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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. "
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.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
I take all of these system building articles with a grain of salt, especially when it picks specific video cards, processors etc.
Most people usually don't have the $ for the 'latest and greatest' hardware. And by the time they can afford the lastest whiz-bang video card, it's already outdated.
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.
Money for nothing, pix for free
of course, with multi panel screens, and other pricey toys, etc. it is possible to go slightly bonkers.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You should thank those people, not complain about them. If they have the money to spend, why shouldn't they? Good for you that you can save money and still get a great system.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
> 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.
May we never see th
1) Read article about whizbang rig.
2) Search forums about hardware that is equivalent to but slightly underclocked and sells for 1/2 as much
3) Ignore the $200 keyboard/mice recommended, LCD, silent DVD-ROMs, etc. and get unbranded Taiwanese OEM manufacturer's product line wherever possible.
4) Wait 4 weeks for shipping instead of going to retailers.
5) Assemble, overclock, pray, sacrifice old RAM sticks.
6) Enjoy near-equivalent machine for half to third price.
7) ???
8) Profit!
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Today we're
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going to build a
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High-End gaming
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PC using expensi--
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ve and in-expensive
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parts.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost