What is a good “gaming computer”?
December 2, 2010 by Meesansel Rahc
Filed under Gaming Computers
Question by Sirena S: What is a good “gaming computer”?
I’m getting my 18-year-old son a computer for his new apartment, and he plays a lot of computer games. I’ve heard people say that there are special “gaming computers” that are designed for this very purpose. What should I look for to make sure he gets a good, up-to-date one? I don’t want to come over one day and find he gave it away to get one that doesn’t suck. Please help?
Matt – Unfortunately, you might as well be speaking Cantonese. Can you clarify a bit please?
Best answer:
Answer by Matt
Two things
1. Get a computer that has the new pci-express graphics slot.
2. Make sure the computer has a Good video card not an onboard card that comes with many dells, hp, compaqs.
Do these two thing everyone will be happy
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Related posts:
http://www.alienware.com
any alienware computer or an Nvidia set will be your best bet just make sure it has lots of ram (memory) and at least an amd or an intel dual core processor and a very large hard drive (at least 300gb)
Check out the high-end DELL XPS series gaming computers. They’re a little pricey, but the top-end ones are really good. (and you get Dell customer / technical support)
Also – AlienWare is a custom gaming computer company that makes sick systems. (also a little expensive)
If you do a google search for “Custom Gaming PC” you should get some good websites.
any computer with an intel core 2 duo and a nvidia graphics card with 256mb of video memory
Gateway makes a great computer, don’t buy a Dell, their customer service is horrible. Make sure it has the most up to date video card. Talk to the techs, tell them what you are looking for and they can make suggestions. My 4 year old Gateway is a great game computer, my 1 year old Dell (which was advertised as a gaming computer) does not have an adequate video card. Shop around.
Hi. Alienware makes good gaming computers, as do most of the corporate manufacturers like HP and Dell and even eMachines. The question begs is how much you are willing to spend on this computer. I just bought the components from Newegg to build my new machine and with the hardware I got, it would be classified as a gaming computer.
What Matt is trying to point out is that when you buy the computer, ask the sales rep to make certain that the computer has what is called dedicated video. Most computers come with integrated video (video built into the computer) and this seriously reduces the gaming potential because the graphics hog system resources. With dedicated video, the computer would have more resources for the game. This may sound confusing, but just remember that you are looking for a computer with dedicated video. If you look over the features and see that the computer sports x amount of shared video RAM, then this tells you that the computer does not have a dedicated graphics controller and would not be well suited for gaming.
Also, most gaming computers have a lot of RAM, over 1GB (gigabyte). Mine has 4GB. Hope this helps.
Again, check out alienware computers – http://www.alienware.com/main.aspx – as they are more suited for making gaming machines. Last note: ignore the bias towards a certain brand (intel, amd, nvidia, ati); everyone has their personal preferences and love to shove those opinions down every throat they can find!
Edit: When you buy one, ask the sales people for a Windows XP install because though Vista looks pretty, it seriously degrades performance of the machine.
You can buy “gaming computers”, but you will pay extremely overinflated prices. The only way to get a good gaming PC without going broke is by ordering the parts and building it. Plus that way you can be sure that you are only getting high end parts.