How To Buy A Gaming PC

When many people think of gaming, they automatically think of gaming consoles. And, sure, many households 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 for a truly connected and immersive gaming experiences desktop PCs reign supreme. 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 heralded in 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 humungous 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 or a rented hall somewhere.
CPU: The Gaming PC's Heart
The gaming developers all post what their minimum requirements are for their games. Popular games like World of Warcraft list old-school single-core processors like the 1.3GHz Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP 1500+ as minimum, but you really don't want to play at "minimum" on a new PC. Likewise, single-core AMD Athlon and Intel Atom processors are best left to being Web-browsing secondary PCs in your house. You can play simple games including role-playing games (RPGs) like Torchlight and casual games like Diner Dash or Plants vs. Zombieson a dual-core Atom, Pentium, or Athlon II X2 processor fine.
If you're more 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 six-core AMD Phenom II X6. Multi-core processors will pay off on games that tout "realistic physics" or "class leading visuals," but for the most part four or more cores help 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 hard drive should only cost a few extra bucks compared with a standard 320GB one, and will hold many games. 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 $700 for a 256GB SSD vs. $60 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 they're not worth the added expense unless you're flush with cash.
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 integrated graphics like Nvidia GeForce 9400 and ATI Radeon HD 4200 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 Torchlight, Sims 2/3, and Spore. Getting a single high end GPU like the ATI Radeon HD 5570 or Nvidia GeForce GT 460 is enough to play high end games like Crysis, Lost Planet 2, or the upcoming Crysis 2 at moderate screen resolutions (1,280 by 720 in our standard tests).
If you want to max out your 3D performance and likely send your credit card cowering, then you can upgrade to two or three high-end graphics cards like the ATI Radeon HD 6870 (with CrossFireX) or Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 (with SLI). These highest-end graphics card 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. I'm still unsure about the viability of stereoscopic 3D in the gaming PC market, but you will be prepared if 3D ever takes off. Just be forewarned that stereoscopic 3D usually requires you to use 3D glasses. 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.

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