Gaming offers an escape from the daily grind and a good way to unwind with friends. However, it’s hard to get serious about battling baddies if your PC specs can’t fuel your favorite titles. A top-of-the-line gaming PC can be a big investment, but you can immerse yourself in a realistic gaming world for far less if you know where to concentrate your resources. Learn which features matter and which ones are overkill to try to maximize your gaming experience without breaking your budget.
Gaming Desktop PC Towers
Most PC gamers focus on what’s inside the gaming computer, but the outside matters, too. A gaming desktop PC can allow for better air circulation and cooling, while a gaming laptop allows you to take your game wherever you go.
When it comes to cooling, bigger is usually better, so try to opt for a mid- to full-sized tower over a compact desktop computer. As a bonus, a full tower allows for more flexible upgrades down the road. The extra room accommodates a broader range of computer parts, and full towers typically support multiple hard drives and video cards.
PC Gaming Graphics Cards
Even newbie gamers know that a state-of-the-art graphics card can kick a game’s graphics into high gear. However, many overlook the importance of their display. If your computer monitor can’t display 4K resolution, it doesn’t matter that your blazing-fast video card supports 4K gaming. Before you buy, you can check the maximum resolution, refresh rates, and response times that your display can support, and try to choose a graphics card just slightly more powerful for optimal syncing. Likewise, you can check that your motherboard can support the video card’s maximum capacity. Don’t forget to change the default settings in your game to see the payoff of your investments.
The Brains of Your Computer: CPU
The processor is the brain of your gaming computer, carrying out your decisions and tallying up the carnage. A faster CPU speeds up your game’s AI, allowing you to control bigger, badder armies and confront craftier adversaries. If you play online games, a faster processor better manages your network connections for smoother playback and less lag. Most experts recommend at least a quad-core processor, which balances performance and cost. A dual-core generally can’t handle the more processor-intensive games on the market.
When shopping for specs, don’t overlook memory. You can invest in at least 8GB of DDR3 or DDR4 RAM, which are faster than the old DDR2 RAM and provide a more responsive gaming experience.
Solid State for Faster Storage
Are you tired of staring at the screen while your game loads? A solid-state drive (SSD) loads your game faster than a traditional spinning hard drive so that you can spend more time gaming. It also saves your files and loads the next level at noticeably faster speeds. If your budget is less than large, consider pairing a small SSD with a large traditional hard drive to balance performance and storage size. For the fastest possible load times, install the operating system on your SSD and not your spinning hard drive.
Consider your interests before you shop for a gaming computer. For example, fans of first-person shooters (FPS) get more out of realistic graphics and an immersive experience, making the video card, the gaming monitor, and the sound system core components. Empire builders and strategists need smooth playback and zippy response times, so an advanced CPU and RAM are important. By prioritizing what kind of experience you want, you can crank up the volume on your games while clocking in under budget.
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