Making the Ultimate Gaming PC

The dream of every gamer, hardcore or general, is to make an Ultimate gaming PC that would give the best FPS at the highest level of graphics and sound detail. The only factor that is a hurdle in building the ultimate gaming PC is the Moolah AKA Money. So If one had unlimited resources and money to spend on making the Ultimate gaming PC, this is what one should go for this year.

The CPU

The CPU is the heart of your computer, as the processor installed is the one thing that provides the maximum support to the PC, it should be chosen very wisely. Processors are mainly either by Intel (Pentium series) or by AMD (Athlon series). Here is a look at both.

Intel – Although Intel has already announced their Conroe series, it is still a few good months away from making it to the market. So if one is building a gaming PC on Intel Platform, he should opt for the Intel’s new Presler core, Pentium Extreme Edition 965 dual core processor which is clocked at 3.73 GHz with a 1066 MHz front side bus and a 2mb L2 cache. Even though there aren’t many games other than Quake 4 which utilize the dual core functionality of the processor to full extent, the EE965 is right now the top choice for its speed and performance in Intel according to me.

AMD – In case of AMD, they also have announced their AM2 series which is expected again in a few months, and out of the current alternatives available the best one would be AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 processor which has a 2MB cache running at a decent 2.6 GHz. Although some may prefer the FX 57 due to its 2.8 GHz speed, but as it is a single core processor, so at least I would prefer a dual core over it.

Choosing an Intel processor or a AMD processor is basically one’s own preference, I would however suggest strongly to go with the AMD processor as it is much better for a gaming PC in terms of sheer performance.

The Motherboard and the RAM

The motherboard is the one that keeps every component of the PC running and connected to each other, so while choosing the motherboard one should make sure, that it has enough slots and port to fulfill the needs. So for the Pentium EE965 processor, I would suggest that the Intel 975XBX motherboard, as it support the dual core Extreme editions and comes preloaded with the suitable Bios to run the EE965 processor.

As for the AMD processor, the best motherboard to go for would be DFI CFX 3200-DR which is crossfire ready, and is the best motherboard available out there for the FX-60 processor, its solid, well built and is pretty overclockable too.

Next is the RAM, which is also one of the major important things of the computer. Although a one GB Ram is now usual for benchmarking and all, but for gaming one should go for at least a 2 GB UCCC kit. And, Instead of running 1 stick, 2 sticks of 1 GB ram, running in dual mode should be preferred.

Graphics Card

Out of the games that were launched last year, are coming now, and those that are expected to come in future, one thing is common, they all are very graphics intensive, and to get good FPS and smooth gameplay, one needs to have a very good graphics card.
Graphics card are again, either by ATI or NVIDIA,

ATI - As this guide is for making the ultimate gaming PC, it is evident that I would go for a Crossfire setup, and the cards that I would prefer for crossfire would be X1900XTX cards having 512MB Video Ram to play the games at maximum resolution with AA and AF on, alongwith HDR.

NVIDIA – In NVIDIA, again I would choose to go for a SLi setup with 7900GTX cards with 512mb ram.
Out of the ATI crossfire and NVIDIA SLi setup, I would suggest going for the Crossfire setup with X1900XTX, for the better performance of the X1900XTX in a crossfire setup, NVIDIA’s 7900GTX however; show up a lower image quality also in comparison to the ATI card. Though the 7900GTX is quieter than the X1900XTX, but I don’t think that it would matter when it comes to performance while running a game.

Sound Card

The music and sound effects of a game are the main elements that give the feel of the game, and yet this is the area that most people don’t spend money on. With the right sound card, the audio quality is much better and also it helps in better overall performance. Most of the motherboards come with onboard sound cards now, but none of them are good enough. The best sound card today is the Creative X-FI series. The card boast of 24 bit crystallizer, and includes 64mb of ram on the card for added performance gain.

Hard disk and Optical drive

The best and the fastest hard disk available today in the market would be without any doubt, the Western Digital Raptor 150GB in 0 raid, having a 5.0 millisecond access time making it the fastest drive available. The high transfer rate leads to less game load times and boost the performance of the computer.

In suggesting an optical drive, although there are a number of brands available, I would suggest the BenQ 1640 on the basis of usage of this DVD writer. The BenQ 1640 supports 16X writing speed on single layer and 8X write speed on double layer DVD’s like its many counterparts like Sony, LiteON, Samsung etc, but the BenQ drive has the fastest reading and writing time among the others.

Cabinet and the PSU

A good gaming computer needs to have its hardware supported by a good power supplying unit and a solid Cabinet which allows for proper cooling of the system.

As for the cabinet, I haven’t found anything better than the Antec P180 in terms of build and cooling. It features 2 different chambers to keep the PSU heat from reaching the hardware and upto 5 configurable fans to achieve the best cooling. All this is in a sleek steel cabinet, which is rock solid in quality and also stylish in looks.

The PSU is another important factor to be kept in mind, as if the PSU isn’t able to fulfill the system’s power demands, it would lead to crashing system or in some cases shorted hardware. So while choosing the PSU, it would be suggested to buy a branded PSU which supports the maximum requirements of your computer. The best of the lot would be PC P&C 1KW PSU or the FORTRAN 700Watts PSU; both of these fulfill the need of the Crossfire and SLi setup of the graphics card as well as the requirement of the audio card, hard disk and the optical drives.

The Rest of the Stuff

Major stuff been taken care of, what’s left are the minor things, which although matter in a gaming PC, but they don’t really make much difference in the performance.

Monitor – Although, LCD monitors are available, upto 24” size, and they save desktop space, one has to keep in mind the response time delay which can very well ruin the fun of gaming, so it would be best to go for a CRT monitor, as for the screen size, 17” has become a standard, above that depends entirely on one’s choice.

Mouse and Keyboard – In terms of Mouse, its easy, the best gaming mouse are from Razer, the ultimate one being the copperhead in wired mousse, and the Logitech G5 in wireless mousse. As for the Keyboard, the Logitech’s G15 is quite a brilliant keyboard, but there are other gaming keyboards available such as Saitek or the Zboard which provide for the same comfort and response.

Mouse Pads – Mouse pads are getting quite popular among gamers now, gaming mouse pads such as steel series, IceMat etc are being used by gamers world over as they provide for smooth movement of mouse.

Headphones – Similar to the mouse pads, more and more gamers are going for gaming headphones, which are noise canceling and provide for amazing sound quality. The top of the list headphones are the Steel Series 5H, Zalman 5.1 gaming headset and the Sennheiser PC160 pro gaming headphones.

In the end, all I can say is that, I have listed the best of the best hardware available today, which would make up the Ultimate gaming PC which wont require an update for at least 1 year’s time. And not everyone can have unlimited resources to buy a Gaming PC, in case you have, follow what I stated above, and you would have your friends drooling over your Ultimate Gaming Computer.

Karan”IceFusion”Bajaj