Part One: What Are You Looking For?
A few months ago I decided that I had done as much as I could to extend the life of my old PC. For the money that I had put into it, it was a relatively good deal. The biggest problem with it was that it started out a piece of crap. I couldn't afford much while in college so I did what I could with the money I had. 128mb ram, Athlon 2200 (which at the time was a bargain for $35), an old hard drive I had laying around, an old video card discarded by a friend, a rock-solid $30 PC-Chips motherboard (seriously, it was rock solid) and a computer case I found in the garbage room (with a working PSU!). Over the last three years I put a bit more money into it to keep it useful, but the point here is that while this was the first computer I had that could do anything resembling real gaming on (and it wasn't much) I had never had a computer that was designed for gaming from the ground up. This needed to change, but it proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be.
Over a good six-month period I spent a great deal of time trying to decide what I wanted in a gaming computer and how much cash I wanted to drop on it. I wasn't totally up on what was best for the more recent games out there, so I turned to the web for some assistance. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed. I couldn't find a guide for anything that I was looking for in my price range. There were guides out there for building low-end PCs starting at $300 or so, and there were guides for gaming PCs usually around the $2000 - $2500 range. The few sites that did have a guide for building a "budget" gaming PC still couldn't seem to get below the $1500 mark. None of the options worked for my budget. Was it really that difficult to get a budget gaming pc made with quality parts for under $900?
The task ahead of me was not an impossible one, but it was also not an easy one. I was building the PC from the ground up so I had to start my research from the ground up. I was fortunate to have a few friends that knew me well enough to know my gaming needs and they had some excellent suggestions. Now I know a decent amount about computer hardware but my problem is that I sometimes get so set on a particular piece of hardware that I don't look for something better and possibly less expensive. This is where friends and/or co-workers become essential. I researched on the Net for months and there were still a few pieces of hardware that I would have missed had I not taken the time to discuss my build with those I knew. If there is one thing you take away from this article, it's: Don't be afraid to ask for people's opinions. If you're a tech-geek like me then not only will the conversations be interesting for you, but insightful as well.
The first question you need to address before you begin your
search for parts is: What are your expectations for this computer? If you don't
know what you want to do with the computer you are going to build before you
start buying parts then you'll either end up buying something way more powerful
than you need or something that will disappoint you. Since this is an article
about a budget PC chances are the latter. I found that a relatively good way to
decide if a budget gaming PC is right for you, is to think about what games you
want to play and your expectations for performance. Want to play World of
Warcraft, graphics maxed out, and getting 200fps? Do you want your computer to
perform like a McLaran F1 for all the new high-polygon games over the next 5
years? Yeah, this guide isn't for you. Your eyes don't really notice any
difference after 30fps anyway so do you really need the extra 170fps? Want to
be able to play most current games at maxed out graphics and getting
respectable fps? How about 45-50fps? Want a gaming PC that will allow you to
play the newest games for the next three years with decent performance? Then
you've found the right guide.