What to Look for in a Gaming PC

Whether you’re building a gaming PC from scratch or looking to buy a ready-made rig, you need to know what to look out for. Ordinary PCs won’t run resource heavy games. They aren’t designed to handle memory-intensive graphics and some cheap PCs don’t have enough space on the hard-drive to cope with a huge game. If you love to spend your free time battling orcs and leveling up, here is a general guide to the specifications you need in a gaming PC.

Build Your Own PC or Pre-Packaged

Investing in a capable gaming PC is a matter of compromise. Unless money is no object, you are going to have to decide which components are most important to you. Pre-packaged gaming PCs are cheaper, but if gaming is your life, it is worth saving up for a custom build or learning how to build your own gaming PC.

In no particular order, let’s take a look at the type of spec any good gaming PC needs to function at an acceptable level.

Storage

Solid state drives are the norm in most gaming PCs these days, as they are faster and more reliable. Go for a minimum 120GB, but if you can afford it, invest in 250GB. If possible, pay extra for a quality brand SSD, such as Samsung or Crucial. It may be cheaper to have an SSD/HDD. Keep your essentials on the SSD and leave everything else on the HDD.

RAM

Gaming PCs need a decent amount of RAM, so you should have 8GB as a bare minimum. Ideally, though, upgrade to 12GB, and if you are looking at high-end gaming, invest in an extra 4GB on top of that. RAM works better in pairs.

Graphics

Gamers always go for AMD versus Nvidia, with Nvidia typically the more popular graphics card. Always get the best graphics card you can afford but be aware that high-end graphics cards such as the 8GB Nvidia GTX 1080 cost in the region of $600. At the other end of the price scale, you can pick up a budget 4GB AMD RX 560 graphics card for around $100. If you plan on gaming on a laptop, you should consider getting an external graphics card.

CPU

The choice is AMD versus Intel. Budget gaming PCs will do best with AMD, as budget AMD chips tend to be better than budget Intel. If you have more money to spend, go for Intel. At the price range, Intel i3 is perfectly serviceable, but an i5 7600k will give a better performance. You could spend more on a better chip, but this extra money is better off being spent on more RAM or a better GPU.

Extras

You will also need a fan – preferably two – to keep your PC nice and cool while you level up. A power supply is critical, as is a case. Don’t forget peripherals too – check out the best gaming mouse on the WiredShopper.

These are the key elements you need for a decent gaming PC. Spend as much as you can afford but bear in mind that most gaming PCs only last for around 18 months before new game releases call for better components.