Building your Gaming Rig – The 6 Commandments!

For people who like computer games, having a gaming rig capable of handling everything you throw at it, is a dream come true. But often people mess up their rig by spending on stuffs they don’t need and ending up with underpowered or overpowered machines. There are a few factors you need to consider before you start building your own gaming rig.

Fix your Budget

It is often seen that in order to go top-of-the-line, you overshoot your budget a great margin and then ultimately play games at moderate settings and thus wasting all the hardware at your disposal. Hence, try and make an overall budget – the amount you are willing to spend and set aside 1/3rd of it for the Graphics Processing Unit alone. Further, ask yourselves the games you would be playing. If you are more into casual gaming, you will not need a high-end GPU.

CPU vs. GPU

Many tend to max out their CPU and GPU both to gain the maximum performance, which can cost you a lot. But very few games are CPU bounded and most are more dependent on the GPU. Thus, an Intel Core i5 paired with GTX 780 is better than Core i7 with GTX 780 – which will save a few hundred bucks without any noticeable difference in performance. Further, carefully check reviews about SLI (for Nvidia) or CrossFire (for Radeon) and how much advantage they provide over single GPU for your favorite games.

Memory and SSD

You will definitely need plenty of free RAM and a minimum of 8 GB is a must. Further look at their speeds (clock rate), and whether they are DDR3 or not. Remember – more RAM never hurts. When it comes to the hard disk, your loading times will take a hit if you stick with traditional spinning track Hard disks. The price of SSD has come down a lot and they offer way more I/O speeds while consuming very little power. Invest in some to drastically reduce “Loading…” screen times.

Cabinet and Cooling

Since you intend to play games, your GPU and CPU would be working on full throttle and this will raise the temperature of them by some amount. Invest in good, spacious cabinets designed for proper ventilation and if possible, get a dedicated liquid cooled system up and running for optimal results. And if you are keen on overclocking, such a cooling system is a must!

Display Unit and Sound

A game at full resolution on a poor display unit is an absolute waste. Invest in some quality displays preferably LCD with IPS or LED-Backlit LCDs with minimum lag and response time and high refresh rate (~120 Hz). And also go for dedicated headphones instead of speakers as they deliver better sound performance.

Input Devices

For keyboards, definitely prefer an N-key rollover one, which is also durable and programmable – in order to program, the keystroke combos. For mouse, any gaming mouse with programmable buttons would do.

To clear all your doubts and provide solution to all your computer related issues, Mwave’s range of custom PCs has come up. With proper budget and a plan chalked out, it is quite easy to setup your gaming rig and immerse in the 3D worlds. Now if you excuse me, Metro: Last Light is waiting for me.