Discriminating among companies and brands is hard for people who don’t know which companies have a reputation for quality and reliability, which ones produces junk, and which ones are new in the market. With the number of brands selection becomes much easier.

The best way to evade poor quality products is to do your own homework. Go to the manufacturers’ web sites, see online reviews of products you are considering, and go to discussion forums for the parts you doubt. Finally, believe yourself. If a part appears to be of poor quality, it isn’t reliable. If the information is unclear about the quality of the component then also the part is not reliable. If the part has a short warranty than similar parts from other manufacturers, there’s may be good reason.

However, price is not always the perfect judge of parts quality; it’s just a very good indicator. The PC part business is very competitive, so if a product sells for much less than similar competing products, it’s suppose to be of not so good quality.