Gaming Computers Demystified
Tech Talker explains the differences between a gaming computer and a normal computer–and how to pick the best gaming computer for you!
Hey, everyone! This week, I’m going to explain the differences between a gaming computer and a normal computer, and help figure out which one would be best for your needs.
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The Graphics
The GraphicsI’ve had a ton of questions in the past few weeks about gaming computers, with listeners wondering what sets these machines apart from traditional computers.
One misconception I’ve had to clear up for many parents out there is that a gaming computer is still a computer. However, it has had upgrades made to it to allow it to perform much better when running modern video games.
Modern games require a huge amount of system resources, most notably for rendering or displaying the game on your screen. Generally, most gaming machines I’ve run across are operating on Windows 7, as they support almost every game on the market.
When a video game shows you an image on your screen, it’s actually calculating everything you’re seeing. This could change in a moment’s notice, when you turn one direction or another in the game itself. This is different than watching a YouTube video or DVD, because in those instances, every second of the video you are watching has already been determined–whereas in gaming, it’s happening in “real time.”
For this reason, most gaming computers will have a high-end graphics card installed in them. This is often a separate component altogether, whose purpose is solely to render or display graphics on your screen. These cards will perform all of the calculations necessary to keep the game moving seamlessly.
Here are a few solid graphics cards to look at, depending on your needs:
The Power
These graphics cards require quite a bit of juice, and because of that, they will often need upgraded power supplies to run properly. A standard home computer will take about 400 watts to run, while a high-end graphics card can easily use 300 watts alone when gaming.
A quick search on Google should easily provide you with the information of how many watts a particular computer uses, and how much any graphics card would need. From there, just add the two numbers, throw in a couple hundred watts for good measure, and that’s all there is to it.
I recommend looking for anything over 700 watts for gaming. A 700 watt power supply will run you about $100 on sale, and a nice graphics card can cost anywhere from $100 to $400. I’d also recommend a minimum of 8GB of RAM. These specs alone will probably be enough to play just about any game on the market, with reasonable settings.
The Heat
The HeatAnother thing to keep in mind is the form factor. Most gamers opt for a desktop computer, because they can easily open it up and make any modifications that they want, or add or change components easily.
If you really want a laptop that has the ability to game, check out Alienware.com, which has some of the best gaming laptops I’ve ever seen. However, be aware these will cost much more than your average laptop.
The other reason that desktops make better gaming computers has to do with heat. Running billions of calculations a second produces a lot of heat, which desktops can vent much more easily than a laptop can.
In fact, these systems can be so loud due to the cooling fans that many gamers will opt for liquid cooling. Essentially, they run cooling liquid into their computer in special tubes. which then gets circulated over the processing chips in order to dissipate heat. This makes the cooling system very quiet and very efficient. Plus. it looks really cool! Here’s a great guide on how to do it, if you’re interested.
If you don’t plan to liquid cool any of your parts, I recommend getting some nice fans so that none of your parts overheat. Here’s a great one that I have.
The Extras
Before we go any farther, let’s sum up: we’ve covered the basics of what makes a good gaming computer, including the high-end graphics card, the power supply for the graphics card, and a way to cool everything.
Everything else from here on out is icing on the cake, based on what else can be upgraded on the gaming computer.
My next suggested upgrade would be to add a solid state drive or SSD, which increases the speed of your system dramatically over traditional hard disk drives.
Here are a few preconfigured models to start your looking:
Microtel-Computer AMTI9028
Both these computers are awesome and have great reviews, but are priced differently, based on the hardware that they contain.
If you want the cheapest gaming computer possible, I would suggest building your own computer. I generally use PCPartpicker.com to select parts and find prices. This website also tells you if you will have any configuration issues, such as not a large enough power supply or incompatible RAM.
However, that’s a story for next week, when I’ll be covering how to build your own computer!
Well, that’s it for today! Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at quickanddirtytips tech-talker. And if you have further questions about this podcast, or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post them on Facebook QDTtechtalker.
Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!
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About the Author
Tech Talker demystifies technology and cutting edge devices so that even the most tech illiterate can understand what’s going on with their computer or gadget — and what to do when something goes wrong.
