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Edited August 2010:
"Yes" but, I also help friends and family of every budget, build and spec' games PCs and get value for money and avoid the "waste your cash traps" the industry sets for the newbie buyer.! I have been doing this since before HTML...
For all things GPU (Graphics card) and to understand the fact your games PC "Is built around your monitor, not your Ego" please read:
Remember you normally need to choose your monitor resolution FIRST to find out what the Min' requirements of what the rest of the PC will need to be for gaming!
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DLUK's Noob guide to GPU Displays and FPS:
http://www.trubritar...hp?showtopic=92
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OK. Welcome back!
New for august 2010:
DLUK's 7 Golden rules for a great games PC.
Simple tips explained in the 20+ pages of text below
1: Do get a 4 core CPU (or 4 thread) or better, that works at stock 3GHZ or with OC (overclock) 3GHZ or better for games now.
2: For a monitor of a resolution higher than 720p (1024x768-1368x720) get a Nvidia GTX 460 768 VRAM or better (see gpu guide for better than 460) for a great gaming GPU.
3: Get 4GB of RAM or better and ONLY use Win7 64 bit.
4: Get a decent branded with great warrenty PSU, avoid cheap brands!
5: Get a case with room to expand and that has dust filters that are easy to remove built in. Raven 2, HaF X are fine examples.
6: Get a 60GB sandforce SSD or larger to fit WIN7 64 and your fav games to make even a slow CPU seem alot faster.
7: Do get a legal retail or OEM version of Win7 and only install from that, don't use a pirate copied DVD or Bittorrent downloaded copy. Many of the tech issues on our forums and others come from people who used a pirate OS. Remeber to budget WIN7 64 into your build cost!
Your Budget,
It may be $100 to try and upgrade your current PC to $10k to build a top-end pro' gamer's rig. Many of the same pitfalls to wasting your hard earned cash or having a allot technical issues apply! No matter what your budget, many of the same simple concepts below apply to you.
Check around using Google-Yahoo and Bing etc. For prices on the components you choose, check reviews of the vendors-retailers and their websites and even the manufacturers of your kit. Try to make sure they have a good reputation for support, returns (RMA's) and being honest and right now, are financially viable, no good having a 5 year warranty with 24 hour phone support on your purchase if they go bust in the credit crunch!
Now instead of building cheap machine if your after 1080p media HDMI output and Linux or Vista-Win 7 for an insane small size and price, the Acer Revo is now almost impossible to beat.
Although just a tiny Atom CPU and 9400M GPU starting from £149 for the Linux version and £250 Vista-Win 7 Home Premium version, these rigs are perfect for the casual gamer for 720p game play and 1080p blue ray and media support. They also fit behind your monitor!
So for some trying to upgrade or start from new with a very limited budget this may be a solution for you to play less demanding games and still have a full PC.
Prices from £149-299 on play.com and amazon.com
Perfect for casual gamer (old game yahoo games shockwave games etc) and media buffs or media pc with a tv, sod all use for crysis!
"Build it Yourself!" vs "Pre built-Custom-OEM":
You often hear the "cry" on many web forums of, "Build it yourself!", "Save money!" with the generally snobbish attitude that any self built PC is 1000x better and cheaper than any pre-built custom PC. The same people shouting this often have little concept that the "build your own PC mentality" is really as technically competent as saying, that, flat packed-self assembly IKEA furniture is quality furniture you totally 100% built yourself from nothing!
And as we have all witnessed, many members of the public can't assemble a stable IKEA table let alone build a reliable PC even with good instructions.
So although "building your own" PC isn't that much harder than trying to follow IKEA flat pack instructions there are a zillion more things than can go wrong that having a few screws left over or a leg falling off.
99.9% of "Self built" PC's are just "Self assembly" PC's where a user choose their own components and saved 5-20% of the total cost vs a pre built rig by doing going the "self assembly" route! But that saving isn't always a real saving for everyone...!
The concepts below apply EQUALLY to self assembly and buying a pre built custom-OEM rig, Either method makes no difference, if you do your research and choose the right bits for the money and bother to check information on each piece you can either choose 100% the right gear for your "self-build" or make sure your retailer, if they are going assemble the bits conform to your EXACT choices. Quality custom PC retailers will let you specify exactly what you want. Always be aware of the mass-produced rigs (Dell, HP, Alienware etc) where the options "branded" RAM-GPU appears as that OEM may be taking you for bit a ride, you have to hope they have done the research for you to check the RAM-GPU-Mobo they use etc, is exactly the stuff you would have chosen quality and reliability wise!
Example:
www.alienware.com (take a look at their top end machines)
Note: the CPU is branded and named but RAM MOBO and GPU often are not, alienware do use "top" brands but its nice to know exactly what your paying for! this trick allows them to mix and match brands they buy in bulk so one month they may use asus mobo's and gpus and another foxconn etc.
If the option was EGA-ASUS Nvidia GPU great, the option is Nvidia GPU! SO BEWARE and lots of games PC suppliers use this same trick which means they can put in the cheapest option possible this can affect the warrenty as you have a warrnty with the OEM (person who made the gpu) and the retailer. if the retailer goes bust you can still get a warrenty from the OEM but these differ greatly!
Although there may be little technical difference between a Top brand GPU and the lower end brands generally a sticker or a fancy cooler, there can be a radical difference in the Warranty-support-even RMA process if things go wrong.
Due to your budget, experience with assembling PCs, it may be cheaper for you to get a quality custom PC builder, to assemble and test your PC from the parts YOU choose vs building and testing it yourself!
So bear in mind self-built isn't always the cheapest option in respects to your free time and the only warranty you have is with the builder (yourself!) and any component that fails, you may have to deal with the manufacturer-OEM who maybe is a different country-time zone as you may find your retailer is unhelpful after a short period (often after 28 days).
Both options are just as good as each other and suit different people better. And for many people paying someone else 5-10% of the total cost of their PC to build it for them, maybe a better-more cost effective solution for them, as they are not wasting their own time in building and testing, benching when they are not 100% sure what they are doing in the first place so overall for many gamers, quality custom pre built rigs may actually be a better and more cost effective solution in the long term.
Although their are plenty of good videos on youtube etc and guides on tech' forums. On how to "build-assemble" a games PC from scratch.
Remember if you do choose to self assemble a PC, even if you choose the best-most stable and highest rated components for your budget. If any of the components have a fault how much time and effort will it take you to track down what the problem item is? And how long might you be without a stable working PC. Do you have access to spares to test for faults? This is the downside to self building and the bit most people don't mention.
Check for a local PC shop with qualified PC techs and find out what they charge for help, before you self build, in case you do need urgent help and don't want to have to RMA-return every bit of your PC to 10 different manufacturers to find out which item was the problem. You should save 5%-10% building yourself think of that as a budget for help from experts if needed, who will have access to spares and the kit-software needed. So if self building check for if you have local expert help and how much it might cost BEFORE you order!
If you don't have a local PC shop that could help, check the web for computer technicians and support engineers who live or work locally ask them how much they charge and keep their details, these guys may be able to help you fix-repair your self build if you get stuck. Don't forget to ask them for referee's and do some research on them before you hire them
Remember, custom PC retailers that don't name exactly what model or make some of the components are, who use the term "branded" in the sales-web page are probably not very good. Any decent custom PC retailer will let you specify exactly what YOU want!
If you choose to buy from a retailer who will either build the whole PC or sell you all the parts. Ring and ask to speak to tech' support BEFORE you pay them ANY money, see how long it takes to talk to a real person who has some knowledge and how good they seem to be! Also research them on-line and see what others say about their service-support etc.
Why is this so important?
A member of these forums did not perform these checks on a retailer, he bought a $3k + games rig from a retailer that was a very expensive paper weight for months before he managed to get the issues sorted, by not checking the retailer and their support first, before he ordered he wasted allot of time and cash. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last so buying pre-made rigs still carries a risk!
Another member of these forums went outside his technical comfort zone tried to water cool 3 top end GPU's and ended with over $1k of "paper weights" as a result. By paying the extra build cost to a quality custom PC retailer he would have saved allot of money. So the "saving" of not paying some custom PC retailer to build the rig turned into allot of extra cost!
As we have around 1000 members, if you think of all the games rigs in the world, you can guess about the 10's of millions of dollars of faulty games rigs sitting on desks with problems because people tried to build their own rigs when they should have gotten a professional to do it or bought from the wrong retailer! This guide is about reducing your risks and making sure you have a stable performance gaming PC for your budget.
Payment:
It's always best to use a Credit Cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex etc) for purchases, this often in most countries gives you extra protection vs fraud, your supplier going bust, bankrupt - Chapter 11 etc in the Credit Crunch, or if your goods are faulty-damaged or incorrect. Try not to pay cash or use a debit card if you can help it. Pay Pal generally does not have the protection of a credit card either !
So although you might see a bargain for GTX 280 on E bay second hand or some small net retailer, beware if it sounds to good to be true it often is! Also check out individual warranties on your parts, the good stuff often has 3-5 years free from the manufacturer. Beware the stuff that has 12 months only!
So now you know your budget, what monitor your going to use for gaming, you also probably known exactly what GPU you need to run the latest games if you read my other guide.
REMEBER: ALWAYS keep your receipt safe you will need it for RMA (returns) with your retailer and-or the manufacturer. Also if you have a 2-5 year warranty on parts if you resell them being able to provide the new owner with proof of purchase can make the item you sell worth more as in some cases the warranty could be valid for the new owner.
WARNING: Some retialers will expect the full retail packaging returned with a item if you need to RMA in the first 1-12 months so they can resell the item as "open box". This includes ALL manuals CD's even screws supplied, if you do not return everything they may "fine you" some of the cost of the missing ITEM from the price of the total package. This also applies to bundled games even if they are just free trials. Newegg.com have been quoted as charging $59 for the Nvidia Star Craft 2 free trial if the voucher is not returned with the GPU.
CPU (Central Processing Unit):
First and foremost for gaming PCs “Dual Core is dead!” or coming to the end of its life even for gaming!, Athlon 64 x2, Core 2 x2 Even Phenom 2 x2 and Intel I3 non HT (hyperthreading) you can buy these CPUs very cheap, there is a good reason! Although great for general PC use and 50% of even modern games you might play a growing number of games that need 3 "threads" (3 cores) or more to work well.
Battlefield:Bad Company 2 can use 6+ cores, DIce made the frostbyte engien to lasta few years and the same game engine will be used in BF1943, Medal Of Honour (2010) and BF3. Other games like far Cry 2 and GTA4 also used 3 threads +. The reason for this is nvidia lack of success of getting physx into games and many games using their own CPU driven physics and AI engine or Intels havock (Starcraft 2 is latest example). So in the perfect world a dual core 4GHZ cpu would be great for even the latest games. Right now it isn't. So not only will 3-4 core or threads speed up App's and AV but also many new games. Many older games do use only 1-2 cores and the modern multicore CPU's have options from Intel and AMD to auto OC just 1-3 cores for that. So although a AMD P2 x6 is £150 and a popular AMD x2 or I3 Core 2 Duo less than that buying quad makes alot of sense now. And if you do have the extra anmd can't afford I7 the AMDx6 make alot of sense for many gamers now.
So unless your budget is well under $500 the CPU spec' for even a budget games machine I would now recommend is as a minimum
x4 Cores (or threads) CPU at 3GHZ at stock-OC or better. This means the lastest HT I3 Core 2 Quad AMD X4 (even if thats X2 unlocked). And if you can AMD x6 or I7 for quite a bit of future proofing.
For power users the I7 920-930 + X58 at the top of the budget tree, is VERY future proof and still less expensive for the I920-930 and X58 mobo than a single QX9650 was 12 months ago. I7 has 8 threads (that's 8 cores) so although even the best games only really use 3 threads (Now barring Bc2!) right now I7 will cover new games and DX11 and Win7 pushing CPU thread use in games, past the 3 thread barrier in 2009-2010.
But this does come with a price tag!
WHY is intel I7 is so important although I am happy to recommend AMD P2 x3 just view what the extra £120 of power buys with a 3GHZ I7 (930 at a easy Over clock)
Yes 6-8 cores is far more powerful than 2-3-4 cores, there is NO question, if you CAN afford it I7 is VERY future proof with AMDx6 1050t being the budget option.
The Havoc Console issue CPU physics and sound on win7 and vista:
Battlefield:Bad Company 2 may have shown a huge issue with PC games for next few years. Although Nvidia push Physx hard as a sales tatic on their GPU's it is till used in very few games. Since Halflife 2 the Havoc engine has been more popular and now with BC2 will eat all 4 threads of even a overclocked core 2 quad on a 32 player server. Meaning your CPU could bottleneck the game and your GPU due to Havoc physics only working on the CPU. This means I7 has suddenly started to become the default for gaming! So yes Physics on a GPu is way better than a CPU but Nvidia have so far failed to push Physx to replace Havoc. Now other games also use Havoc and are coming in 2010 such as the new Medal of Honour and Mafia 2 and are also console ports which can mean they are good at using more than 1-2 cores. As the X360 has 3 cores for gaming on its CPU and PS3 5 threads in general for games. This means PC Dual Core has a real problem for new games over the next 1-2 years. AS DX11 hvaoc CPU push more games code onto the CPU than GPU.
http://en.wikipedia...._%28software%29
Details on Havoc and Intel getting rid of havoc FX (which would run on GPU)
So I3 and Core 2 Duo and Phenom x2 is something to be wary off if you have the budget to choose better for a gaming rig now.
And even I5 and Phenom x3-x4 and Core 2 quad may struggle in some titles without a hefty overlock.
To make matters worse complex new audio engines like the one in BC2 are becoming the norm and this also puts extra strain on a CPU in Win7 and Vista. As hardware sound is pretty much controlled by the CPU in Vista and Win7 never a soundcard. Add to this needs for anti malware running in realtime and RAID (on some PC's) and PC firewalls etc and your CPU could be overloaded fast in some games in 2010-11 unless you buy I7.
http://www.anandtech...duct/102?vs=142
A nice test chart of the I7 980 (a $1000 CPu vs the best price perfomance games CPU the AMD 965 x4). Just consider that the 980 although now is a $1000 CPu will be a $200 CPu in 12 months as 32nm or smaller 6 core I7 clones arrive from Intel.
You can use that page to also test x2 cores vs AMD X6 etc and see the difference $100 can make in a Cpu for many tasks.
CPU : Bottleneck.
"Bottlenecks are specific to the system in question in virtually every capacity, but as a general rule the locality and degree of a performance bottleneck is affected by discrepancies in overall system throughput. That is, if one component completes its work load slower than another, it becomes the primary limitation. In terms of CPU-GPU bottlenecks, this is commonly produced by the visual work load equating to less processing time than the vertex/geometry assembly for the CPU. When the GPUs complete drawing the queued frames before the CPU is able to compute the next subset of vertex data, it leads to a CPU bottleneck because the GPUs are forced to wait before being able to proceed with rendering."
Exitos SLI Zone moderator. 4th Sep 2009.
As long as you have 3-4GHZ on 2-4 cores or threads you will reduce the bottleneck on a single current GPU to negligible (this may be 3.3 - 3.6 GHZ for the 5870-GT300!) 3.6 GHZ is the magic number for SLI and CF right now for 4870-GTX 260 SLI_CF or better.
Basically the higher the res you play (your monitor res from 720p-1600p) and the more AA_AF you add the less the load on the CPU. This can be overridden by CPU hungry games like BC2 though.
Motherboard: (mobo)
Only pay for what you need!
Do you really need SLi-CF 3x 16x PCIE slots, 10 sata ports, on-board 3x gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 sound, Raid 0-10 for 15 HDD's? Even basic £50 mobo's for Phenom 2, Core 2 and £150 X58 mobo's generally have most of the features you will ever need for PC gaming.
Do some research, type the model number-name into Google etc. See how many people are having issues with that mobo! That simple test can save you allot of time and effort later on, with almost anything you put in a PC. See if you can find where the manufacturer stores their bios's-drivers and updates and help info for the mobo before you buy to see how good their support is.
Remember a £50 mobo will often run games as well £250 mobo with the same CPU and GPU the £250 mobo just has allot of extra stuff, you need to check if you really need that stuff. CPU tech' changes so fast any Mobo you buy now, probably wont fit a new CPU or even your RAM type in 6-12 months so never think of a mobo as future proof!
Check List for your new PC motherboard:
1/ Does the manufacturer make new bios-drivers-patches and seem to support that mobo, check their website.
2/ Do they have a dedicated support forum?
3/ Is the Mobo any good for over clocking for YOUR needs, check google and tech' forums!
4/ Will your SATA ports be blocked by GPU 1 or 2? Very common issue on cheap mobo's
5/ Does the mobo have Raid 0 (*see below) or a sound card built in?
6/ What sort of warranty does your mobo have?
7/ Check what RAM is qualified for your mobo and has been tested by the mobo manufacturer, rated as stable. Just because you mobo states it uses 800 MHZ DDR2 does not mean it works with any 800 MHZ DDR2 sticks, buying qualified RAM can save allot of time and hassle later. Probably 30-50% of games rig issues are RAM related as the users bought ram that isn't 100% stable at stock or OC with that exact mobo. Most decent Mobo' manufacturers do the research for you so using what they recommend is a smart idea.
8/ Does your mobo have enough room to fit the cooler you want to fit. This is one of the most common noob-newbie mistakes of buying a mobo then finding the sexy big air cooler won't fit and you get stuck with stock cooling!
9/ Does it have support for USB 3 or PCIE 3 or Sata 3?
Doing the above, can help you avoid the "lemons". Even the best mobo makers, can produce a "dud" range of mobo's hence its really worth checking this before you spend your cash!
SLI_CF support will double the cost of your mobo in many cases, do you actually need it?
OK. You have chosen a GPU or two? a CPU to power them, a mobo to host it all what next?
RAM: Memory
Your type latency speed DDR2-DDR3 677-2533 MHZ is resolved by your mobo qualified vendor list above. Your Mobo manufacturer will tell you want type and brand of ram has been tested and said to work well with your mobo. Deviate from that advice at your own risk. just because the RAM manufacturer says the ram works with your mobo in their tests does not mean the mobo manufacturer agrees or will support it.
You OS your app's and your games live on your storage, HDD-SSD etc (see below) but when you turn your PC when they are in use they live in your system RAM. Ram is 1000'x faster than any storage method (bar ramdisk see below). So the more Ram you have the better there is no such thing as to much RAM (unless you use a 32 bit OS!) but there is a very real issue with no having enough even for Gaming.
1GB is useless, for XP or Vista for most games and will cause so many issues with XP or Vista wanting at least 512 MB of ram to work well and most games demanding 512-1024 mbs 1GB is a REALLY bad idea.
2Gb is still OK for XP and many games, as XP use alot less RAM than Vista. Vista will try to eat as much RAM as possible(but that isn't a bad thing as Vista will try to get anything you use allot into RAM as its 100-1000x faster than trying to run it from your storage!). So although you can trim Vista and XP to use less RAM and not load App's and bits of the OS into RAM. generally its best to let your OS chew your ram up and have as much as possible.
Win7 can be as greedy as Vista with RAM so having 4GB or more is really almost a minimum spec now and you do need a 64 Bit OS to run 4 GB + of RAM well though.
WHY WOULD YOU?
Ram is so much faster, you are actually slowing your PC use down, not letting your OS try to load everything with-in reason into your RAM!
For any 32 Bit OS if you have more than 3 GB RAM you may have issues with XP and Vista, especially when gaming as 32 Bit OS's have a hard maths limit of 4GB total RAM and this DOES include the VRAM on your GPU 95% of the time due to drivers and the way windows works.
So 3GB system ram + 4870 1GB VRAM does = 4 GB!!!!
Don't worry, installing Vista 64-WIN7 64 eliminates this issues you can have 4-6GB System RAM and 1-2 GB VRAM on the top end GPU's and not have any issues due to going well over the 4GB 32 bit limit, soon 6-32GB Ram and 2-4 GB VRAM per GPU could be common.
Most games in Vista and XP will now eat up to 1GB of system RAM space. Vista 64 is very happy to eat 0.7-1.5GB of ram space just for the OS and your favourite app's to run from RAM.
So if you can afford it, Vista 64-Win 7 with 4GB or more of system RAM can really help speed your PC when gaming or just in general use.
Making sure you have loads of RAM with a 64 bit OS is another very cheap way to make sure you PC is very fast.
When you switch your PC off everything loaded into RAM gets wiped, that's why we still have storage like HDD and SSDs when we turn our machines on, depending on our RAM size and OS, the OS and your most used applications get loaded into RAM. That's what windows is doing when it boots!
So 64 Bit OS + 4GB (or more!) RAM is great for PC use and gaming. And some games ARE creeping over 1GB use!
Adding enough RAM 3-4GB+ and a 64 bit OS which is allowed to use all that and more is one of the cheapest ways to speed up your PC especially in combo with having Raid 0 for storage to shift everything from storage to your RAM up to 2x+ faster!
Even the oldest slowest DDR2 667 MHz with any new mobo will access data in nanoseconds and stream data at 150-200 GB+ This means $30 for 4 GB DDR2 667 runs data 100-1000x faster than even a $10,000 SSD raid array ever could!
So DO consider Vista 64 (and soon Win7) and 4GB + so your app's-OS and games can live in your RAM to make your PC work faster in almost any task not just gaming!
For more advanced info on RAM please read:
Jay's RAM guide
http://www.trubritarforums.com/forum/index...?showtopic=1732
Storage: CD_DVD_HDD_SSD etc
This is where you can really waste cash hopefully the guides have helped you choose the right GPU and CPU and Mobo for your budget even the correct RAM but where do we store all that data such as your games and operating system?
On a Hard Disk Drive or HDD. This is a problem area as the technology behind storage has changed little in 2 decades unlike just about everything else in the PC.
There are 3 main types:
* HDD, cheapest GB amount per dollar and slowest.
* SSD, new in last few years and the often proclaimed replacement for HDD's much faster but 3-5x the price per GB vs HDD and have stability and other tech' issues vs HDD's. most of these issue are now fixed with the latest SSD@s having sandforce controllers and Win7 TRIM support).
* RAMDISK, up to 1000x faster than HDD-SSD but 10-30x the cost per GB VS HDD!
HDD's
HDD's although the oldest type of storage for modern PCs it's also the cheapest (by miles) and has a fantastic option called RAID, which most modern mobo's even from £50+ support. Rather like a dual core CPU in some tasks it is 2x + faster than a single core CPU and a Quad CPU can be 4x faster than a single Core. RAID 0 (zero) with HDDs can give you the same feature. Most mobo's under £200 will only really support raid 0 well on 2 HDDs there's a technical bottleneck for more than 2 drives on most mobo's.
So if you choose 2x the exact same make and model HDDs you can install them as Raid 0 and get the same sorts of speed as a single SSD and halve game loading times, AV checks-defrag's and working with large files etc. For very little cost!
Now the cost of this is peanuts and as storage is the BIGGEST bottleneck of all, in modern PCs as even SSDs are 10000x slower than your system RAM and CPU at working with data. Adding just RAID 0 7200 rpm 250GB HDD's x2 can double the performance of your PC in many tasks.
That's right, making sure your mobo has RAID 0 and buying 2x £30 7200 rpm drives and installing your OS and games on raid can make your PC x2 better!
So this concept even applies to the most budget games PCs.
Now if you place 2x SSD's in RAID 0, they will be faster so will 2x 10,000 rpm or even 15,000 rpm HDDs but there are spiralling costs to this.
Adding RAID 0 on 2x 7200 rpm drives is one of the cheapest, yet most effective ways to make your PC better for games and almost every task.
So for storage of your OS-media and games get RAID 0 and choose 2 of the exact same model-size of storage devices depending on your budget.
Any PC using HDD's for storage will always work better with RAID 0 2x HDD's than any single HDD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_0
Explains the concepts and pitfalls of RAID in detail with links.
NOTE: The main pitfall to RAID 0 (zero) is that if one HDD fails all your data will be lost 99% of the time. But considering a 1TB external HDD is about £60 and DVD-RW disks are about 4p each there is no reason you can't backup important data-media often so if your RAID array fails you just bin the HDDs, buy two new ones, then just reinstall your OS and games and restore your data. Even with Raid 1 you should still backup from your PC your important data as often as you feel comfortable with.
Many games contain considerable DRM so even with the best ghosting backup software may need to be reinstalled from CD-DVD if you have to do a complete OS reinstall anyway. If you only have 1 non raid HDD and it fails you have probably lost all your data in the same way anyway!
So back up your important files-media and game patches to save time if you need to reinstall
SSD,
1 x SSD often is as fast as 2x 7200 rpm HDD in RAID 0, but has a fraction of the storage size and costs 2-7x more! SSD is now reliable for using for your OS VS HDD raid. It is best for storing media or your favourite games and OS along side a HDD RAID 0 set-up in your PC.
SSD is great for laptops and netbooks or anything portable as it harder to break with physical shocks vs any HDD.
SSD in RAID can be allot faster than any form of HDD but comes still with a hefty price tag.
The new SSDs can now host a OS as reliable as HDD's but the price will put some off. But do remeber all the benefits of Raid 0 vs not having to have raid at all.
Lots more info about the latest SSD's and their good and bad point covered in depth here:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel...doc.aspx?i=3403
* For gamers the advantage of SSD is simple, faster level load for some multi players game can be a tatical advantage and faster level transition in many of the MMO's can also be huge advantage. You can buy an advatage over the other guy buy either using raid 0 HDD's or a SSD. Some games have alevel countdown to stop this advantage some don't.
In the perfect games PC a SSD hosts the OS drivers and fav' games, with the most modern SSD's this can have a huge impact on how your machine responds and how fast it is no matter what GPU or CPu you use!
The OCZ revo offers raid SSD's in a single PCIE card that fits in a spare x4 PCIE slot (if you have one) and can read and write data upto 10x faster than a standard HDD. This also removes many of the raid issues or even sata issues some may have.
The revo series cost around $3 per GB right now vs a Samsung F3 7200 rpom HDD being 10cents per GB!
DDR RAMDISK.
The newest form of mass storage for the PC also the fastest by 1000% but also the most expensive, a 64 GB DDR2 Ram disk is about £2500-3000! This is basically 32-128 GB of system RAM that remembers info when your PC is turned off, unlike your normal 2-4 GB system ram and has its own backup in cases its own power supply is interrupted.
If HDDs and SSDs work at 10x the speed of sound when they store, read, write and retrieve data, RAMDISKS and your System RAM work at the speed of light! This is a technology to watch over the next few years and one of the main reason not to blow insane amounts of cash on SSD as SSD is rubbish vs DDR RAMDISK.
DDR ramdisk cost around $19 per GB.
CASE:
Your PC case, is one of the few components that cast last a decade or more! A good case will last a long time or keep its value even for a second hand sale! It helps keep your PC cool and well protected-dust free and provides easy access to upgrade components over time and won't rattle and should look great!
This is one of the few areas in PC tech' where you can buy second hand with little risk as you can always clean and respray a second hand case! This is good for wallet and the planet!
The mid-top end cases by people like Silverstone, Cooler Master, Li lian and others provide a stable housing for your PC, they may extend the lifespan of your PC due to superior cooling and protection from moisture and even the room inside to add water cooling etc in the future or more HDDs GPUs etc. good cases have dust filters for keeping dust out of your PC with easy to remove and clean filters. (Raven 2, FT02 from Silverstone and Haf X from coolermaster are fine examples).
Buying the wrong case can be expensive, as not only might you have to buy a new case due to expansion or mechanical issues long before you should have had to, there is the cost of the disposal of the old case and in many countries large chunks of metal or plastic can't just be thrown in the trash! You often can't give away a cheap PC case...
In some ways like a PSU (see below) you almost can't overspend on your PC case. Many people buy flashy looking cheap cases with lots of lights and fans to find they have terrible airflow and cook your PC, having cheap fans and lights that can be anything from a fire risk to risking shorting your PC or fail 1-3 months after you first turn them on. Even in the worst case's welded-glueded to the case so they can't be changed! And worst of all "rattles" due to poor build quality or sharp edges that cut your hand or arms any time you try to put them inside the case to add or change a component.
Yet again, a little bit of research on Google etc, can help you find well rated-reviewed cases that have all the options you need. Don't forget try to add the fans and lighting yourself as the stuff you choose will always be 100x better anything a OEM supplies as standard!
Just one "cheapo" light or fan can electrically short a £3k+ rig and ruin it!
Don't forget there is more to a case than it looks, what is it made of? aluminium cases, are worth allot more second hand than steel and weigh less. Does it have enough room to add more stuff if you need to (room for a large GPU or a large mobo if needed if you upgrade?) There's nothing wrong with running a few bits in a mid-full tower case than trying to pack to much into a midi case!
Money saved on buying the right CPU-GPU-Mobo and storage for your needs is often well spent on buying a quality case and fans and cooling and lighting vs buying a "cheapo" case and hoping for the best!
Check reviews of the case you like, and read them well before you order
PSU: Power Supply
There is no magic bullet for the correct PSU they vary in power and options and different PCs need different PSUs.
Here's some important tips to getting the right one:
1/ Check reviews, check on-line to see if people have problems with recommended PSUs.
2/ You can never overspend on a PSU, quality branded ones will help run your PC for years with no issues Cheap un-branded PSU's can cause multiple issues, even fry your PC ! Beware, although a quality PSU can still fail, you often have a minimal chance of a problem vs a cheap unbranded PSU causing an issue!
3/ Not sure if you have enough Watts overall? Or Amps on 12v rails for your GPU choice. Contact Nvidia or Ati or the PSU manufacturer and ask them directly, they will often help on their own forums or through tech web-email-phone support. SLI-CF ready, branded PSU's will often be rated to what exact sort of dual-tri-quad GPU's they really will run. You must check this, Sli ready may mean a PSU will run 8800GT SLi not GTX 295 SLi!
4/ Just because you don't need 800w's now, doesn't mean you won't! Getting a little extra wattage in case you do get a better GPU -CPU more storage or cooling means you might not face the cost of a second PSU sooner than you should have. It's always better with a PSU to have to much wattage than not enough although that does not mean you should use a 1600w PSU to run a Celeron Single Core CPU with a 9400 GT
A little bit over, is better than anything under.5/ Modular PSU's allow you to better wire you PC, good for looks and airflow and are generally more future proof than non modular PSUs. Yet again the slight extra cost of a modular PSU could be a money saver in the long run.
6/ Check reviews, search Google see if your PSU model or brands has issues. Remember reviewers can only check a PSU for a few weeks, problems with a certain model or brand may only appear after a few months, so do check reviews of a brand in general and check custom PC builders websites and see what they use. As they know what blows up and won't use that brand....
On the subject of power,
Do Buy a quality* POWER SURGE PROTECTOR just for your Display and PC, don't run anything else from that socket. Not a hoover or vacum cleaner for instance!
*Quality ones normally have a insurance that if they fail to work you can claim $500-5000 for losses due to failure of the unit.
If spending your hard-earned cash on a PC and if your area has issues with power, power-cuts brown-outs, volt sag-volt surge, (lights dim or blow allot) Also consider a rated UPS device to protect your PC. Even the best PCs with quality PSUs and power surge protectors can be damaged by power cuts and brown outs if they happen allot, a UPS can protect your investment vs that and is inexpensive. Most budget games PC would be fully protected by a £80-£100 UPS.
Even though most UPS devices will only offer 3-10 min's to switch off a PC (when your gaming) if the power is cut. That is more than enough time to exit a game and shut down a PC properly to prevent damage.
http://en.wikipedia....le_power_supply
Sound Cards: (on-board – Int' PCIE - Ext' USB2).
A little bit of history:
Back when XP 32 and DX9 were "the kings of gaming"we had single core 2GHZ CPUs, a Sound Blaster with EAX and then the Xifi could add real extra FPS to almost any game by taking away sound work from the CPU and letting the work be done on-board a sound blaster card.
The first Xifi's made the point they had the power of a P4 3GHZ on-board to handle all sound work and with EAX adding extra sound effects, in many games grabbing a sound blaster to complete a games rig was a “no brainer!”. As on-board sound was generally very basic and often had lots of drivers issues.
Fast forward to mid 2009 and Microsoft have nerfed EAX in Vista (they basically got rid of it) and even the way sound is handled and its now passed to the CPU no matter what sound card you use. So with no EAX, 3 GHZ 3-8 cores CPUs as standard ,the "games" sound card has been killed by Vista-Win 7 and the fact on-board sound on 95% of modern Mobo's is now very good!
Of course, if you have 7.1 speakers and are a complete music-film buff, a PCIE Int' sound card can add extra quality for films and music for those who demand it. But Creative have been dogged for years with poor Vista support and real issues with both ATI and Nvidia GPUs and their Xifi range in Vista and even XP.
With the loss of EAX the Xifi and sound blaster lost there performance edge in Vista, out of no where Razer a mouse maker made a better gaming sound card for 3d sound "Razer Ac1" and Asus made the Xonar which trumped the Sound Blaster on every audiophile test for Music and Films and had better drivers for SLI-CF and Vista. So Creative don't have the best hardware and adding a sound blaster may introduce technical issues vs using on-board sound which was one of the reason we used to buy a sound blaster as it would prevent issues on-board sound would cause in the early days!
And even cheap mobo's general come with pretty decent mid range 5.1 sound cards built in and all that CPU horse power we have now means a dedicated sound card is now only of interest to a select group of PC users, not the average gamer.
So for 95% of gamers, try the sound card that came free with your mobo first. If you find it good enough for your headphones or PC speakers you need not spend a further penny!
For the Home Theatre PC users, you need to read reviews of the Asus Xonar range and see which one suits your need, because in Vista the Creative Xifi has been generally a disaster with support and games and an absolute nightmare with multi CPU with Creative's drivers having issues with both Nvidia and ATi GPUs!
We don't need a separate sound card for great gaming even in 5.1, they generally come free on any mobo now. In the same way HDD Raid and Network cards are also built into mobo's as well and most us don't need a separate pro card to replace those items either for gaming.
For laptops, many USB solutions do exist and Creative do have a Xifi to go which is highly rated (and cheap), that is reliable and stable and a good option for many net book or laptop owners for better sound as many laptop mobo's still have terrible on-board sound cards.
Many USB sound cards (mini dongles) or headphones with sound cards built in, exist for desktop PC's. Check review's carefully before you buy, as some are good, some have terrible driver issues, but do provide a cheap option if you do have issue with on-board sound on your mobo and need something better fast.
http://www.trubritarforums.com/forum/index...?showtopic=3177
My review on my USB 2 driven 7.1 headset from Razer which I used to replace having any sound card inside my PC.
For most gamers a £100 PCIE sound card is generally a waste of money, that won't lead to better gaming and that budget could have been spent elsewhere for a better PC.
Basically a soundcard is now (for vista and win7) about it's DAC (Digital to Analouge converter, convert digital sources to your speakers basically) and output wires formats than anything to do with adding FPS in a Game. This means for music or media buffs you may need to add a soundcard to get a digital output for your amp or speakers or need a high qaulity DAC for 24bit 192 Khz output or Dolby DTS HS lossess output for media. For 99% of gamers the soundcard on your new mobo will be fine for 99.9 % of games.
One thing to look for if you are about to choose an internal sound card is what sort of input and output options has it got. If you wish to plug-in a blueray player – games console to get 5.1 sound on the PC speaker or headphones you will need a Optical input on your sound card (not all sound cards have this and you need to watch out for this!).
Also what outputs does you sound card have? yet again Digital 5.1 and Analogue 5.1 outputs cover almost all options. Most PC 5.1 speaker work fine with Analogue 5.1 output, but if you also have a digital output you could hook your PC to very high end 5.1 systems in the future.
Optical:
Your PC will need a DVD RW drive to allow you to create DVD backups and or read most DVD based games dics to install a game. even if you plan to use steam as your only source for games addign a DVD drive for £12+ is a no brainer.
Blueray is more of an issue for PC's as the writable BR discs are very expensive per GB so not very handy vs buying an external HDD or USB memory stick and often can only be read well in the drive that wrote the disc. rather like DRD RW was a few years ago.
For Playback BR offers amazing 1080p media but at a cost on the PC of having to have software that can read BR and all it's DRM. And also allowing features like BD live or Movie IQ and even interactive Add's and in some cases some complex DRM that may cuase stability or security issues on a windows PC.
For now to watch Blueray I would recommend buying a stand alone BR player for £70+ and not putting it near your PC. it's not a show stopper watching BR on your PC but there may be a risk that AV and other anti malware packages have not cuaght up with yet.
Peripherals:
A good gaming keybaord and mouse will have the abilitie to run macros for some games. Turn off the windows key when gaming! And be backlite and even have a screen to display FPS or CPU_GPU heat info.
These days this won't break the bank!
For keybaod the Logitech g15 and or razer Lycosa offer the features 99% of gamers need and are under £50.
Look for USB 2 support to plug stuff into the keybaord not hunt round the back of the PC for a port and or even Audio out put or MIC input. 1MS polling for rapid response to a key press and reliable macro software.
Mouse wise yet aghain macros can be helpful in games and 5+ buttons and being able to chnage DPI from the mouse on the fly. Also that the mouse is the right size and weight for your hand. So if possible try before you buy.
I recommend the Logitech G5 G9X and Razer Mamba-Deathadder as being the above for different budgets.
A good gamer KB + mouse can add to your score in many games and also reduce fatigue and RSI risks.
http://www.trubritar...se%20guide&st=0
Full guide to razer gaming mice by forum member Dragon gamer.
Software:
Look the simple fact is, if you put pirate, illegal software on your PC, be it games, applications or even your OS, your asking for trouble!
With some malware so clever now, even the best AV can't spot it, why risk your great new games rig not working or in the worst case leading to ID theft and endless trouble for you.
Using Legal software doesn't mean this can't happen, but it makes is 100 x less likely!
And legal software does not mean a huge bill, not any more!
Thanks to open source most of the applications you could have paid hundreds to thousands of pounds for are now free or very cheap.
1: The Operating System:
For games, Windows is still years ahead of Mac OS or Linux especially for the new games you probably paid all that money for to build your new games rig to play.
XP or Vista-Win7?
If you have bought a new CPU RAM MOBO GPU and followed this guide and built a new games PC your 99% probably better of with Vista-Win7 as they are now as stable and secure as XP (if not more so! And has much better driver support for new hardware than XP).
32 Bit or 64 bit?
OK. Add you system RAM to your GPU VRAM if that's over 3GB your better off with Vista 64, if its 2.3-2.9 GB then vista 32 bit is fine but remember if you add more RAM or with a new GPU next year more VRAM you might have issues in the future!
"Home Premium-basic or Pro?"
Basic has Aero missing and few other bits, for a tiny bit more buy Home Premium this is great for 99% of gamers and you don't need Pro or Ultimate etc.
IMPORTANT:
Just about the smartest thing you can do for new PC, is buy an OEM copy (generally half the price of a retail copy) of your Windows OS. Make sure its a legal copy from a genuine retailer and install from that only.
Your OS is the most important code on your PC, if you use a illegal-cracked-hacked-bit torrent- dodgy copy on DVD from your mate Dave".
You have no idea if there was any Malware, Virus, Spy ware, Trojan, Back-doors on the base code you just installed ON YOUR PC.
If you have a full legal install DVD and a legal code from MS. If your PC ever goes wrong or does get malware. You can take out the current HDD, put in a new one and then in 1-2 hours have your PC fully working and secure again. Because you have the legal DVD and Code and its a piece of piss to-do.
If you use a pirate OS, and then reinstall the exact same issue may have been caused by the pirate OS in the first place! You can't be 100% sure anything, not the MS DVD is 100% secure!
Just paying MS £50-80 could save you days and weeks of not gaming. Yes, no one loves MS, I think even £60-80 is to much for an OS but I pay it because I have peace of mind that the OS code I first put on my PC isn't there to steal my credit card details or send zombie emails 365 24-7!!!!
So to reduce the risk of having problems, DO budget the cost of OEM Vista-Win 7 into your build and buy it!
Office, word processors, spreadsheets etc:
Many PCs will come with a free MS Office 100 day trial, or you can buy a budget office for £100 for home-students. Lots of people will download pirate versions of MS Office and expose themselves yet again to malware risks.
Open office is 100% free, open source and has every feature 99% of gamers would ever need:
http://www.openoffice.org/
Image-Photo editing:
No need to pirate or purchase Adobe Photoshop, when yet again a 100% free open source version is just as good for the average-semi-pro user!
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
MPEG 2 MP3-MP4 video playback:
Yet again, people use pirate or expensive rip off ad-scam codecs when Quick time Basic does all this and is 100% free!
A 100% free alternative for MP4 etc and FLV is
GOM media Player
http://www.gomlab.com/eng/
Don't forget Vista has built in DVD decoding so if using vista you don't need to buy or pirate a software DVD player.
http://www.apple.com...ktime/download/
Video Editing:
Want to get game footage or Cam' footage on Youtube-DVD-Blueray with a idiot proof yet powerful editor. Sadly, no open source project is yet good enough for me to recommend, but I highly recommend Sony Vegas (1 month free trial) from £40 for basic version (which is fine for 99% of gamers!).
http://www.sonycreat...vegasfamily.asp
Try before you buy!
The free editing package in Vista isn't that bad, but Vegas is 10x better and a steal at £40!
Games:
Try before you buy, build a social network. 100's of great demo's, purchase safe and securely on-line and watch for amazing discounts at weekends. The number 1 legal and safe games distribution system.
http://store.steampowered.com/
Pretty much all the basics, tons of games, 100% legal, no malware, and yours for peanuts no matter where you live.
Conclusion:
HD games console vs Cheap games PC.
Q: "Hang on, x3 Phenom + cheap mobo 4GB RAM + Vista 64+ PSU+Case and at least a 4850 or GTX 250 this is about a £400-500 PC at least?
A: "Yep!"
Q: WHY? I only have £200-300,
A: OK! I you can go really cheap, ignore all my advice and a build a super cheap dual core with a very low end GPU, 1-2 GB RAM 1 tiny HDD and run at 800x600 res' and you might do all that for that budget. Or want to try and add a shiny new GPU to a 2-3 year old PC to make a better games rig.
And here's the issue with that!
Under a certain budget, many of the games we play on the PC (not all) are also on the HD consoles, the MS X360 and Sony PS3, and if your budgets really that limited you might be better off with a £100-200 X360 or £250-300 PS3 for gaming, while you save up for a decent games rig over 6-18 months!
If your PC is very old, your CPU even mobo may not be even able to run a new GPU!
And with PC games wanting more power and needing at least a £400-500 PC to play those same games better than a £160 -£300 console, although the HD games consoles are limited in not being able to use a mouse for games or have real web access (well not as good as even a budget PC) or be able to run many of the applications the PC can, they can play games well and be fun. And you can even RENT console games so you don't have to pay £40 to play them.
The Consoles run, COD 4-5 Mirrors Edge, Fallout 3, GTA4 , Half life 2, really well at 720p can even up-scale DVD to 1080p if needed and have some limited web access and IM.
So is it worth building a budget £200-300 PC and playing those same games not looking as good as they would have on a £160-200 Xbox 360. Yes there's no mouse, or real keyboard, but having the same GFX with a mouse still costs an extra £200+
We are talking about gaming here and having fun! So unless your a MMO (World of Warcraft) or RTS addict, the consoles generally have most of the same RPG and FPS games we love on the PC. And the consoles are very cheap!
So if you have a very low budget to upgrade or buy a new rig, for some gamers the console DO offer a better games option in the short term. Once you can get a Phenom x3, GTX 250, 4GB RAM, Raid 0 7200rpm HDD's, Vista 64, Nice case and PSU your new PC is technically allot better than either HD console, but will cost from £400-500+ but has all those extra PC games and PC options you just don't get with a console but its a budget barrier.
So for some the consoles are great options, because they want or need a game that is console pacific or a budget choice.
The PC over a certain budgets offers better GFX and more options but also more tech hassles (and viruses) but for many gamers IS worth the extra price and work!
I own both the X360 and PS3 and I understand the fun they are and the limitations they have vs a games decent modern games PC.
The simple fact is the consoles are actually mini PCs can play most of the same games really well at 720p that the PC can and there many limitations such as:
You have to use a Joypad not a gamers Mouse for aiming!
Keyboards work with the PS3 but with limits!
Consoles have limited storage vs even budget PC's
Games cost a lot more on the consoles to buy!
There is little or no AF_AA on most console games they look worse than a PC runnign the same game.
What a Mid -high end games-media PC offers (for a price) is the ability to play the same games as a console at much higher screen res' 1080p-1200p-1600p even on triple head displays or even in actual 3d! With much better GFX and have all those PC only options and be able to do some PC only tasks in professional packages allot faster than a Acer Revo with a ATOM CPU or games Console could ever do!
But the price is alot more, 2x-10x depending on what YOU spend!
In the perfect world, for a “gamer” you have a HD Console and Decent Games PC and a mini HTPC E.G. Acer Revo' as your spare rig. Each offers benefits the others can't.
Mini ION PC's are ultra portable, and can play many games the consoles can't (all the cuasual and free to play games online and on facebook etc), also access most of the web, which the console can't and are very easy to add extra hardware to (more storage, wireless mice-keybaords, blueray recorders to TV recorders etc).
The console have dedicated games you can't get on the PC and can offer extras in some games the PCs can't. (Wii remote etc!).
The large desktop games PC is still the king of everything (bar ease of use!) but the other option are alot cheaper!
All of these ARE PC's (personal computers), only some runs Windows or Linux.
The options which you choose are about your budget more than anything!
Once you have your new shiney selfbuilt or pre-built games PC. You should read:
Challengers Guide to PC security to help keep your brand new sexy games PC free from malware and other threats.
And use EG's guide to benchmark and monitoring software to test how well it working.
http://www.trubritar...?showtopic=5900
For further build advice with a step by step set of pictures this is a great newbie guide to your first build.
http://forums.bit-te...ad.php?t=183202
Larry
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Edited by dirtylarryuk, 23 August 2010 - 09:22 AM.
great info
