Budget, Budget, Budget…
Building a gaming PC requires some essential components, which we are going to list here. PC Gaming is a huge industry, with lots of options for customization. If you don’t know what you want, it’s quite easy to get confused with the plenty of options available. Having said this, here are some budgetary considerations to bear in mind.
First of all, the major question is, how much are you prepared to spend on your gaming PC? We are going to focus on 3 budget categories for gaming PC builds:
Budget, Mid-Range, and High-End.
Typical budget PC builds range from $300 to $700. Well, if your budget falls in this category, then please understand that you will not be able to play the latest game titles at the highest resolutions. You just have to make do with playing games at reduced resolutions and ditch the eye candy.
For mid-range builds, you should be prepared to spend something in the range of $800 to $1200. With this budget, you should play the latest games. Yes. It depends on the settings you dial in.
For high-end builds, you are looking at budgets of at least $1,200 to $10,000 and above. This is for those who are prepared to pay a premium for hardware. With this level of budget, anything is possible. You can play the latest games, at the highest resolutions, and at the highest settings. You can even take it up a notch and invest in multiple monitors to create mega screens for maximum display capabilities. Just go ahead and throw in the money. It’s all good.
The Most Important Components for a Gaming PC Build
The Processor
Apart from the graphics card, this is equally important. Without the processor, your graphics card will not have information to output to the monitor. You need a fast processor, preferably a quad-core or Hexa-core processor. Anything higher than this would be unnecessary because of the fact that most games cannot take advantage of the extra cores. A high clock speed is also another factor. Something in the region of 3 GHz to 5 GHz will do just fine, allowing you to dial up your game settings considerably.
Graphics Card
The single most important component is the graphics card. This is because the graphics card is responsible for rendering the game graphics on your monitor. A fast graphics card gives you the best results, apart from its features. As usual, your budget determines the graphics card you should buy. Here are some recommendations for all categories of buyers:
Some Recommended Graphics Cards for all Budgets
| Budget GPUs | Mid-Range GPUs | High-End GPUs |
|---|---|---|
| Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 | Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti |
| Nvidia GTX 1050 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 | AMD Radeon VII |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti | AMD Radeon RX 590 | Nvidia Titan XP |
| AMD Radeon RX 560 | AMD Radeon R9 390 | AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT |
| AMD Radeon RX 570 | AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super |
| AMD Radeon RX 550 | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
| AMD Radeon RX 580 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super |
| AMD Radeon RX 5500XT | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti | Nvidia Titan RTX |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 |
| Radeon RX 5600 XT 6GB | GeForce RTX 3070 | |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB | GeForce RTX 3080 | |
| GeForce RTX 3090 |
QUICK TIP FOR BUYING GRAPHICS CARDS
If you are going to buy a high-end graphics card, then make sure you are going to match it with an equally powerful processor to avoid bottlenecking (this happens when a component is not fast enough to process data being relayed to it by another component in the computer data processing workflow.
When this happens, a hang-up occurs, which is resolved when the slower component eventually catches up). Scroll down for our recommendations for the different build categories.
Monitor
Your monitor plays an important role in your gaming setup. Typically, a 1080p LED IPS gaming monitor will suffice for most gamers, but if you want the best performance, you should go for a 1440p 125Hz monitor. This is the sweet spot for gamers today.
Monitor Resolution
Monitor resolution is simply the number of pixels your monitor can display at any time, as received from the graphics card. It is measured in pixels or px. Most budget gaming monitors are 1080p monitors. But when you get to the high-end stuff, you begin to see up to 4K monitors. When buying a gaming monitor, the higher the resolution, the better the images appear. Here’s a table showing the different resolutions available for gaming monitors.
| MONITOR RESOLUTION | DIMENSIONS |
|---|---|
| 5K resolution | 5120 x 2880 px |
| 4K resolution | 3840 x 2160 px |
| Ultra HD (UHD) resolution | 3840 x 2160 px |
| 2K or 1440p resolution | 2560 x 1440 px |
| WUXGA resolution | 1920 x 1200 px |
| Full HD (FHD) or 1080p | 1920 x 1080 px |
| HD or 720p resolution | 1280 x 720 px |
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Monitor Size
Typical monitor sizes range from 22 inches up to 42 inches, with room for more. The sweet spot right now for gaming monitors is between 24 and 32-inch displays. Typical budget monitors are 22 to 24-inch screen size, whereas high-end monitors are between 27 to 32 inches, though there are exceptions to this rule.
When it comes to the monitor size, it’s not really a big issue. Monitors can be combined in multi-monitor setups, with up to 6 monitors to create a maximum gaming experience.
Monitor Panel Tech
There are three major LCD panel technologies used in today’s PC monitors including twisted nematic (TN), vertical alignment (VA), and in-plane switching (IPS). Each has several variations that offer different advantages.
TN panels offer the best performance in terms of lower response times, highest refresh rates, minimal motion blur, and low input lag. On the flip side, TN panels have the worst viewing angles and also poor color reproduction. They are also the cheapest in terms of price. TN panels are best for gaming monitors
VA panels typically have longer response times and higher refresh rates available. They also have better viewing angles than TN panels, but worse than IPS panels. They are also able to reproduce color and pixel depth better than TN panels. In terms of price, the most expensive VA panels are at par with TN panels when it comes to performance.
Finally, IPS panels are best for professional monitors with the best viewing angles and best color reproduction. In addition to this, they are also the most expensive. Regarding response times, they are much slower than TN panels, but faster than VA panels.
In summary, pay attention to the response time when going for a gaming monitor. A lower number is better, with most gaming monitors having a 1 millisecond response time, or even less. Other gaming panels have response times between 1 and 5 milliseconds.
Also, pay attention to the refresh rate. A higher number is better. The typical refresh rate is 60Hz, while the better and more expensive monitors have a refresh rate of 144Hz. If your monitor of choice is limited to 60Hz, then G-Sync or Freesync must be enabled on the monitor.