Methodology

How BudgetRig recommendations work

Price ranges, not teaser prices

Hardware prices are stored as separate realistic UK and US ranges, each with its own source links and last-checked date. A build must fit inside your budget at the top of the range for your selected country. A price becomes stale after 45 days and the site labels it rather than silently presenting it as current. If a component has no evidence for a country, BudgetRig excludes that build there instead of converting or borrowing another market's price.

Model fit and honest limits

BudgetRig checks usable VRAM or shared memory, model-file size, runtime headroom and editorial limits before recommending a model. If no sensible build fits, the result is an honest refusal rather than a weaker configuration disguised as success.

Benchmarks

Speed appears only when a published source matches the model, quant and hardware class. No published benchmarkmeans exactly that: BudgetRig leaves the speed absent instead of transferring a plausible-looking number from different hardware or a different model.

Caveats and used hardware

Recommendations include assembly steps, power and compatibility warnings, used-hardware risks and links to the evidence used. Availability is never guaranteed; marketplace search results and prices can move.

Affiliate funding

BudgetRig may earn from eBay links, but the recommendation engine does not use affiliate commission, click or earnings data when ranking builds. It selects from the same dataset before affiliate parameters are added to outbound URLs.

Who BudgetRig is for

BudgetRig is an independent build adviser for people in the UK and United States who want to run AI models locally and need a budget-first answer. Country selection is explicit: BudgetRig does not redirect visitors based on IP address. Corrections and questions are welcome through the contact page.