How To Build A Gaming PC – The Parts

If you love computer games, and it’s time to upgrade your current rig, you might want to consider building your own PC. There are numerous advantages to building your own PC, especially one with gaming in mind. For one, you decide the parts you want, therefore you are able to find better deals catered to that individual peace – This can save you quite a bit of cash. Secondly, you gain a lot of knowledge about your PC through building your own and this can help you with many different aspects of computer gaming. Thirdly, computer gaming evolves extremely fast. This often means upgrading your PC to be able to play the newest games on the highest settings you want. Building your own PC will give you this knowledge.

A lot of people thinking about building their own gaming PC become overwhelmed with the thought and think that is something they could never do because they aren’t extremely tech savvy or believe it’s something that you need a lot of training to do. Honestly, it’s not that difficult. These days it’s almost as simple as finding where everything “plugs in”. Probably the hardest part of building a gaming PC is making sure all your components are compatible with one another and are tailored to your specific needs.

If you’re interested in building your own PC, there are hundreds of instructional videos and articles dedicated to it. Don’t get discouraged because you aren’t an IT person, it’s really not that hard.

The first step is finding out what parts you need. I will go over a basic outline for you, and then you can tailor the individual parts for what you want.

Motherboard

- This is the main circuit board that almost everything in your computer will connect to, hence the name.

Hard Drive

- This is where everything will be stored. The standard size these days is around 500GB however it’s growing rapidly. Most will also come in at 7200RPM, if you’re really into gaming however, 10,000RPM is something you might want to look at.

RAM

- RAM: Random Access Memory. This helps with multitasking and start up speeds. You’ll want a minimum of 4GB. Don’t go cheap on RAM.

Graphics Card

- This is obviously the biggest part of any gaming rig as it has the largest impact on the visuals. You’ll want to put most of your investment on this. If you want to run at higher resolutions, find a card with higher memory. You also might want to check out dual card options. Your two main manufacturers will be ATi and Nvidia.

Power Supply(PSU)

- Much like it sounds, it powers nearly everything inside your computer. Don’t skimp out on this one. Find a good brand with a decent amount of watts, especially if you’re looking into dual video cards.

CPU

- The brains of the operation. Your two main manufacturers will be Intel and AMD. Do some research on these as they come in a very large variety of cores, clock speeds, etc.

Fans

- Add some extra fans. Your gaming rig is going to be running hot, especially those higher end video cards. Make sure your computer stays cool and you might even want to install a temperature monitor program – There are many free ones you can find through searching the web.

So there you have it, all the essentials you’ll need to look into for building your gaming rig. Don’t be discouraged or intimidated, it’s not a very difficult process. Do some research online, watch some instructional videos, and you’ll have no probably whatsoever. It’s actually very exciting to do, not to mention educational!

Most importantly, don’t rush it! Make sure you find all the compatible parts, find some good deals at the right times, and learn the process. Remember, once you build your PC, you are the IT support!

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