I love games! Particularly, WWII FPS (First person shooters). My current favorite is Modern Warfare 2. So for me, for a truly connected and immersive experience, gaming desktops reign supreme. I’ll walk you through the details of choosing the right gaming PC for you.
Normally, when people think of computer games, they think gaming consoles. And, sure, many homes have at least one (if not all) of the three major gaming consoles available: the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii. But I truly believe that the best approach is a desktop PC. Gaming PCs are more upgradable than laptops, and it’s still easier to install expansion packages to PC games than on consoles. The new 120Hz monitors have brought us a new chapter to 3D gaming, and you simply can’t get all the new gaming bells and whistles unless you have a high-powered gaming PC. That said, you don’t necessarily have to buy the most expensive desktop to play the most popular games.
Design Matters
Gaming PCs used to be behemoths that took up a lot of space underneath your desk. You can still buy one of these monoliths, especially if you’re interested in a multi-graphics card setup (more on that later). However, more modest mini-towers and small form factor PCs are certainly powerful enough to play all but the most strenuous games at the highest screen resolutions. Small form factor PCs have the added benefit of being portable, in case you’re on the way to a social gaming session at a friend’s house.
CPU: The Gaming PC’s Heart
If you’re serious about your gaming, look for an AMD Athlon II X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo processor, so you can play today’s games and tomorrow’s. First person shooter games will work fine on mid-level dual core PCs, but if you tend to buy the latest game as soon at it is released, look at quad-core processors like the Intel Core i5/i7 or the AMD Phenom II X4. Quad core processors will pay off on games that tout “realistic physics” or “class leading visuals,” but for the most part quad-core helps multimedia tasks more than gaming.
System Memory and Storage
Buy at least 4GB of RAM. Memory is cheap these days. Use whatever speed is recommended for your system (DDR2-800, DDR3-1333, etc.) - end of story. For storage, getting a 500GB or 1TB hard drive should only cost a few extra bucks compared with a standard 320GB one, and will hold many games. Now you can get a system with one or more Solid State Drives (SSD) instead of a spinning SATA hard drive, but they are very expensive on a GB per dollar basis (over US$400 for a 120GB SSD vs. US$1,000 for a 1TB SATA hard drive). If you’re really impatient, the SSD can dramatically decrease loading times and reboot times (seconds vs. minutes), but for now, I feel they’re not worth the added expense unless you’re ‘big money’.
Graphics Muscle
Just about every one of the PC reviews on pcmag.com, lists integrated graphics as bad for gaming. This is for the most part true, but newer integrated graphics like Nvidia GeForce 9400 and ATI Radeon HD 3200 can handle limited 3D gaming. These graphic processors (GPUs) are certainly powerful enough to handle most casual games like Diner Dash, Farmville, and even light 3D games like Sims 2/3 and Spore. Getting a single high end GPU like the ATI Radeon HD 4850 or Nvidia GeForce GT 230 is enough to play high end games like Crysis, Modern Warfare 2, or the upcoming Resident Evil at moderate screen resolutions (1,280 by 1,024 in our standard tests).
If you want to max out your 3D performance and send your credit card cowering, then you can upgrade to two or three high-end graphics cards like the ATI Radeon HD 5970 (with CrossFireX) or Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 (with SLI). These highest-end graphics cards will add over a thousand dollars to your final price, but then again these highest end PCs are the gaming equivalent of a million dollar supercar.
Make sure you buy one of those 24 to 27-inch 120Hz high-resolution 3D-capable monitors to make your multiple GPU system worth it. You may never use the system to its highest potential, and there will be something faster in 6-9 months, but you can tell your friends you have arrived in the upper strata if you buy one.
Have I whetted your appetite for a gaming rig? Then check out some of the hot gaming PCs we have recently been reviewed.
Password hint: Please don’t use easy to guess passwords! (“1234567890”, “password”, your birthday, your phone number, etc). For an easy to remember but difficult to guess password, use some phrase you love from a movie, a song lyrics, etc. If one of your favorite phrases from a movie is the Terminator saying “I’ll be back”. Use “ibb” as a password; or “ibbibb”; or “ilbeba”. Get the idea? Try it.
Have a question or problem? Write me at BaliPCAdvisor@Gmail.com. I’ll try and answer as soon as I can.
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