Building A High-End Gaming Workstation

Alan writes "What's the best platform for playing games *and* doing work? That's the very question FiringSquad tries to answer in the sequel to last year's short but popular workstation building article. This time, they've went with a "no-budget, but don't waste money" approach. There are a dozen products reviewed in the article, some never before reviewed on the 'net, and this time, there's no system building detail left untouched. Discussed are AC line conditioners, 2D graphics performance, and more. This more than 12,000 word article is the most detailed article ever in its genre. "

Comments

Windows, hands down.

[Randolpho]

Best platform for games, hands down, and you can do just as much work with it as you can on any other platform.

I like to dual-boot some random linux distro for when I need good old-fashioned CLI goodness that I can't get from DOS, but I mostly stay on Windows.

Re:Windows, hands down.

[Bluelive]

Try cygwin, Especially when loopbacking to openssh, youll get the cli/unix while never leaving windows.

Re:Windows, hands down.

[SethJohnson]

That dude is talking out his ass when he says he boots into linux when he needs 'CL goodness that DOS can't provide". He was just trying to temper his pro-windows rant by claiming to use Linux. As anyone who uses Linux and windows to any great extent knows, the cool command line tools that originated in Linux have all been ported to windows... you just have to install them seperately. Because their usefulness wasn't conceived in Redmond, they don't come bundled with Windows.

This guy is a 100% point-and-clicker. He percieves that others prefer a CL environment and wants people to think he's hip to the CL. But to use Linux just for a CL, well, that's about like sitting in your car in the driveway to listen to the radio. You can listen to the stereo in your house just the same. And it's silly to just sit in your driveway listening to the radio when you could be driving around.

Re:What about budget systems?

[gekkotron]

Try Sharky's Extreme.
They do a monthly guide to building a value gaming rig.

If you've got more cash to blow, they also do a high-end guide.

Re:What about budget systems?

[richie2000]

Low-end gaming system:

AMD Duron 1300 or slowest/cheapest Athlon you can find

Any cheap Socket-A mobo with AC97 sound and LAN onboard, like the ECS K7S6a or Epox KH8a+

A nice quiet harddrive - cue the Seagate 40GB Barracuda

Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2 - large slow CPU fan that's almost totally silent

Any noname nvidia Geforce 4MX board with 64 megs. Most of them have passive cooling = no fan

256MB DDRAM

Use your old monitor or get a new 17" CRT, they'd be practically free if it weren't for shipping and handling.

Add a floppy, CD-ROM and some cables in a Q-Tec smileycase, a Trekker mouse and a noname keyboard and you have a complete, brand new machine for peanuts

This box runs CS perfectly and even bf1942 in a reasonable screensize. No weird drivers either which means very good Linux support. I have built maybe 20 of these for customers, both office and home use. It's dead quiet, too. It has just the one fan in the PSU and the ones Q-Tec use are reasonably silent.
And everything's upgradeable. Need more RAM? Just add some more when you have the money. Disk? Put it in. Faster graphics? Swap the old one out. Better sound? Get an SB Audigy 2 Player and disable the AC97.

Ars Technica System guide

[Alien54]

the Ars technica system guide is not a bad place to start for a lot of folks. They have several suggested custom system systems, at different budget levels, including the money no object "god box".

of course, with multi panel screens, and other pricey toys, etc. it is possible to go slightly bonkers.

Re:Gaming System Suggestions

[0x0d0a]

> Hard disk - I know SCSI is expensive so get a drive that does at least 7200rpm

Why on earth do you consider a high speed hard drive important? Games are one of the few things that generally *don't* hit the hard drive while running.

Get a regular ol' hard drive (granted, it's hard to *find* 5400 RPM anymore, though I tend to prefer 'em for the sound levels and the lack of heat.).

Get at least 512MB of RAM to avoid paging instead.

Graphics card is next, get a OEM version of one of the later Nvidia chipsets and you save a boat load of money and still have good performance, you should get at least 128MB of RAM on the video card

Here I agree with you.

CPU speed doesn't have to be the latest one out, right now your best bet is to get at least a 2.4GHz with a 800MHz front side bus, that way you will have hyperthreading and the operating system will see 1 physical processor and say that you have 2 CPU's

2.4GHz AMD or Intel? Bit of a difference.

System Memory should be at least 1 GB nowadays @ PC133 MHz

I disagree -- I think half of this is acceptable. memory is quite easy to upgrade, and it's cheaper the longer you wait. If you're extremely adverse to upgrading RAM, then perhaps buying all now is a good idea.

Things that I consider important that the poster didn't:

* Decent set of headphones, unless you're hooking your computer to your nice stereo system. Headphones are *far* cheaper (I'd say roughly order-of-magnitude) for equivalent quality than speakers. They also give a better stereo effect. Aim for at least $80, and listen to 'em. You will lose some bass, unfortunately, which a lot of people like -- but if you live in a college dorm or play games at night, you aren't going to be able to shake the neighborhood anyway.

* Consider a CRT. LCDs are insanely popular right now, but have a lower refresh rate, look more jagged (due to their nice, sharp pixels) on things that aren't supposed to look jagged (like edges of objects), don't have as intense colors, aren't as bright, and cost more. LCDs *are* nicer for reading text, though.

* Consider a gamepad and/or joystick (for emulation). If you'll have friends playing, get a couple. The majority of PC games focus on the mouse/keyboard, but not all, and for games that can be played with these, it's awfully pleasant to do so.

* If you like FPSes, get a mouse with at least four buttons.

* Dual processors, lights, case mods, fancy sound cards, luxury input devices, wireless keyboards, etc are a waste of money. If you want 'em, fine, but there's no point in getting swept up in the "I'm spending $n, so I might as well spend $n+m" syndrome.

Folks, workstation != office PC

[swordgeek]

I think a lot of people are confused here. There are three basic types of desktop machines.

1) An office PC. Runs some office package, web browser, acrobat reader, etc. a P3/800MHz with a low-end graphics card is FINE for this.
2) A gaming machine. You all know what this is.
3) A workstation. This is NOT the office PC. This is a serious machine for serious work--CAD, 3D modelling, number crunching, etc.

The requirements for a workstation and a gaming machine are similar but not identical. A workstation may have slower graphics, but accurate. No fudging or edge-blending to make things look prettier (or run faster) at the expense of mathematically correct representation. A workstation also is likely to have multiple processors, since they can be fully used by most software packages one would be looking at.

Re:My take on "gaming workstations"

[Glock27]

Will you asshats STFU with the ECC bullsh*t? If Apple required ECC memory in the G5, everyone would be blasting them for forcing users to use expensive, "non-standard" components.

I guess you aren't capable of comprehending the difference between "option" and "required". Many PC motherboards support both registered and unregistered and non/ECC memory. Understand now?

There is NO reason a consumer desktop/workstation needs ECC memory -- Servers, yes; but the G5 is a friggin' desktop!

Uh, "consumer workstation" is much closer to an oxymoron than "gaming workstation". Workstations are for professional use, doing mission-critical things like designing buildings. Would you rather have your engineer use a computer with definitely reliable memory, or memory that has some finite chance (most likely fairly low) of having an undetected flipped bit (read: incorrect number) in the data somewhere? It's very inconvenient and expensive when those buildings just fall down after you build them - even if it only happens once in a while. This explains why all the major workstation (not just server) manufacturers use ECC memory in their machines.

The very minor cost increase and speed hit associated with ECC is nothing by comparison. ;-)

I hope this cleared things up.