This one is more for the index for future reference, and since we seem to have some great technical folks around at the moment, such as The Kiwi, I'd like to get their views and others about what should be looked for in a computer being bought for gaming or partially for gaming service.

Not all of us can afford Alienware computers or super high speed internet connections, nor can many folks out there know which gaming implements and devices work best. This thread isn't just for the technical masterminds to spread about a little wisdom, but anything people have had good experience in the past, from a particular service which was good to online to a card which seems to be compatible with everything. Well, not too much, but I'm not much of a tech myself.

Any and all contributions are appreciated!

Can we say what not to get? Don't ever buy one of those adapters to plug console controllers like PS2 GameCube whatever into your computer. I have a GameCube one (Super Joy Box 13)and when I try to set the controls, it freaks out and starts setting everything randomly. Also, not all the buttons work when you can manage to actually set up the controls. Better to buy a controller actually built for PCs and spend a little extra instead of waste $10 that could have gone for a decent PC controller.

For anyone buying a new hard drive, whether it's external or internal, should consider getting one from Western Digital. I personally own 3 of their hard drives and they have never failed me (one of them is 8 years old). I've read a plethora of reviews about hard drives, and generally Western Digital are considered the most reliable, closely followed by Seagate. You can usually find cheaper hard drives which offer the same storage space, so it depends whether you prefer to save $20 or so, or whether you want your data to be safe.

Also, if you're not sure where to buy your pc or any new components, please DON'T shop at somewhere like PC World. They have very high mark-up prices and generally rip you off big time.

hey guys, my name is ross. it has just recently been my 18th bday and i got a bucket load of cash, i set myself $1500 (aus) for a gaming pc.

my friend and i have planned this:

Processor: AMD Athlon x2 940 am2 (4800)
Mother board: Asus M2N-Sli-delux
Graphics: Asus 7600gt x2
Ram: 2 Gig Corsair ddr2 667
Harddrives: 320 gig Western Digital SATA
cdrom: 18x Pioneer 212d SATA
Tower: Cooler master mystique 631
Power supply: coolermaster extreme 600w
Keyboard: A4tech keyboard and mouse
Monitor: LG 19” Wide
Speakers: Logitech x530 5.1

How do you guys think this will be like as a gaming pc? i think i will have xp on it, just cause its easier to obtain. All i really wanna kno, is will this be effecient enough to play pretty much anygame out atm with almost full graphics.

thank you

^ the 7600gt's in SLI will be dwarfed by a single 8800gts/x.
Also, at the moment, Intel's Core2Duo processors seem to be much more powerful in regards to "bang for the buck" than anything AMD has yet to produce.


When looking for a gaming computer, the first thing you need is a budget to tell you how much of a gaming rig you will be building. Everything is based off of the budget and if it isn't large enough it can only go three ways...make the budget larger, make sacrifices, or wait for prices to drop. You want a powerful graphics card, a fast hard drive, a good processor and at least decent RAM.


If you are building your own:

You really want your gaming rig to be all-around powerful(this is potentially expensive) if you intend on doing any type of high-end gaming or graphically intense gaming loaded with eye-candy, and you want your system to last for a good amount of time. You can think of a gaming rig(or any rig for that matter) as an orchestra. If any one performer sucks, the whole piece will sound like crap. If any one component is severely under-par, the rest of the computer will surely suffer. Do some general research and find out which components are doing better than the others in benchmark testing, and compare the results with what you can afford.

First find a CPU platform. The prominent contenders are really only AMD or Intel. Then get a supporting motherboard that has all of the features you desire now, and in the future(don't block your future upgrades!). Then find some compatible RAM. The timings on RAM are not all that important anymore, but for the sake of argument, the lower the better. Compatible voltages between motherboards and RAM are important.

Now you need a hard drive or two. A single 10K RPM drive will decrease load times during a game. Two drives paired in a RAID format will decrease those times even further. If you don't mind a few seconds longer, a 7200 RPM drive will do just fine.

After you pick out your DVD drive and any other drive you want, you need a power supply to power the whole thing. The power supply is very important. High amps on the 12v rails coupled with a high efficiency rating. Depending on which graphics card(s) you get, total potential wattage matters as well.

The graphics card(s). This is a never ending cycle of who-can-beat-who. Better graphics cards are always coming out, and unless you are considering a purchase right before one is released, you don't need to worry about that. The better the gfx card, typically, the better the gfx and frames per second you can get during a game at higher monitor resolutions. They are not cheap, but they do last a good long time.

SLI and Crossfire(multiple gfx cards) are a waste of money, in my opinion. Since they were introduced, there seems to be a certain trend. By the time software is produced that will actually use the power produced from two gfx cards, a newer single card will be able to beat it's pants off at roughly the same cost as the two older cards. Using two of the newest cards in a multi-gpu set up will most certainly cause a bottleneck in your CPU which will prevent the gfx cards from being fully utilized by the system.

The best graphics card in the world will render cruddy looking graphics on a crappy monitor. I personally am not big on monitors, but higher resolutions are better, lower response times are better, and a bigger monitor is nicer than a smaller one if the previous two requirements are also met.


If you wish not to build your own, you can find specs that will list all of the above mentioned required information at any retailer or e-tailer.

Wow, thank you for that.

if you could, why is intel core 2 duo better?

I am not looking for the best pc, currently we use a pc that my dad brought, (he over paid for bad hardware) and the comp is slow and can barely do anything good, it runs oblivion and css, but both lag, and both cannot be set on the highest quality.

with the parts i listed above, what would be the worst thing, and why?

and with the parts that were listed there, it costs about $1549 (aus) (and aus is bad for buying comps, cause parts are expensive)

i thought all this together seemed pretty good. And if anything i will change, is not having a single hd, i will have 2 160gb ones.

There has almost always been a particular piece of advice I've offered about computer shopping. Decide very carefully before going shopping, about exactly what it will be used for, then buy what will fulfill that purpose.

For a gaming system, you have to look at the games you hope to play, and "how nicely" you expect it to run for you. At some point, your plans will hit some particular budget figure, unless you have a seriously exorbitant income.

So you find the point where the budget and the expectation intersect. The lower the budget amount, the larger part the video card becomes. A "decent, basic level game box" for about $900 is possible, but no less than about $180 to $200 of the $900 should be the graphics card. A better choice PC for about $1200 should have a similar card, if not a slightly better one.

For game playing, the video card is the number one component in determining the performance you realize from the games on the PC. Second to video capability is a generous amount of RAM. Right now, a full GB of RAM is literally the baseline. The speed and efficiency of the CPU is actually only the number three item in the selection process.

Storage cost is at an all-time low, and still falling, so that having enough free drive space comes in at only the fourth item to be thinking about. Even the very fastest drives only offer a relatively incremental improvement over the ordinary 7200 RPM, 8 MB Cache drives.

A good grade power supply is important, far more than a good enclosure for the system, but has no direct effect on game performance, although the reverse isn't true (a cheap PSU may very well slow the new system down). The more performance you want, the larger the PSU should be. For instance, the best value card for many months now has been the PCI-e version of the nVidia Geforce 7600 GT, which needs at least a "400 watt" power supply (it actually needs the 18 amps {estimated} of 12 volt current that is typical for that size PSU, but the box emphasizes wattage).

This went a little long, and there is a last point to make. It is quite true that when you reach the monetary borderline between the middle of game boxes' mid-range, the Intel C2D processor becomes a good value. If you want to shop for a system at a slightly more budget-conscious level, the AMD CPUs offer more value. AMD has currently lost the highest performance level to Intel, and also the highest graphics performance level (ATI) was taken by nVidia.

(In edit: I am well aware of the promised next series of Intel CPU price reductions coming in 5-6 weeks, but for a great many people, it's hard to sit on your hard-saved new system reserve when you are ready to replace something you have gotten so tired of putting up with!)

(Back to the original ending par.) But if you can't spend $300 and up for a video card, then an ATI card is still potentially competitive. So it's a bit of a balancing act, determining what components to select.

This message was edited by The Kiwi on May 31 2007.

yeah, thanks for that.
I have been asking the same questions to my peers and what not. and i didnt need to kno about the power supply, i am an electrician (one thing i was confident about LOL!)

and they all have there own opinions, and when i show them the list and the price, they recon its an alright deal.

so i think i have made my mind up. thank you the kiwi and Anonymous1.

The best piece of advice I've given people when it comes to getting a gaming computer has been: Don't get an Alienware(Obscenely overpriced.), to hell with e-Machines, and be prepared to spend more than $300. I don't know how many people came to me when I worked at Best Buy and asked me for a great gaming computer for $300 or less. It's best to build one's own.

I have an X2 5600+ right now. I typically prefer AMD processors over Intel, but they're handing AMD's ass to it at the moment. Go for a Core 2 Duo.

While one can find just about any type of RAM he could ever hope to find at Crucial, stay away from Crucial RAM. I don't know why the hell somebody would pay so much when they can go to Newegg and find another reputable brand for much cheaper. Corsair is a good company, just a little too expensive for me too(Especially since I just became unemployed...two months ago.).

The Radeon HD 2900 XT is a kick-ass card from what I've read and heard but I have yet to try one out yet.

quote Drizzt

I've sparred with demons from the Nine Hells themselves, I shall barely break a sweat here today.

the 8800gtx easily beats the shit out of the 2900... xt...


and the 2900 with stock cooling on full with no overclocking (whihc would produce more heat).. sounds very veyr very loud an gets to 100celcius withnin a minute or too... vyer veyr very bad...

the 8800gts and 8800gtx are way better


Currently.,... Intel is STILL wipping ass alover AMD....
nVidia has taken the lead in the current Dx10 era.. which ati had the lead in the final dx9 era...

quote dahuntr

Harddrives: 320 gig Western Digital SATA