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How to Build a Gaming
PC
By Simon Slangen,
Edited by Justin Pot
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Table of Contents
Introduction
The Components of a Gaming PC
Actually Building Your System
External Computer Hardware
MakeUseOf
Introduction
Modern games grow more graphic-intensive by the
day. Hardware needs to keep up with the
increasingly better graphics and more powerful
gaming engines. Because of this, gaming hardware
becomes obsolete at a tremendous age; what was
considered ‘new’ a year or two ago already needs
to be left behind.
Every self-respecting gamer needs a computer to
match up with the growth of today’s games.

Though most motherboards (more about them later
on in the guide) have built-in GPU chips, they are
normally not sufficient for gaming. Rather, we’d
like to use an external component that can be
switched and upgraded without need to buy a
whole new computer.
This is also one of the main reasons against buying
gaming laptops. When the built-in GPU chip is
outdated, you’ll need to purchase everything anew,
without the possibility to reuse most of the other
parts.
There are a few things we must look at when
picking out the right graphics card:
• How powerful a card do I require?
• What additional functionality do I want?
Following the ‘there is no overkill’ philosophy,
those two choices would be easy. However, most
wallets require their owner to weigh functionality
against cost, and to look at what you need, rather
than what you want.
We won’t tell you which cards are good, because
that’d be rather useless and merely a temporary
statement. Instead, we’ll try teaching you how to
look for the good ones yourself.
GPU Manufacturers
The two main manufacturers of GPU chipsets at
this moment are NVIDIA and ATI (the graphical
department of AMD). It’s hard to say which is
best, as there is no right answer to that question,
although most people prefer to go with NVIDIA.

powerful?
Once you’ve got that understanding, the trick is to
be able to weigh those graphics cards against the
competition. Not an easy thing to do – contrary to
most other components and electronic products,
graphics cards can’t be judged on one variable.
Here, there are tons of factors that play their role.
It’s often hard to see which are best solely based
on the specifications. There are three things we can
learn from reading the back of the box:
Series – cards are nearly always released in series
(e.g. the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 and NVIDIA
GeForce 9800 both belong to the 9000 series).
What series a card belongs to is important to look
at. It’s nearly always advised to pick a card from
the latest possible series. One of those can
sometimes be superior to a more powerful card
from a lower series.
Memory – all cards have a graphics-dedicated
portion of memory. Obviously, the larger the
number, the better. The memory size is most often
stated in the specifications, if not in the card’s
name.
Suffixes – learning the existing suffixes is also
important. In NVIDIA’s case, GTX marks the best
cards, then GTS, and the weakest cards are marked
with a GT suffix. ATI cards use these same
suffixes, as well as a few additional ones that are
often a little bit more forward. The HD suffix is
obviously something you want to look for, as well

prove better to take a card with a DVI connector.
Apart from DVI’s better image, a lot of the newer
screens are already stopping the VGA support, and
chances are that you’ll be stuck with a ton of
convertor cables. If you’re not tight on money, you
can also pick cards with additional S-Video or
HDMI connectors.
DirectX
It’s also advised to pick cards that have support
for the latest DirectX versions (currently
DirectX10) if you don’t want to miss out on cool
new stuff like the latest shading technologies.
Motherboard Interface
There are several possible motherboard
connection services. The main ones are:
• PCI
• AGPx1/x2/x4/x8
• PCIex1/x4/x8/x16/x162.0
PCIe (or PCI Express) is currently the newest –
and fastest – connection interface on the market.
You can barely get by with PCI these days, and
you’d have to venture off to a flea market if you’re
still looking to score an AGP card. So go with
PCIe - not negotiable.
A PCIe card ensures not only a higher speed, but
compatibility with newer motherboards as well.
Choosing an older connection might oblige you to
go with older motherboards, and thusly overall
older apparel.
Write your slot on the component reference guide

output and have a semi-steady budget limit. With
that in mind, you need to start looking at
benchmarks and weigh off your options. A good
pick won’t cost a fortune, but still scores relatively
high in the benchmarks.
Processor
The CPU, central processing unit, or simply
processor, is the most central part of every
computer. It’s the communicating agent between all
your different computer components. When one
part of your system tries to send data to the other
side, it always passes by the Central Processing
Unit – this is why having a decent CPU is of the
innermost essence. A slow CPU can and will make
sure that not all of your components are used to
their full extent.
Like with the graphics cards, again we have two
choices: AMD and Intel. Both are valid options
and popular in the computing community.
Nevertheless, Intel still seems to be the more
popular candidate. Don’t be confused by the
numbers they tend to put in their product names,
those aren’t specs, but low-level competition.
Below we’ll review the different aspects that
you’ll need to look at upon buying a CPU.
Although you’ll need to keep your budget in check,
I’d advise you to look for a high-midrange or high-
range CPU if you want it to last at least 3 or 4
years. You’ll often be able to make a decent pick
while hovering around 100 bucks.

and why.
Because some data needs to be accessed
repeatedly, it can be inefficient for the CPU to
reach (far) beyond itself, time and time again. This
is why all CPU’s these days have small memory
deposits, further divided into a first (L1 Cache),
second (L2 Cache), and very occasionally third
(L3 cache).
The L1 cache holds the most frequently accessed
data, followed respectively by L2 and L3. The
CPU always searches the L1 cache first, before
going on to the other(s). To create the most time-
efficient searches, each deposit is distinctively
smaller than the next. Larger caches means more
data storage, but also means your CPU will spend
a longer time strolling around before it can ‘get on
with it’.
Multiple Cores
An increasingly popular trend are the multiple-
core CPU’s. These host several semi-independent
agents, to allow a faster communication between
different computer components. It’s like having
two people at a desk instead of just the one fat guy.
This technology is more and more present in new
CPU’s and it’s highly advised to go with the flow
on this one.
Although we started out with two, we’ve already
moved on to four cores in a single processor. For a
casual gamer, a mid- to high-range dual core is an
advisable and economic decision. However, the