How do I get a serious gaming PC without selling my sister to a pimp? I see that question here and get asked it a lot. I’m a computer graphics and imaging professional so I buy a lot of high end graphic workstation which are essentially gaming computers without the blue neon. There are a lot of ways to get a good gaming computer and I’ll cover several with prices starting at $ 656.00
1) BUILD IT FROM SCRATCHI used to do this a lot but I don’t recommend this now unless it’s something you enjoy. It’s a lot of work, there’s a fairly high failure rate (and no overall warranty), and as often as not it costs more. But if you really need my advice you shouldn’t even consider it.
2) I JUST WANT TO WALK INTO A LOCAL STORE AND BUY IT BUT HOW DO I KNOW WHICH ONEIf you take advantage of sales, this can actually work surprisingly well IF you know how to judge. You may not get the ultimate gamer but it’s convenient and they’re right there if it doesn’t work.
Choosing. Price is not a particularly good way to judge. Because I have seen some expensive computers that sucked and cheap ones that were surprisingly capable. Trying to look at the individual components can be tricky because the display information may be incomplete or components hidden behind obscure numbers.VISTA NUMBERS. (Note – THIS IS NOT A THREAD ABOUT WHETHER YOU LIKE VISTA). One feature I definitely like about Vista is the new performance number. When you are in the store, check out each computer. Go to Control Panel, click on Performance Information and you will see a display like this.
The NEW EGG Monster I went to my favorite on line supplier, New Egg, and did a little shopping to see what I could put together. This is intended as a how to guide because the exact models change frequently.
BASIC BOX
I chose a Lenova ThinkCentre A60 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 1GB DDR2 160GB NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Windows Vista Business. It provides a solid base on which to buld. $349.99
CPU
The Athlon 64 X2 (dual core) 4400+ is a good fast 2.2 GHz.Tech Report said: "The Athlon 64 X2's gaming performance is outstanding." And in testing the chip with an adequate but not outstanding graphic card they got the following:Doom 3 640x480 227 fps
Far Cry 800 x600 95fps
Unreal Tournament 2004 640x480x32 72fps
http://techreport.com/articles.x/8295/5
And another gamer reported: “Call of Duty, High settings getting average of 50FPS in high combat scenes. I’m also playing Crysis on Medium setting, with 4xAA”
RAM
Buying additional RAM is always the cheapest way to enhance your computer’s performance, especially with the current low memory prices.This box has two memory slots so I would take out the 1GB and replace it with 2x2GB faster memory. I choose the A-DATA 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Recommend Use: High Performance or Gaming Memory =$38.99 x2
VIDEO CARD
A key element; get last year’s hot card and you can get a lot of performance without hocking your wheels. I liked the GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card = $179
This card, the memory, and the CPU should easily get your Vista Number somewhere around 5.6 -5.8 and that ain’t bad. POWER SUPPLY
A common mistake that you don’t want to make is getting a powerful video card and running it on the $1.98 power supply that came on the computer. You want at least 400W. I chose the Rosewill RP500 ATX12V v1.3/ EPS12V 500W Power Supply = $48.99
Putting in the power supply is far and away the hardest part but usually they fit perfectly. Just note carefully how everything hooks up. Watch for the smaller wires that may go to the mother board or CD/DVD drivesNOTE. You may want to make all these changes right up front before you activate your Windows License since otherwise you’ll wind up making a “honest it’s the same computer” call to Microsoft.
THE TOTAL
That’s all you NEED to kick some serious GTA butt. You may in addition want to upgrade the audio, better media burner etc. But if you have a monitor already this little screaming honking monster will have only set you back $656 Total.Total for our New Egg Monster $656
WITH MONITOR
You can spend as much as you want on a monitor. At work I have a 31” Dell Ultrasharp and it’s a beauty but hellishly expensive. Since the point of this exercise is value we’re going a little more modest. I liked the Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor with HDCP support. It has 1680 x 1050 resolution, 700:1 contrast, fast ghost-free 5ms refresh, D-Sub DVI inputs, and a five egg rating for $229.99
Total for our New Egg Monster with Monitor = $885
4) TOO MUCH LIKE WORK, I WANT TO BUY ONE JUST LIKE THAT BUT OFF THE RACK
I don’t blame you, if you have more free cash than free time you can get a similar computer already made. You can drop up to $5K easily on a high end gamer but you may not see that much more performance. If you have 5 Grand to drop on a game computer you probably already have one. Here are three I configured for comparable performance with bang for the buck economy in mind.
Dell XPS 420 If you like Dells then this computer will give you the same performance Retail $1250 w/o monitorVelocity Micro Edge M10 If you want a real gaming computer Velocity is probably a slightly better deal than Alienware. The M10 is certainly not your fancieist but you may be spending several hundred that will show up more in the gaudy neon lighted case than game play. $1400 w/o monitor
CyberpowerPC Gamer Ultra 7511 Phenom X4 9500 (2.2GHz) 3GB DDR2 500GB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT . Shopping around for the best deal in gaming machines, I found this at New Egg and it’s very similar to the NEW EGG Monster but $350 more with less effort (your choice). $999.99 w/o monitor
GAME ON I hope you found something in here that will be of use to you. Let me know if anyone wants me to tackle Gaming Notebooks.
Currently Online 
