The video game industry is enormous and generates more revenue than the entire film and music industry combined. There was a surge of new and returning video game players over the past couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. People wanted something to do while their governments restricted their movements. Being unable to travel meant many people had surplus money to splash on the latest consoles or a gaming PC.
Building a PC instead of buying one off the shelf at a computer store is an activity that has increased in popularity. Component manufacturers have made it easy than ever for even the least mechanically-minded people to build a machine to suit their needs. Throw into the mix of thousands of “how-to” guides on YouTube, and you can see why PC building is gaining in popularity. This brief guide will give you a little more information about the various PC components and help you decide which to buy if you plan to build your own PC.
Do You Need the Best Graphics Card?
The graphics card is responsible for generating the graphics you see on your screen. This could be the most expensive component by far, mainly because a global shortage of graphics cards has pushed their prices through the roof. If you want to play the latest AAA titles on the highest settings and in 4K resolution, you will need a card as powerful as the Nvidia RTX 3070 or maybe the 3080. The recommended retail price of these cards are €500 and €600 respectively, but you will not find them cheaper than €800 or €1,000. That is overkill if you only plan to use your PC for browsing the internet for top online betting sites like Sports Interaction but entirely necessary if you want to play the latest games.
An RTX 3060 Ti is more than enough for the majority of gamers. It provided enough graphical power to run games at high frames per second (fps) at 1440p resolution and comes in a couple of hundred euros cheaper than a 3070 and much more affordable than a 3080.
We would recommend staying away from the AMD graphics cards simply because they are still costly yet do not perform as well as the Nvidia GPUs.
An AMD or Intel Processor?
Today’s processors come from two leading manufacturers: AMD and Intel. Both make some incredible processors at relatively low prices. There was a time when Intel ruled the roost when it came to CPUs, but AMD has soared into the lead with their Ryzen Gen 3 chips. The Ryzen 7 5800x is a fantastic gaming processor that wipes the floor with similarly priced CPUs. However, it does not come with integrated graphics, so you will need a graphics card to display anything on your monitor. Furthermore, they are known for running hot, so require an after-market CPU cooler because it does not come with one as standard.
Which Other Parts Are Crucial to a Good Gaming PC?
Ideally, you want 32GB of RAM, or Random Access Memory, preferably at least DDR4 but DDR5 if you can afford it. The faster the RAM – measured in MHz – the better it will perform in your computer.
Then there is the matter of storage. Today’s solid-state hard drives are lightning-fast, which cuts downloading speed in addition to better performance all around. Seagate’s FireCuda solid-state drives are probably the best on the market, although they do come with a slight premium over their competitors.
A traditional hard drive is an often a better value for money if you have a lot of files that you need access to. You can keep hundreds of games on your traditional hard drive and transfer them to your fast solid-state drive when you want to play them.