HOW TO BUILD THE BEST MID-RANGE GAMING PC

First lets begin with whats the most important down to the least important part in a gaming pc!

1. Graphics Card...from Sims to call of duty this is the most important!!! (try to play games on integrated graphics) the graphic card is what displays all the EYE CANDY in games

2. Cpu...Cpu is the brain of your pc..it handles all the AI in your game and processes the game code on the fly.

3. Ram...Ram is what holds all your game code(which it grabs from the hard drive)make sure you have enough for your games or it well use your hard drive instead (hard drives are at least 30 times slower then ram,SSD are at least 20 times slower then ram)

4. Motherboard...the Motherboard is what connects all your parts together. make sure it can support all your gaming needs (cpu,ram,gpu.ect) to there full potential!!!

5. Power Supply...PSU is what gives life to your pc. make sure you have enough power for your pc or it wont turn on or it well restart automactly well your gaming(because its being pushed in games over simple tasks)..and in some cases the psu well brake and take your whole pc with it. so make sure you get a reliable brand!!!

6. Computer Case...All these does is holds all your parts together..just make sure it big enough for all your parts(MOBO,Hard drive..ect). Also make sure its at least a Mid-Size atx case or bigger (GFX cards are very Big at least the good ones!).. also you don't want your gaming pc to overheat so try to get a case with a top fan and a rear fan and maybe some front fans to improve air flow.(more then 2 out of 3 I find side fans are a bad idea because it messes up air flow but i do recommend side vents for your GFX card)

7. Hard drive...these is what holds all your games..get one big enough for your games and pick a reliable brand!also make sure it uses a sata connection,has at leats 8mb on cache, 16mb recommend.

8. Dvd-Rom definitely not the most important part but without it how do you plan to play(load) your games?

A mid-range gaming pc is 400-800$.how can you build a good(decent)gaming pc for that amount of money well heres some common sense!!!.

Dont go overboard on "stuff"

if you have a pc thats only 2-3 years old you can always reuse the Hard-drive,Dvd-Rom,sometimes the ram,psu and case.(Dont reuse the GPU,CPU,MOBO)

1GB 70$ GFX cards suck!!!! its to slow to even use all the 1GB..also 1GB cards are only worth it if you play games at a high resolutions. With 1680-1050 resolution or lower well work fine on 512mb graphic cards.(note very little games benefit with 1GB of VRAM but some do such as GTA4)

why get a 1000 watt power supply when you well be using 400 watts at max? on a mid-range gaming pc.

Why get a 100$ case..when theres good gaming cases for just 50$(would you rather have EYE candy on the pc case or in the Game???)

dont get 16GB of ram on a mid-range pc. games barley use 2GB of ram(in fact thats all 32bit lets games,apps use) i recommend at least 3GB of ram on 32bit os. remember 32bit systems only use 3-3.5GB of ram. not a full 4GB.

why get a 1TB hard drive for a gaming pc. you really only need 320GB-500GB hard drive, also smaller hard drives are typicly a little faster.

Dont spend a lot on a Dvd-rom(if you even could)

Now you say "well how much money should i spend on these parts" well heres some good money figures.

Graphics card: 200-65$ or more(you can find a 4670 for 60$)

Cpu: 180-55$ (can find some decent Amd dual-cores cpus for about 58$ on newegg)

Ram:150-40$ (2GB ram card about 55$ for ddr3 and can find some 2GB ddr2 cards for around 40$)

Motherboard:80-50$ (can find some asrock boards for just 49.99$)

Power Supply:80-40$ (antec 380 watt only 39.99$)

Computer Case:60-30$ (theres some decent rosewell cases for only 29.99$)

Hard drive: 60-40$ (500GB samsung hard drive rated one of the best for performance for the price for just 55$)

Dvd-Rom 15-25$ (do you really need to spend more?- Asus has a customer reward on 1 for just 22$)

More helpful tips
i recommend to use 32bit if all you have is 3GB of ram only use 64bit if you have at least 6GB of ram, to my mind 4GB or 5GB of ram doesn't exist why i thank this is because 64bit uses about twice as much ram and hard drive space. 64bit is not automatically faster then 32bit.( it might even be slower by 5-10% in 32bit games due to the emulation process) games and apps have to be in 64bit code to have a advanage over 32bit. -64bit is mainly improvement if you have to use a lot of ram and in this case as in 2010 most games dont even use more then 2GB of ram.

Running some 32 bit applications on a 64 bit OS could actually be slower. The additional overheads in running 32 bit software in 64 bit mode could cause a slight degradation in performance. It will take some time for 64 bit software to become the norm.

speed of ram almost has no difference in games at most 3-5% increase!

try to get the fastest cpu you can (3.8ghz dual-core can walk all over a 3.2ghz quad in lots of games)but newer games well start to work better on quads with slower ghz then a faster ghz dual-core some quads already do!

L3 cache doesn't matter in most games typically 5% increase, but sometimes it can lead to a 20% performance boost in games such as in Left for Dead 4

a six core cpu almost has almost no benefit for games yet. and wont for anouther 3 years at the least.

heres some history dual-core cpu's started going mainstream in 2005. most games started to use them 2-3 years after they came out.quad-core cpu's started to come mainstream in 2008. but less then 20% of games use them today. six-core cpu's well most likely come mainstream at the mid or end of 2011. So most likely it well take until 2014-2015 for games to use them.(one more important thing to talk about multi-core cpu's is, a xbox 360 has a tri-core,and the ps3 has a hex-core) sony and Microsoft well not be making a new gaming consoles until 2014-2015 so most games wont change much ontil then.(or its better to say become more demanding on hardware until then)

use windows 7 over xp or vista, 7 has performance benefits in multi-core cpu's.

(i upgraded from vista to 7 and i got 5fps increase in call of duty 5)

for a mid-range gaming pc's AMD the BEST!!!...but Intel better then Amd at high-end gaming pc's

when i say AMD better then Intel at mid-range gaming pc's is because of the cost/performance ratio!

when i say Intel better then Amd for the high-end gaming pc's is because they have better(more) High-end cpus then AMD does...but with Intel performance comes at a price(A high one)

People ask me ATI or Nvida i usually say well i don't know...there both Good. as of right know ati is slightly better for the money..but later nvidia might be a better choice for the money. Nvidia Defentley has better support with game developers then ati! well you say "Who cards if nvidia has better support from game developers" i say "because the games are optimizd better with nvidia over ati!!!".......also from my experance if a ati card has equal performance with the nvidia card the ati wll typically requires less power. (less power less heat)

do lots of reserach on your product theres benchmarks for everything these days,and always read customer reviews!!

buy all your pc parts at the same time if you can, to cut down on shipping costs.

look at two websites and compare cost(newegg,tiger)

OK one last but yet extremely important thing MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A COPY OF WINDOWS IF YOU DON'T IT WELL COST YOU 100$ FOR A OEM COPY!!!!!(OEM Copys suck they only work on 1 pc and if you want to upgrade something you might have to buy a new product key theres one easy word for this "LAME"

hers a example for a 400$ gaming pc and a 800$ gaming pc(all new parts,no rebates all pick from newegg)

400$ Gaming PC
case Rosewill 29.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811147109

power supply antec 380watt 39.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371033

Hard drive 160Gb westerndigital harddrive 38.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136075

DVD-rom ASUS 22.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135204

moutherboard ASRock A780LM-S 49.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157186

ram 40.99$ 2GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231203

cpu AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor 62$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103681

gpu Radeon HD 5670 84.99$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product

shipping 30$

TOTAL=400$

800$ Gaming PC

Case: 59.95 antec 300 case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product

power supply: 79.99$ antec earth watts 650watt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371015

moutherboard: 79.99$ asus DDR3 AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131406

hard drive: 54.99$ samsung 500GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152181

dvd-rom: 23.99$ asus Winner of Customer Choice Award
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827135204

ram: 99.99$ 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820161279

cpu: 179.99$ AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103727

gpu: 169.99$ XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150447

APEVIA CF12S-BK 120mm Case Fan 3 fans 14.97$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835228010

Thermal grease 5.49$ Arctic Silver Ceramique Thermal Compound
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835100009
shipping 30$




Note shipping cost well most likely be cheaper then 30$ just a easy way to add the total cost!

Please ignore my crappy spelling and grammar I'm doing these for a Computer project at school..(I'll fix those mistakes later)is this a good article or not do you agree or disagree?

First, dont start with the title being all caps.

I see a few issues with it that i dont agree with, i will work my way down from the top. WARNING: Long post ahead!

"if you have a pc thats only 2-3 years old you can always reuse the Hard-drive,Dvd-Rom,sometimes the ram,psu and case.(Dont reuse the GPU,CPU,MOBO"

You should plan on reusing your case and PSU, they dont get out dated and are good investments that you can use for several builds down the line.

"why get a 1000 watt power supply when you well be using 400 watts at max? on a mid-range gaming pc. "

I agree with not getting a 1kW unit, but its generally good to get a slightly more powerful unit than the bare minimum you need, PSUs are most efficient at 50% load, and running them at 100% load will decrease their lifespan so getting a 500-550W unit when you know your system will only use 400W from the wall will give it a longer lifespan, but its often good to plan ahead and get one that will allow you to upgrade your graphics card down the line so you dont have to buy a second PSU and end up having wasted the money on the first one.

"why get a 1TB hard drive for a gaming pc. you really only need 320GB-500GB hard drive, also smaller hard drives are typicly a little faster. "

Smaller drives arent faster, they actually tend to be slower, its all thanks to platter densities. The denser the platter the better the sequential transfer rate, the faster your load times. Its also important to be aware of platter speeds, green drives tend to be only 5600RPM which makes them much slower. The HDD in your first build is 160GB so it either has 80 or 160GB platters, either way it will be much slower than a drive that has 250GB platters(ex WD Caviar black 500 or 750GB drives), which is slower than one that has 320GB platters(Caviar Black 640GB 1TB drives), which are also significantly slower than a drive that has 500GB platters like the samsung F3 in your second build. The difference in load times between those two builds would be quite significant, and the boot time for Windows would be significantly increased on a 160GB drive.

"i recommend to use 32bit if all you have is 3GB of ram only use 64bit if you have at least 6GB of ram, to my mind 4GB or 5GB of ram doesn't exist why i thank this is because 64bit uses about twice as much ram and hard drive space. 64bit is not automatically faster then 32bit.( it might even be slower by 5-10% in 32bit games due to the emulation process) games and apps have to be in 64bit code to have a advanage over 32bit. -64bit is mainly improvement if you have to use a lot of ram and in this case as in 2010 most games dont even use more then 2GB of ram."

you shouldnt be using 3 or 6GB setups on most systems as you loose dual channel mode which cuts your bandwidth in half, the majority of systems that get built have 4GB of ram, mostly because this gives you dual channel and is plenty for gaming, most games dont show a gain over 4GB of memory. In this day and age there is no good reason to stick with 32 bit OS unless you have a device that you absolutely cant live without that does not have a 64 bit driver. Not sure where you got the number that 64 bit uses more RAM and HDD space, if it uses more it really isnt significant. Encouraging the adoption to 64 bit is rather important, 64 bit architectures have the potential to be significantly faster and more efficient than 32 bit systems as x86-64 has additional registers on the CPU that x86 does not have.

"try to get the fastest cpu you can (3.8ghz dual-core can walk all over a 3.2ghz quad in lots of games)but newer games well start to work better on quads with slower ghz then a faster ghz dual-core some quads already do!"

Its important to note that you cannot compare across architectures, an i7 920 @ 2.66GHz is faster than a Core 2 Quad @ 3.2 or a Phenom II X4 @ 3.2, clock speed isnt an accurate judge of performance, the best way to pick a CPU is to take a look at how it fares in gaming benchmarks against others in your price range.

Damn that got longer than i expect faster than i expected.

Edit: It seems silly to spend money on additional case fans in the second build when you can get the Antec 300 Illusions which has two front fans for the same price as the regular one.

I wish I wasn't swayed into going with AMD by everyone from Tom's Hardware just because of the bang for the buck. I wanted an Intel and nVidia build, and would have gone back to that if I had just waited for a reply from a Dual Boot builder.

It seems to come as a fact that nVidia is better supported by game companies. For the game I want to play, nVidia and Intel are recommended on the box. But, I was assured in several of my threads that it wouldn't make a difference. I just ordered the parts the other day, so I'm not complaining that ATI and AMD are not going to work for me because I haven't even tried them out yet. I just realized that I wanted to create a Dual Boot system, and now it is going to be a very big challenge. I may have to buy a new MOBO and CPU if things don't work out.

Anyway, the cost for Intel is much higher for a reason. There is a higher demand for those CPUs because they are more compatible with games and OSs.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Ha, I have never heard of thermal paste. I want some.

Don't forget to mention to subscribe for sales/promotions and look for combos.

Everything he said is correct except about the 64bit even on Microsoft website 64bit windows recommends 2GB of ram over the 1GB of ram recommend for 32bit also look at the 32bit comparison and the 64bit comparison in gta 4 on just 3GB of ram...its even on this website.. http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 50-10.html

if all you have is 600$ gaming pc why would you want to lower your fps by using 64bit.
but if you have 64bit and 6GB of ram its well be great..(1gb+1gb)(2gb+2gb)dual channel
http://windows.microsoft.com/systemrequirements
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
on a high-end pc you well not notice any performance lost but on a mid-range pc its a different story
the only advantage on 64bit is you can have more ram, which for gaming its not a huge deal(yet)
theres very few games that even have advantage over 64bit
windows 7 32bit on idle used 607mb of my ram 64bit used 950mb GO FIGURE...if all you have its 4GB of ram do you want to have 300mb less

with you all the way man and its true nvidia and intel has better support then amd and ati..if someone tells you some other story its not true i hope you have a good time building a PC! these people seem to say what they believe is true, not the actual facts like what i post..for almost everything i said i can find websites that states its true!!"OSX on a pc"do games even work for that, i don't no thats one area were i"m clueless about!i would have to say be more worried about games not being optimized on mac..over games not being optimized on ati/amd.

I call it like I see guys, and I see a whole lot of BS on this page.