How to pick the parts you need

For the most part, gaming PCs have the same components as non-gaming PCs. The biggest difference is that the components in a gaming PC are chosen according to their ability to deliver a great gaming experience - which usually means faster speeds, and larger capacities, wherever possible. But while bigger is better when it comes to gaming, it isn’t always a necessity. Depending on the kind of games you prefer, having a scorching, top-of-the-line CPU may be overkill. Why spend that extra money if it doesn’t result in a better gaming experience for the games you actually play?

At the same time, it’s all about balance: If you pick a low-to-mid range CPU, pairing it with a high-powered GPU will cause bottlenecking, in the same way that even the most expensive headphones will sound terrible if you use them to listen to scratchy vinyl, or low-quality MP3 files.

Whether you’re buying a gaming laptop, or desktop, these are the parts you’ll need, an how you can save money when choosing them.

CPU

There’s a tendency amongst all computer users - not just gamers - to get overly focused on the CPU in their machines. And while the latest Intel Core processors are fire-breathing monsters, they’re nearly $2,000 for the chip alone. Most gamers don’t need one. We recommend that you look up the minimum and recommended specs for your favorite games, before you configure your gaming PC. Many popular titles, like Skyrim, Fallout 4, World of Warcraft and the highly addictive Fortnite, will run on a budget-friendly Core i3 CPU, even without the support of discrete graphics. But to make these games really perform, the publishers recommend a machine with a Core i5, and a discrete graphics card.

It could be that it’s your non-gaming tasks that end up dictating which CPU you should get. Adobe Photoshop, for instance, can place very high demands on a CPU, most of which cannot be shared with the GPU.

GPU

For many gamers, the graphics card, and its attendant GPU, has become the be-all and end-all of components inside a gaming PC. There’s good reason for that: Assuming your CPU is sufficiently powerful, a GPU is the component that has the greatest effect on how your games look. Resolution, frame-rates, colors, and the number of polygons are all handled by the GPU. However, there’s no need to spring for a top-of-the-line graphics card to enjoy amazing looking games.

As with the CPU, your choice of game will be a strong indicator of the kind of GPU you should be considering. First-person shooters, like Crysis 3, or Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, with their fast and complex visuals, will benefit the most from a powerful graphics chip, while strategy titles need less help in this department. Your choice of display plays a role too. If you’re content to play your favorite games at lower resolutions (say 720p or 1080p, instead of 1440p or 2160p), with quality settings that won’t push your PC to the breaking point, a mid-level graphics card - or a higher end card from a few years ago - is a great way to save some money.

Memory

A PC’s memory, or RAM, might the most misunderstood component, from a performance point of view. There are two main factors that affect how memory helps or hinders computing performance: Size and speed. Size determines how much information the computer can work with at any given time, but speed determines how fast it can work with that information.

If you’re the type of person who likes to keep dozens of browser tabs open, while running an email client, word processor, spreadsheet, and a media server, all at the same time, more RAM can be very helpful - but it doesn’t need to be super fast RAM, as none of these applications will be placing a heavy computational burden on the CPU. But games are a different beast. They ask the CPU to do some seriously heavy lifting, and if your memory is too slow, it limits how fast your CPU can do that work. As long as you’re prepared to close some of those browser tabs while you game, a smaller amount of fast memory, can save you money while ensuring you get performance where you need it most.

Hard drives: SSD vs HDD

Every computer can benefit from a solid-state drive (SSD) - these devices use a similar form of memory chip as RAM, but let you store information even after the computer shuts down. With much faster read and write speeds than a traditional hard disk drive (HDD), an SSD can deliver nearly instant boot times, and launch apps in a snap. These features make them perfect for gamers too, but they also carry a big price tag, when compared to HDDs. You’ll want to find a balance between having an SSD that’s large enough to store your OS, and your most intensive games, but not so big that you’re spending money to store programs or documents that won’t benefit from this faster drive. Instead, bulk up your storage using traditional HDDs, which are plenty fast enough for day-to-day computing, and cost way less per GB than SSDs.