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PCBS Builder's Little Helper
By spathianon
The one-stop for all of your PCBS build planning and upgrading needs. It'll keep track of your customers' parts and requirements, and when inputting new parts, their most important stats are displayed in neat dropdown lists. The tool calculates 3DMark scores, wattages, and even temperatures (if the setting is enabled) that take into account even very complicated custom liquid cooling setups.

There are lots of checks for the build overall, and for satisfying the customer's requirements. Parts listings are customizable and you can have favorite parts that show up on top. There's overclocking support with some automatically calculated defaults to choose from, and for advanced users there's a part quality calculator and several tabs for picking the very best components and overclock settings. Not all of this is enabled by default, so it can work for those who are just looking for a build sheet but also for those seeking world records, and for those who fall somewhere in between.
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Created by
spathianon
Online
Category: Gameplay Basics, Walkthroughs
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
29 Apr, 2020 @ 6:16am
26 May, 2022 @ 6:28am
3,446 Unique Visitors
65 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Current stable version and basic usage 
A brief overview of the UI 
Other versions 
Comments
Current stable version and basic usage
Link to the current stable version 1.15.3b[drive.google.com]

Before you can change anything, you need to go to "File" and select "Make a copy".
Also, you really should change the player's level on the Settings tab to reflect your save file.


The meat of the spreadsheet is in the Build Sheet Template. There's an introductory tutorial at the bottom of it and that's recommended reading, but the basic usage of this spreadsheet is:

1. Duplicate the Build Sheet Template, perhaps naming the new sheet by the customer
2. Plug in the customer's requirements (yellow background)
3. Plug in the customer's current PC parts (red background). For new computers, leave all these fields empty.
4. Select replacement/new parts (blue background). The sheet will take a few moments to update. The validation warnings are safe to ignore. The dropdown lists may not work immediately after sheet duplication.
5. Check whether there are any warnings (indicated by darker red or yellow backgrounds in various places) about your build and do however you deem fit about them


Since there's so much to cover, the vast majority of the help is only in the actual spreadsheet. You can find dropdown menus for it on the Help tab.


A brief overview of the UI
Basic tabs:
- The settings tab holds the "official" customization options. This includes filtering and sorting options for the part lists,
but those maybe just as importantly determine what is shown in dropdown menus when choosing new parts for a PC
- The help tab has a dropdown menu for getting information on various topics of interest
- The build sheet template, and any copies of it
- Component lists can display parts' attributes in a customizable table
- The part comparison graphs tab takes the data from the Components lists tab and displays it in the form of graphs

Tabs that can be enabled in the settings:
- The CPU and cooling picker helps reach those requested frequencies in the best ways possible
- GPU overclocking tab which can calculate the GPU core and memory clock settings that give the best GPU scores in 3DMark
- The motherboard picker suggests motherboards that can support the parts you give it, given the constraints you supply it and the sorting options selected


Build sheets:
- Lightly colored fields with no checkbox expect a value to be written there or selected from a dropdown menu (if one exists).
- Custom numerical values can be entered when appropriate even when there's a dropdown menu. A checked checkbox means "yes" and unchecked means "no".
- Checkboxes can usually be clicked no matter the color, but some fields under the "Customer requirements" work automatically and won't change value when clicked.
- Fields on a white background mostly have information on them but some checkboxes can be clicked, and this introduction's header is a dropdown menu for more tutorials.
- A deeper red background on a field signifies a potentially catastrophic error in your build, and a deep yellow background signifies a warning.
- At the very bottom left and very top right there are arrows that hide a lot of internal formulas. They may have stuff that you're not supposed to see at your cheatiness settings.
64 Comments
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☉Nipples of Jeff Goldblum☉ 28 Jul, 2024 @ 9:31am 
I mean, that's what happens when Epic gets involved. Screw Epic.
Klaus_Ferrano 9 Mar, 2024 @ 7:40am 
It's a shame that this tool is only for the first part and not for the second part, which has been available on Epic since 2022
Reztroz 20 Dec, 2023 @ 2:58am 
Thank you for looking into it! Just wanted to make sure I was using it properly.

If you do make a patch that would be awesome, but I totally understand if you don't!

Thank you!
spathianon  [author] 14 Dec, 2023 @ 10:59am 
Okay, I've taken a look at it, and it seems the functionality is missing to omit GPUs by insufficient part ranking scores. So, I'm thinking that you're not doing anything incorrectly and a patch would be warranted. I'll... think about it. It's been well over a year since I've really touched the spreadsheet and user numbers probably are fairly low nowadays.
Reztroz 13 Dec, 2023 @ 7:20pm 
The least expensive item on the list is a MSI Radeon RX 470 Gaming 8G with a score of 3539. However that does not fit the requirements. If I choose the RX 470 the GPU ranking under Must Run stays red

The minimum card for that spec according to Will It Run is a 1060, so the Zotac Mini or Founders Edition with a score of 3719 are the least expensive options, at 5 options up from the bottom of the list, and $15 more expensive than the least expensive option.

Once I choose one of those it will change from red to white.

I mean the $15 difference isn't a big deal, but I just want to make sure I'm using the sheet correctly. If it'll count the 470 as meeting the requirements then i'll happily pick that, but it doesn't seem like it does.
Reztroz 13 Dec, 2023 @ 7:20pm 
Thank you,

But yeah, that's what I do for the customer requirements, like i'll choose the game and the requested minimum, recommended, etc. and it filters the CPUs to the minimum CPU that fits the budget and requested specs. But for GPUs the least expensive option is always lower than the requested Specs.

For example I needed to build a PC to play PUBG at minimum spec, with a budget of 2k.

So I put that into the requirements field, and start choosing parts for the Replace Parts with fields.

The Must Run values are showing that at Minimum I need 6GB VRAM, 8GB of RAM, a CPU Score of 2537, and a GPU Ranking of 2437.

So I start with the CPU Field, least expensive item in the list is the i3-7300 with a score of 2537, so I choose that and an appropriate motherboard.

I then fill in the CPU cooler, RAM, case, hdd, and go to choose the GPU.
spathianon  [author] 1 Dec, 2023 @ 3:55am 
If you want to be a bit more fancy about it, click the checkbox for "Edit presets", then under GPU there's the row that says "Custom". Input "Part Ranking Score" in one of the dropdown lists. Then when you choose "Custom" as the "Preset for the columns to show", you'll see just the part name of the GPU and its part ranking score.

But the reason why GPU scores are listed by default and not part ranking scores all over the place, is how the part rankings are only really used for the customer requirements. I at least remember that much. If you're building your own PC in the game, the scores are more helpful. Same with CPUs.
spathianon  [author] 1 Dec, 2023 @ 3:55am 
On your build sheets, you can input the specs into Customer's requirements. That should filter the dropdown menus under "Replace part with" to only include parts that would fit the requirements.

But if you feel like you must do it in the "Component lists" tab, the relevant column you are looking for is "Part Ranking Score". I don't remember the exact details of it any longer, but it is indeed different from the GPU score. The simplest way to get to ordering by Part Ranking Score is by of course selecting first GPUs under Component listing, then "*ALL* columns" for the columns to show, and then Part Ranking Score as the sorting order.
Reztroz 28 Nov, 2023 @ 1:37pm 
I'm having some confusion with the GPU field during builds for running a specific program.

If I'm building a PC to run Premiere Pro at Recommended the chart shows:
VRAM: 4 GB
RAM: 16 GB
CPU Score: 3216
GPU Ranking: 2100
Storage 7GB

The CPU Field starts with an i5-6400, the least expensive CPU that has a score of 3216 or better. But the GPU field starts with a MSI Radeon R9 370 Gaming 4G with a score of 1574. Scrolling up and selecting a GPU with a score of 2225, the MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 4G LE is not enough to count as a rank 2100 minimum.

I end up having to run Will It Run on the office PC and grab the least expensive version of that GPU.

Is the GPU Ranking Field different than the GPU Score that shows for the GPUs?

If so, where are the rankings on the parts list? When you filter it for GPU it only shows Score, Price, Score to value, VRAM, Wattage, and Guaranteed OC GPU Score.

Thank you for the help!
spathianon  [author] 3 Sep, 2023 @ 4:47am 
It's not in the plans. I'm personally content having made a useful tool for even one generation of the game. Of course if there's will from other people to adapt it to PCBS 2, I won't mind.