How to build a gamer PC in 2015

Gaming on a pc can either be a great experience or a horrible one depending on the combination of the hardware used to assemble the computer. Your budget will be the ultimate limit to what kind of gamer pc you end up building. The mistake that most novices make is that a high percentage of their budgets are spent on one specific part instead of carefully balancing all the parts together.

The Budget

To start off your budget must realistically be in line with the resolution and target frame rate you intend to be playing the game at. It’s simply not possible to build a kick ass PC with a budget of under $500. For that money expect to be gaming on resolutions of 720p and lower. If you want to play games at 1080p at 60 frames per second and above expect to shell out at least $1000. The most important parts of the PC that affect your computer gaming performance are graphics card, processor and the amount of RAM. The other parts that you need are case, Power supply, hard drives and ROM drives.

The Graphics card(s)

There are two mainstream graphics cards that you could pick from as your GPU, NVidia and AMD Radeon. Currently NVidia have the most powerful Single Graphics card known as GTX Titan X whilst the AMD flagship card is the Radeon R9 290x. These are enthusiast cards that can game up to 4k resolutions albeit at target frame rates of 30-40 Frames per second (FPS). A good hint with GPUs is that the lower the price the worse performing the graphics card is. If possible a lot at least 25% to 30% of the budget to it.

The Processor

Processors are whole different beast that you will be dealing it. The processor must be matched directly in line with the graphics card. For example if you pick a GPU that’s $250 then you should buy a processor that is around $150 to $250. Like GPUs the more money you spend the better performance you are going to get until you reach the point of diminishing returns, that’s usually at $250. The best performing processors at this price are the Intel core i5 chips.

The Gaming PC Power Supply

The power supply you use should at least have a bronze rating and have a minimum power rating of 600w so that you could handle all the power the graphics cards and the Processors needs.

The Motherboard

The Mother board must have a PCI express slot to accommodate the graphics card and must also be compatible with the Processor you intend to choose. For RAM at least pick a minimum of 8GB because games are now becoming memory hogs. You are advised to have more than two hard drives. One for the OS and the other for moving data and installation of the games. A Blu-ray rom drive is recommended because the discs have capacities of up to 50GB. When picking a case, keep in mind on what cooling solutions you intend to use. A large case is great for cooling fans and a smaller case is ideal for liquid cooling.

All the Fancy Peripherals a Gamer Needs

These are all the main parts that you need for a proper gamer PC. You could either use a mouse and keyboard for gaming or you could purchase an Xbox controller.