May 27, 2007

Many people have told me that you need a big sum of money to build a solid top notch gaming computer. What do you think?

As a gaming enthusiast, one of my greatest hobbies is to build powerful gaming machines at the lowest price possible. Over the years, I found that building gaming computer is not about buying the best parts and install it into the system. In fact, it is about selecting the most suitable parts for your system, integrate it and make them run perfectly. That is the challenge (and fun) of building gaming computer.

Here I will share with you how I build a top notch gaming computer for under $800.

First of all, a top notch gaming computer should contain the following spec:

• Dual core CPU
• Motherboard with SLI capabilites
• minimum 1 GB DDR2 RAM
• minimum 512MB GDDR3 graphics card
• minimum SATA2 80GB hard disk
• 8ms or less LCD gaming monitor

Next, it’s time to source for the components. Checking out the two cheapest online hardware retailers: TigerDirect and Newegg, I found the following parts to fulfill my specification:

MSI K9N SLI Platinum Socket AM2 Barebone Kit — $399.99

AMD64 X2 4600+ CPU, a 1GB DDR2 533 dual channel RAM and a 500W computer case, just what I am looking for.

BFG GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 Graphics Card — $199.99

Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA2 hard drive — $42.99

Hyvision 8ms LCD monitor - $119.99

That left me with a remaining of $37.04. I decided to add a DVD burner to my collection. After browsing through Newegg, I found the LiteOn 20x DVD burner to be cheap and good. It costs me $29.99.

So all in all, I spent $792.95 and got a top notch gaming computer that can tackle all sort of games without any glitches and I believe it can last me for the next 2-3 years before I need to do a major upgrade again.

Of course, if you have more budgets, you can get a 160GB hard drive and a 5.1 channel speaker system. Then that will be close to a perfect system.

If you have any experience that you want to share, feel free to email me at gaming-computer-ezine@build-gaming-computer-guide.com

That’s all for now.

Happy computer building

Damien