This is a guide for the gamer who is at this very moment considering buying a new gaming rig from their local Wal-Mart. Included in this list is every part you'll need to have a gaming system that will be able to keep up with not only the current games on the shelf, but also the games that are on the horizon.
For this rig I decided to use AMD system components. I did this for two reasons:
- 1) The system that I recently bought for myself is powered by AMD, and so far I'm very happy with it.
- 2) Components are easily and safely over clocked so that you squeeze every last bit of performance out of your rig with some simple cooling upgrades.
Later on I plan on doing a similar guide using Intel, so that the Pentium boys don't cry out for vengeance. Anyway, on with the guide....
ATX Case-$50- The case shown here is a "custom" ATX case with a clear side panel, 6 component bays, and a 350 watt power supply. It's painted a very stylish and classic black and has openings on the side and back for additional case cooling fans. For those of you not necessarily interested in having a "stylin" rig you don't need spend as much as is listed here. For around $30 you can get a standard off-white, 5 to 6 bay, ATX case that will hold your parts just fine. Granted you will be the laughing stock of any LAN party you go to, but it is possible if you really want to stretch you hard earned moniez. Regardless of the case looks you should make sure that it has at least a 350 watt (if not higher) power supply as most current graphic and sound processors use a little more juice than a 250 or 300 watt may be able to churn out.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7N400-L nForce2 Ultra 400-$80- For the motherboard I'm recommending Gigabyte's latest board that offers up a 400 FSB, and has not a gigabit LAN card and 5.1 digital sound card on the board itself. It also includes an easy and effective RAID controller and simple CMOS interface for all of your over clocking needs. I have this board myself and am extremely happy with it. Out of the box with the standard AMD fan I was able to over clock my AMD Athlon XP 2500 1.83ghz up to 1.91ghz with no stability issues of any kind. All I had to do to crank it up was run its BIOS/CMOS setup and slightly increase the boards default Front Side Bus by 9mhz (from 166 to 175). After a restart the board read the processor as being an AMD 2600 running at 1.91mhz. Not bad for a 10 second configuration change with no noticeable heat increases. (**In the event that you happen to burn out your hardware because you over-over clocked your rig do not bother to email, call, or cry in my direction. Chances are I will be unsympathetic at best, and probably laugh at your expense at worst)
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton)-$90- The AMD Athlon XP 2500+ running at 1.83 with a Barton core is heralded as being able to out perform an Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.4 ghz on most gaming benchmark programs. It's also extremely stable, even when over clocked to up to 2.08 ghz with a high-power after market CPU cooling fan., and based on tests is said to be just as fast as its larger brothers the Athlon 2700 and 2800. Running with AMD's QuantiSpeed architecture (which basically means it is able to run multiple calculations in a given clock cycle) the Athlon series brings fast access to all types of media, and lightning-quick 3d rendering for PC gaming. (*For installation you will also need some CPU lube. You should be able to get some for around $10)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 80gig with an 8mb buffer-$75- Hard drives are pretty self explanatory, you store things on them. I've always been partial to Western Digital personally, but you would also find some very solid drives made by Maxtor. I have a 120 gig WD with an 8mb buffer, and it's rock hard, quick to bring up items, and it...stores...stuff, I highly recommend it.
Memory: Corsair 256mb DDR x 2-$130- The Gigabyte board that I recommend supports dual DDR connections when using similar (in computer terms that actually means identical) types of DDR memory. In other words if you use two sticks of 256mb DDR memory it will actually operate FASTER than if you were running one stick of 512 at the same bus rate. For memory I recommend a brand name manufacturer, you'll get a better warranty and 90% of the time a better product. Personally I prefer Corsair.
Processor Fan: Thermaltake Volcano 11-$30- You may argue that paying 30 bucks for a small fan is a little excessive, but then you aren't writing this guide are you? For gaming you want to keep your gear as chilly as possible, and fans made by Thermaltake are the best way to do that. The Volcano 11 Xaser Edition Highest Performance Cooler has automatic temperature control, which will run your fan from 1300rpm up to 4800rpm based on the surface temp of your processor, which it constantly monitors with its included sensor. It also comes with a nifty drive bay mounted control unit so that you can manually regulate your fan speed if you so desire (It also gains mad respect from yo' LAN party homies).
Round IDE Cables: $24- If you elected to purchase a case with a clear side panel then you are going to want to keep your PC's innards as clean looking as possible. Round and/or braided IDE cable's not only take up significantly less space than the standard 1-1/2 inch thick dull-gray cables that normally connect PC components together, they are also ten times more aesthetically pleasing (looks better). The most recent craze on IDE cables is the inclusion of a "pull tab" at the base for safer and easier removal from parts if needed (why you would be unplugging IDE cables often enough that you need a pull tab I have no idea however). For most PC applications you will need two sets of these to do the job, and they come in just about every color under the sun, including Glow-In-The-Dark and UV reactive.
Additional Case Cooling Fans: $6 and up- This will be another item that your decisions will most likely be influenced on the case you bought. Most custom cases have spots on the front, side, top, and/or rear where 3 inch outflow fans can be mounted and driven by the power supply and constantly pull that harmful warm air out of your PC. These are pretty straight forward devices, you screw them into place, connect them to the power supply, and they spin. Just like cables you can get these in just about every imaginable style and color, and the more expensive ones (about $15) have internal LED's in the color of your choice.
DVD Drive: Sony 16x (Black)-$40- For the money that you can pay for a DVD-ROM these days there really isn't any reason to buy just a standard CD drive. For $40 you can get yourself this lovely Sony made DVD-ROM drive with my personal DVD decoder of choice (PowerDVD 4.0 by Cyberlink) included at no extra charge.
CDRW: ASUS 52x24x52 (Black)-$45- Personally I recommend to everyone who buys a PC to have at least 2 types of CD-ROM drives in their PCs, and if you've ever had to copy a CD to hard drive, then copy to a new CD-R, you know exactly why. Brand names aren't going to be a big issue for CD-RWs as the speeds they burn at have all gotten pretty standard at this point. For a good burner you should expect to pay around $40-50 Feel free to scrimp and pay a little less, but as with any electronic device you always get what you pay for.
Graphics Card: Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128mb/ATi Radeon 9600 128mb-$120- Now onto arguably the most controversial and important part of a gamer's rig; the GPU. Personal choice is going to play a huge part in your decision on a graphics card. The first card I ever owned was a Voodoo 3 3000 with 16mb of on board RAM (at the time I thought it smoked somethin' wicked when playing Quake 2), I then upgraded to an nVidia card, and have since been a fan of their chipsets. There are some who will try to tell you that ATi is the way to go these days, and that nVidia is dead, but those people are sell-outs, and are not good at video games. In all seriousness however ATi is now making very solid GPU's and their pricing is most definitely competitive. My advice here is to do your homework on the different cards that are in your price range and then buy based on hard-info that you find, not based on what the arguments of die-hard "fan boys".
Monitor: 19 inch-$150- As far as monitor goes really all that matters is if you can clearly see what you are doing. Owning a 21-inch flat panel monitor will NOT make you any better at Counter-Strike, it will just make you $2000 poorer. You can get a nice 19-inch standard tube monitor for about $150 all over the place, and considering that normally the farthest anyone ever is away from their PC monitor is only about a foot, that will be more than sufficient.
Speakers: Creative Labs SBS 4.1 450 Speakers System- $55- Speakers range in all shapes, sizes, numbers, and prices. You can spend $15 on a pair of headphones, or drop $500 on a 7.1 system. The thing to keep in mind is how much are you willing to spend, and what are you going to use it for? 90% of gamers can get a more than satisfactory sound system for their rig for around $50. The Creative Labs system that I listed is 4.1 (4 satellite speakers and 1 sub-woofer) and while it may not be the 5-7.1 sound systems that companies market as being oh so important to gaming, the truth of the matter is that most games do not even fully support 5.1 yet, and still use standard 4 speaker output anyway, so you're not "missing a beat" as it were.
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse (Optical)-$30- With the ever increasing number of games coming out that support all kinds of hardware being bound to different functions, having a 5 button mouse has almost become more of a gaming necessity than an indulgence. Although make, model and price are always going to differ, you really can't beat the Intellimouse by Microsoft for compatibility and versatility. It has 5 buttons, a scroll wheel, and is "ball free" with the use of an optical lens. You will also be hard-pressed to find one of these in standard PS2, which if you're still using you should just stop what you're doing, and get setup with USB anyway.
Keyboard: Microsoft Or Logitech Multi-Function- $35- The same boat as a mouse; having a keyboard with more than just your standard 105 keys has almost become necessary to survival. Both Logitech and MS offer up stellar keyboards for your mashing pleasure. Prices are going to start as low as $15 and can go up to $70 for their top of the line wireless setups. I would recommend shooting about mid range and getting a keyboard with additional "quick key" functionality, and most definitely something with USB support.
Total Cost With Current Part List- $932 (without tax or shipping charges if they happen to apply.)
There you have it! A list of parts that will get you on your way to having your own (near) state of the art gaming rig!
Be on the look out for our next "how to", where we will go over putting the parts together so that you actually have something besides a bunch of metal and plastic.
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