Hardware for Gamers

Why Gamers need great Hardware

How it helps and What to look out for?

Generally the gaming community can be divided in to two camps, the casual drop-in gamer who will play a few titles that take their fancy occasionally, mainly just for the enjoyment and the escape into fantasy and then there are the hardcore gamers who will usually play a single title in each of their main interests, whether it be FPS, RPG etc...
PC hardware wise, the former of these gamers will happily play with the bare minimum required to run the game and be happy with that. The latter however usually falls in to the camp that requires the latest hardware so, that the latest games can be played at the best settings.

Motherboard
Buying a good Motherboard is incredibly important when buying or building a new PC for gaming. It's important because the Motherboard will provide the backbone of your PC onto which all your other components will fit and depend.
Compatibility is essential as buying a motherboard that will not correctly support your Hardware or support it but at a slower performance speed will result in wasted money and frustration.
Features to look for include Dual Graphics capability, solid voltage output, 64bit architecture support and the ability to adjust Front side bus speed and voltages in order to aid with over-clocking.

CPU
The CPU is known as the brains of the computer, it's where all the processing calculations are done and then passed to other components to interact with the user. It is a very important component and gaming wise the faster the MHz speed rating of the CPU the better it will be.
With the introduction of Dual-Core processors, these CPU's are able to handle twice as much instructions at the same time and if a game is able to make use of that then your processing power is doubled, if not then the game will run on only one core and the other can be used within the Operating System environment to action commands that would otherwise use valuable CPU cycles on a Single Core CPU.
Features to look for include the latest instructions sets, referred to as SSE, the amount of Cache on the chip (the more the better) and also how over-clockable it is.

Graphics Card
The Graphics Card is widely considered to be the most important hardware to buy for gaming; this is where all the visual calculations are done and as such determines what visual settings games can be played with. It is not necessary to buy the latest pro video card, as these cards are very expensive.
Features to look for include the amount of RAM included on the card, the clock speed of the RAM and also the clock speed of the Processor onboard the card. All these factors need to be taken into consideration and a balance found between them

Memory
An incredibly important component for a gamer that wants to upgrade is the RAM. This can also reduce game loading times. Most Operating Systems will run with a minimum of 512Mb but, for Gaming a recommended minimum is 1Gb, but Pro gamers will know that it is who loads the fastest onto the Server that gets the headstart and therefore more is always better with 2Gb. Cheap Generic memory is widely available in the market today, but it is always best to go for the slightly more expensive branded RAM.
Features to look for are in the major the CAS rating, the lower the better and also the actual MHz Speed Rating of the RAM, in an ideal world it is best to run the RAM at a 1:1 ratio with the CPU but, when Over-clocking this is not always possible, however buying faster rated RAM will allow you to run the CPU faster without sacrificing that 1:1 ratio.

Sound Card
The full gaming experience cannot be enjoyed without the quality gaming sound and having the ability to hear that almost silent knife attack from behind could mean the difference between owning and being owned. So as a gamer, although the on-board sound in most of the newest Motherboards is of a good quality, ideally a separate Sound Card to process the Audio is better. This will also free up valuable CPU cycles and RAM resources as all the processing is done on the Sound Card rather than by the main PC. Getting a surround sound card coupled with surround sound speakers/headset will give the best gaming experience and allow you to hear every little detail.
Features to look for include the support of EAX processing, as most games can now use this and the ability to output the sound in a Surround Sound mode (this can include 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby DTS).

Power Supply
One of the most overlooked components is the Power Supply Unit. This is where all the 240V from the household plug gets converted to 12Vdc, 5Vdc and 3.3Vdc that run all the components in the PC. Buying an unreliable PSU can result in poor performance, instability and even damage of your components.
Features to look for include the correct total power output for the hardware you are using and stability and correct power output across the 12, 5 and 3.3Vdc rails.

Cooling
Another overlooked factor is Cooling of PC. Hardware running hot is less efficient than Hardware running at nearer to ambient temperature. This can include CPU heat-sinks, Graphics Cards CPU/RAM heat-sinks, RAM heat-spreaders and case fans. You should ensure that your case has a good circulation of fresh air, with a decent sized fan at the bottom of the front and the top of the back. This will ensure that a cool stream of air passes over all the major components fitted to the Motherboard.
Features to look for include high CFM and ideally low dB ratings. Fan controllers can be used to regulate the speed of multiple fans in different locations and can also provide real time temperature readings if they support the use of temperature probes.

Hope this will be a good guide for u.

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