Building a PC Gaming System

So you’ve decided to build a dedicated PC gaming system, Pc gaming has been around for quite some time and it has been in some very creative people who have added a vast selection of Skins, car packs and mods for your favourite games.

We have titles such as rFactor, Live for speed and the GTR series to have dedicated to the PC gaming system.

There are a number of categories to which we discuss the system building process:


DISPLAY
Having a huge screen always sounds like a nice idea but it might not always be the most practical, especially if you are using a racing console. Make your measurements first, these days the standard is to go for LCD screens for computers, they have incredible detail and look fantastic on a desk or at the front of a racing console. Their tiny size and light weight design allows them to require a very small footprint, fitting huge 24 inch screens on the desk is easier than ever. The standard size seems to be 19 to 21 inch LCD screens which will offer you a great view size but won’t break the bank. If you want the extra size you can pickup a 24 inch LCD screen for around $280us which is really cheap when you consider that a few years ago these monitors were over $2000us.

CPU
The heart of a computer system, you have 2 options in this day and age with regards to brands, either an AMD or a Intel processor.

Both have their benefits, intel are a strong brand with a great selection of models and amazing overclocking ability while the AMD stands for excellent value for money in their products and a solid name, although they are not quite close to INTEL for their overclocking abilities they can still give you a decent increase in performance if overclocking was to be done.


MOTHERBOARD
Once you know what processor your after you can then decide on the motherboard, its important to know what sort of other features you will be using so that the motherboard you buy can support it. Things such as Crossfire or PCI E express are not always supported on all motherboards so it is crucial to do your research first. Motherboards these days will come with network adaptors and a multitude of connectors available. Brands are not always so important but if you do find a less common brand name that your interested in, read a few reviews about it. Less popular name products does not always mean it will be less reliable. Some companies really want to get their name out and won’t jeperdise it with cheap components.

 
VIDEO CARD
This is a very important component of any gaming system and can quite easily end up as a bottleneck to a computer.
If the cpu is waiting for the video card to render the scenes then the processor can only go as fast as the video card. For example, I had a 8600 gts video card in one machine that obtained 5900 3d points, the same system with a HD4850 video card scored 10000 3d points. Mind you though you can over capitalise on a very expensive video card and expect an amazing result from the performance but this will not always happen and a system will always have a bottleneck, you just have to find out which ones are the most important and not to sacrifice on them when buying components.


RAM
Ram will work in the same regards as the video card and become the bottleneck of a system, these days though RAM is cheap enough to use 2 to 4 gig at decent speed rates too. If your looking at over clocking its important to choose a fast and efficient ram, good ram will have low latency timings. Search for Memory timings in google for a better explanation to why this is important when over clocking.


OVERCLOCKING
This process has got considerably easier over the years and some companies are even giving a guarantee the over clocking performance of certain products in the warranty. This doesn’t mean its child’s play, there are quite a lot of risks when over clocking especially when the CPU voltage is raised. There are certain motherboards that will support over clocking and allow more options but its important to do your research first.

At the moment there is no doubt that Intel processors will over clock much better than the AMD equivalents but its important to base your required performance output based on your budget.

You can go out today and buy a $10,000 computer that will play all the latest games at FULL graphics level maybe not crysis, but at the end of the day in 1 to 2 months that system will most likely be superseded by a faster processor and the system will be worth half what it was worth. Be smart with what you buy, research good performance for money products and you’ll save yourself a lot of money and you may even get something better off in the long run.