Newegg's ChatGPT Plugin Helps You Plan a PC Build
If you need help planning a PC build and like the idea of using AI more than reading an article like our list of best PC builds, Newegg has an answer for you. The company has just released a new ChatGPT plugin you can access if you have a ChatGPT plus account.
The plugin lets you ask a conversational AI about what the best gaming build for your budget is and get back a recommended parts list. Every suggested hardware piece conveniently comes with a link straight to the corresponding Newegg product page, and you can even ask ChatGPT to give you a master build link so you only need to click two or three additional times before you're through the checkout process.
But just how good is its advice? I just tested the Newegg plugin, and it was akin to entering Alice in Wonderland (the Tim Burton version): everything's interesting and somewhat faithful, but laid out in just the wrong way.
My first question was one that our Editor-in-Chief, Avram Piltch, already asked Newegg back in March this year (to then-mediocre results): I wanted the best gaming PC build under $1000. And for a $1000 dollars, this is what it suggested:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 - Ryzen 5 5000 Series Vermeer (Zen 3) 6-Core 3.5 GHz Socket AM4 65W None Integrated Graphics Desktop Processor - 100-100000927BOX - $144.99
Motherboard: MSI PRO B550M PRO-VDH WIFI AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $119.99
Video Card: MSI Mech Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 Video Card RX 6700 XT MECH 2X 12G - $558.99
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16D-16GVKB - $37.99
SSD: Team Group MP33 M.2 2280 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 with NVMe 1.3 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) TM8FP6001T0C101 - $37.99
Case: Fractal Design Focus G Mini Black MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $29.99
Power Supply: CORSAIR CX-M CX750M 750 W ATX 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Semi-Modular Power Supply - $111.16
Cooling System: MSI MAG Series CORELIQUID P240 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler, 240mm Radiator, Dual 120mm PWM Fans LGA 1700 Ready / AM5 Compatible - $89.99
Everything looks ok at first glance. Well, scratch that. The way it looks depends on how knowledgeable you already are about the PC component market today.
If you're a newcomer to the PC hardware world, it looks okay: the only issue you can likely detect is that the total build price ended up slightly over budget, at $1123.09. You'll accept that the AI has provided the answer you need (what with its authoritative, knowledgeable tone), and use the convenient flow between the plugin and your Newegg account.
And you'll probably be satisfied enough with your system, to be fair. The Radeon RX 6700 XT isn't a bad card by any measure, there's a snappy-enough 1TB NVMe SSD, a six-core Zen 3 CPU and 16GB of (again, competent) RAM. And we must remember that DDR5 and AM5 motherboards, requisite pieces for a Ryzen 7000 series CPU, are generally more expensive and thus more difficult to accommodate within a $1000 budget. It's a competent gaming system relative to the budget, even if the individual component choices are debatable.
Except that the typical price for the RX 6700 XT hovers around the $330-$370 range so the $558.99 MSI card the bot recommends is overpriced by more than $230! If you didn't know better or double-check the prices, you'd be throwing money down the drain.
That's a problem.
If you're not a newcomer, you might know to ask for an alternative graphics card; or you might just really want to stick within the $1000 budget. Surely an AI can stay within a hard limit, right?
The next build delivered through the Newegg plugin for ChatGPT looked much better:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G - Ryzen 7 5000 G-Series Cezanne (Zen 3) 8-Core 3.8 GHz Socket AM4 65W AMD Radeon Graphics Desktop Processor - 100-100000263BOX - $177.10
Motherboard: MSI PRO B550-A PRO AM4 AMD B550 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - $139.99
Video Card: MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 8GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 x8 ATX Video Card RTX 4060 GAMING X 8G - $309.99
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16D-32GVK - $61.99
SSD: SAMSUNG 980 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.4 V-NAND MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V8V1T0B/AM - $49.99
Case: Fractal Design Meshify C White - White Steel / Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower High-Airflow Compact Clear Tempered Glass Computer Case - $99.99
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G5, 80 Plus Gold 750W, Fully Modular, Eco Mode with FDB Fan, 10 Year Warranty, Includes Power ON Self Tester, Compact 150mm Size, Power Supply 220-G5-0750-X1 - $139.99
Cooling System: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition CPU Air Cooler, Silencio FP120 Fan, Anodized Gun-Metal Black, Brushed Nickel Fins, 4 Copper Direct Contact Heat Pipes for AMD Ryzen/Intel LGA1700/1200/1151 - $54.99
The RTX 4060 is a much better buy at the listed price of $309.99 compared to the $558.99 RX 6700 XT from before. You also get a bump in the processor (now an 8-core CPU that's a balanced choice for the budget), an extra 16GB of RAM (now 32GB), a better SSD, and again, a relatively balanced system.
But if you'd ask our forum members, they'd point out multiple hardware choices that could be better fits for your build: more performant power supplies and the correct balance of motherboard features and price according to your use-case. And tech reviewers would have shown you the best-looking PC cases, and talked about difficulties you might experience with a specific model, or how it compares to competitors. The same is true for CPUs and SSDs and essentially every entry in the Newegg-provided shopping list.
ChatGPT might give you that, in a way: it will ask you several questions in order to optimize the build, such as "Do you have a budget for this build?" and "Do you have a preference for AMD or Intel CPU?". So it's doable, if you dedicate enough questions to that. But again depending on how knowledgeable you are on what you're looking for (which is opposite what you want this system to look like), you might find additional points of friction.
For instance: why did ChatGPT suggest an RTX 4060 for the build, if its knowledge cut-off is set at September 2021?
Trust Issues
That's puzzling. Our first article on credible rumors about the RTX 4060 is dated December 2022. Obviously, ChatGPT is getting its product information directly from Newegg, a retailer with its own agenda.
That just opens up a number of questions, and the possibilities vary depending, again, on trust. If these products are being supplied by Newegg, then how are they being ranked? How exactly is the GPT4 agent working with Newegg's plugin? Does it send a request for popular hardware within a pricing range? Or is everything - including budget - simply provided by Newegg's own hardware stock information? If Newegg wants to sell you a more expensive model that's not the best value, is it going to recommend that?
When it's a store rather than an objective expert dolling out the build advice, your interests may not come first. If you're the type of user who just wants a simple answer, you may not think to question the AI's output. And if you're an advanced user like me, you'd spend a lot of time fact-checking and price-checking Newegg's suggested build before you'd actually pull the trigger and buy something.
Large Language Problems
There's also an attrition process involved in choosing a build within the Newegg PC Builder plugin: ChatGPT doesn't immediately deliver me exactly what I want it to, as natural as its language processing is. For instance, my first prompt read "I want to build the best gaming system possible today. It should feature a consumer-level AMD or Intel CPU and a single graphics card."
When I write the above, I know exactly what I mean: that I want every component that's required for a gaming PC to be maximized. I want the best pick in every category (in this case, with the added constraints to pre-emptively keep it away from any quixotic dual-CPU or Multi-GPU "hallucination").
And yet the bot didn't deliver what I asked for. The best possible PC would clearly have a top-of-the-line, current-gen CPU from AMD or Intel (not a Ryzen 5 5600X which is a mid-range, older-gen chip) and it would have an RTX 4090 (not a 4080), which is the fastest graphics card around.
Yes, I could keep modifying my prompt and asking for more expensive and fancier parts but that's because I already know what I want. If someone already knew what they wanted, they wouldn't need the bot. And if a knowledgeable person got this kind of answer, they'd leave.
Newegg's ChatGPT plugin is a nice technical achievement, but it's not helpful enough right now to replace advice from expert humans or save you the trouble of doing your own research. Perhaps a future version will give better quality results, but as long as the advice is coming from a single retailer, you'll have to be wary of bias in favor of inventory that the vendor wants to move.