Gaming PC Buying Guide

How to build a Gaming PC that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg?

Crysis 2 is about to release and ............There are many things to consider when doing a self-build or Build to order, we’ll try to avoid the technical jargon and explain things in the simplest of form.

So, you are building your gaming rig, you want to munch through Crysis 2 and you would like it to last at least 3 years without thinking about an upgrade. There’s one basic principle in the winning recipe, so learn it by heart, “ Keep Your Options Open”. We’ll explain what it means later in this article

Ingredients:

1. PC Chasis / Casing
2. Motherboard
3. Processor
4. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) / Video card / 3D card
5. Cooling Solutions
6. Memory (RAM)
7. Storage (Hard drive)
8. Power Supply Unit (PSU)

PC Chasis / Casing :

If you are satisfied at stock processing power than any casing would do. but if you are a hardcore over-clocker then invest in a decent gaming casing with upgradable cooling options. The concept is that all the computer parts produce heat and at the same time work best at an optimum temperature. Overclocking the CPU and GPU and RAM generates increased amount of heat. So the trick is to balance the performance with convenience.

There are 2 types of cooling solutions

1. Air cooling
2. Water cooling

Select a chasis that has enough space and convenience to install a good CPU cooler and has the necessary vents / connections to allow you to upgrade to a water-cooled system, if you decide to switch your preferred cooling method.

Techtabloid recommends : Cooler Master HAF X (High Air Flow)  Since we are on a budget then we'll choose CM 690 II Advance : an excellent casing with rear vents for future water cooling upgradability.

Motherboard:

Motherboard selection is the tricky part. It is the foundation of your future masterpiece, you want to buy a good motherboard that offers upgrading options, balanced connectivity, and a decent overclocking potential (remember we are on a budget, but invest in a good motherboard)

Deciding factors when selecting a good motherboard:

• What processor will you use? AMD or Intel, currently the intel's sandybridge platform is way ahead of the competition so LGA 1155 will do the trick ( arrival of AMD's bulldozer platform is eagerly awaited)
• The Motherboard should have atleast 2 PCI-Express 2.0 slots for SLI  / Crossfire setup
• Sata III interface support for future proofing hard drive technology
• RAID 0 support
• Although Triple channel DDR III RAM  is preferred but most of the new boards support Dual channel DDR III up to 1600 MHz and some even go as high has 2200 MHz
• We'll choose Asus P8P67 mobo with a P67 based chipset

Processor:

With the selection of motherboard our choices in the processor department have become easier now. We can even buy an intel core i3  dual core processor now and can easily upgrade to a top of the line core i7 processor when its price drops.

For this specific build we'll select a second generation intel core i5 processor.

Intel core i5 2500k Quad core processor @ 3.3 GHz for 233$, ( K stands for unlocked multiplier, nice overclocking potential)

GPU:

First a piece of advice: always buy the best single GPU within your budget in your first build. If your budget allows you to buy a 580GTX, go for it , don't buy 2 x 460 now.... thinking that it would be cost effective performance wise. It certainly would be, but down the road if you decide to upgrade then just adding a single 580GTX when its price drops, makes more sense.

We'll use a single nVidia Geforce MSI 560 Ti twin frozer II Overclocked GPU for this budget build

Cooling Solutions:

We'll go with the stock Intel cooler at the moment, test the system, if the system heats up beyond our liking then we can always resort to aftermarket cooling solutions

Memory / RAM :

Remember your baseline : At least 6 Gigs of DDR III RAM clocked no lower than 1600 MHz for a gaming PC. The problem is future proofing and getting rid of the 3 x 2gb modules when you upgrade your RAM, so you may get 2 sticks of 4Gb modules at the moment. or Even 1 module of 4Gb

The Idea is to Get Less modules and large modules, it serves our purpose in two ways

• Lower the number of modules, lower the heat
• Larger capacity modules future proof

We'll choose 2x 4Gb Corsair XMS 3 Dual channel Memory (Xtreme speed memory )

Storage: ( Hard drive)

There's comes the Dilemma : SSDs are super fast but super expensive, Normal Magnetic hard drives offer higher capacities at lower prices at the cost of performance.

The Ideal setup is a single SSD for the Operating system and 2 Magnetic Hard drives @ 7200 Rpm ( techtabloid recommends seagate Momentus )  in a RAID 0 configuration.

Hybrid Hard drive is another option but IMO it doesn't provide as significant a performance gain as the setup described above

We'll use a single SSD, Crucial Sata III 6Gbps, for this build and keep our options open when there is need  for greater storage space.

Power Supply Unit:

There are two ways to go:

1. Calculate the wattage of the above mentioned setup and get a PSU... simple. but that would mean, no room for over clocking and also when you'll add another GPU to the SLI setup, you'll have to upgrade the PSU also.
2. Future Proof, get a 1200Watt PSU that would be enought for dual 590 GTX Quad SLI :D

We recommend "Go Green" save power, get what you need now, PSU's don't cost that much.

Conclusion:

Our project has turned out to be quite good. The final specs for our budget Gaming PC are :

Casing: CM 690 II advance .........84.99$

Processor: intel core i5 2500k ......233$

Motherboard: Asus P8P67...........145$

GPU:  MSI 560ti twin frozer 1 GB... 249$

RAM: corsair XMS 3 1600MHz 8 Gb.....97$

Storage: Crucial SSD sata III 128Gb... 229$

PSU: Thermaltake TR2 750 watt modular... 103$

Total : ............................1141$

Room for improvement:

We have ended up with a great base system , with a fast quad core CPU, fermi GPU, a Sata III 6Gbps SSD, 8 gigs of XMS 3, this system can crunch through crysis 2 like butter through knife or ...was it the other way around :).. anyways..

Let's say , two years down the road, we want to upgrade, that will be easier done than said:

• CPU limitations can be easily overcome by upgrading to core i7 2600k or whatever is available at that time
• A second GTX560ti can be installed without upgrading the PSU
• CPU can be over clocked easily, water cooling can be installed,
• Magnetic platter hard drives for increased storage
• Only thing that I can think of changing in this setup at the moment is the motherboard, although it supports DDRIII up to 2200 MHz and has decent overclocking potential but  you may want to take a look at EVGA classified or Asus RoG series motherboards
• Want to see another component added? write to us : admin@techtabloid.net