” to the PC.

Shaw points to some examples of articles throwing around the phrase “post-PC,” but doesn’t mention the guy and the company who have done the most to popularize it lately…

(Steve Jobs, incidentally, didn’t coin the phrase “post-PC era.” I don’t know who did, but here’s an MIT professor using it way back in 1999.)

Now, talking about a post-PC era is one thing. But it’s kind of silly that a Microsoft honcho must refute another idea, as Shaw does in his post: that the PC is dead. Of course it isn’t–it’s just that whenever a technology product category seems to be mature, tech pundits love to say it’s toast. And nothing gets declared dead more than the PC does. Here, for instance, is an InfoWorld story commenting on how fashionable it is to declare the PC dead–from 1999.

No, the PC isn’t dead or dying. Devices that are recognizably similar to today’s PCs will be with us for a long time. Decades from now, many of them will run Microsoft software. (Please, let it be something other than Windows XP.)

But Shaw’s notion of a “PC plus” era displays unavoidable Microsoftian bias. He says that smartphones and tablets are good at a “subset” of what PCs do–basically communications and consumption–and not so hot at creation and collaboration. He appears thinks of them as useful devices, but inherently secondary to the PC as we know it.

If PCs are superior to smartphones and tablets for creation and collaboration, it’s for two main reasons: they’ve got large, comfy QWERTY keyboards, and they’ve got more powerful productivity apps (such as, oh, Microsoft Office). The first virtue may be a plus for PCs forever; the second one is only a point in favor of the PC until the software on smartphones and tablets starts to catch up in terms of essential features and innovative ideas. Which it will.

And already, this “the PC is better for creation and collaboration” theory is starting to crack around the edges. Even now, I prefer to do e-mail on an iPad over a Windows PC or Mac–including composing messages–simply because the iPad is free of the cruft and complexity and distractions of traditional PCs. As for smartphones, they’re as profoundly useful as PCs right now–just in different ways. (The most useful device is the one you have with you, and it’s possible to take a phone many places where a PC wouldn’t be practical.) It’s as logical to think of a Windows PC as a companion to a smartphone as vice versa. Or simply to think of them as equals.

Me, I’m thinking that we don’t live in a post-PC era or a PC plus era. I’ve always preferred to define “PC” loosely–I consider Macs and Linux boxes to be PCs, which is why I prissily refer to “Windows PCs” when most people would simply say “PCs.” But there’s no reason why the definition of “personal computer” must be limited to devices that are recognizable as traditional desktops and laptops. It’s always been elastic, and it’s always changed to fit new kinds of devices.

There was a time when a personal computer was a box with switches on the front. Then they got screens and keyboards–and we still called them PCs.

A few years later, computers arrived that you could fold up and take anywhere. We called those PCs, too.

Eventually, they ditched the keyboard in some cases. And they were still PCs.

Smartphones and tablets are intensely personal–certainly more so than a desktop PC that an IT department puts on your desk at work. They’re computers, by any reasonable definition of the word. That makes them personal computers. (In fact, they’re what the people who invented personal computers might have built if the technology had existed at the time.)

Apple can claim that we’re in a post-PC era; Microsoft can insist that we’re in a PC-plus era. Those arguments play to those respective companies’ viewpoints and strengths. As an interested bystander, I think of this era as…the PC era. After 35 years, it’s still just getting started, and it’ll be the PC era even if it comes to be dominated by devices that look more like iPhones and iPads–or something else that hasn’t been invented yet–than they do like ThinkPads and Pavilions.

Just for fun, let’s end with a 1982 InfoWorld editorial (by the irrepresible John C. Dvorak) that wonders if the good times are over for the PC business. They weren’t then, and they aren’t now…

So the news that HP wants to stop making PCs leaves me feeling melancholy. An HP that gets out of the PC business will be one that I’ll cover a lot less, even if I continue on covering the products of the spun-off company–which, I suspect, will still be sold under the HP name.

But I’m not really surprised by HP’s decision, especially since its new CEO, Léo Apotheker, is a hardcore enterprise-software guy, not a consumer-electronics type. And despite Apotheker’s suggestion that “the tablet effect“–for which read the iPad–is a factor in HP’s desire to ditch PCs, I think that HP would be doing this right now even if the iPad didn’t exist.

I mean, so many analysts have told HP that it should get out of the PC business for so long that the meme is practically a cliché. A few random examples beginning with one from a decade ago, when HP was trying to buy Compaq:

Forbes, 9/4/01:

ZDNet UK’s Dan Ilet, 11/29/2004:

IDG News Service’s Tom Krazit, 2/10/05:

Knowledge@Wharton, 5/10/05:

By exiting the PC industry, HP isn’t doing anything that shows breathtaking vision. It’s not doing anything that would have been stunning in the pre-iPad era. It’s just doing something that many, many people who analyze its overall business have recommended it should do. For years. The same thing that IBM concluded it needed to do almost seven years ago.

I’ll miss the old HP, whenever it goes away. (The company says it may take 18 months to figure out exactly how it’s going to extricate itself from the PC industry.)  But on some level, the breakup isn’t evidence of how much things have changed for the PC–it’s proof of how much they remain the same. PCs have always been a painful, low-margin, lucky-if-you-don’t-lose-money business for nearly everyone who makes them. All HP is doing is deciding it no longer makes sense to fight the tide.