A custom-built gaming PC ensures that you can play the games you want to play.
In 2010, computer games are often filled with stunning graphics and rich sound that require a robust PC system to fully experience. A gaming computer minimally requires a good graphics card and processor, as well as a fast hard drive and a large amount of memory. A well planned gaming computer can last for a number of years before needing an upgrade. While there are ready built and customizable desktop PCs available that are geared towards high-end PC gaming, building your own gaming computer allows you to personalize the machine for optimal performance to suit your budget.
Instructions
1. Set a baseline for your component choices. Choose a recently released game that best exemplifies the type of games you are interested in. Computer games will often give minimum specifications needed to run the game, as well as specifications for an optimal game play experience. Take the optimal game play specifications and either meet or exceed those specifications.
2. Purchase a video card and computer processing unit (CPU). The video card and CPU are the most expensive components, as well as the most important parts of a gaming PC as they will determine the quality of the video game graphics rendered on your machine. High-end gaming video cards often have graphics processor units (GPUs) from ATI or NVIDIA. High-end CPUs are available from both Intel and AMD.
3. Purchase your motherboard and memory. Purchasing your motherboard after selecting your video card and processor ensures that your motherboard choice will support these two very important components.
4. Buy an internal drive. Seek time is the time it takes for a system to find the information it is looking for on a hard drive. For optimal game play, choose a hard drive that has a fast seek time. Solid state drives (SSD) have the fastest seek times but have lower storage capacity than traditional magnetic hard drives.
5. Buy your power supply and case. Gaming PCs require a lot of energy to power all of the high-end components. Select a power supply and case that can support all your computer's components. The power requirement for PC components can be found on the box or with the component's documentation.
6. Purchase your peripherals. Essential peripherals include your keyboard, mouse, display and audio output. Factor in response time before buying a wireless or wired mouse. A wireless mouse and keyboard is convenient but you risk battery death during game play. A wired mouse and keyboard have the fastest response time with the computer.
Tags: game play, gaming computer, hard drive, optimal game, optimal game play, video card