What is the specification of a gaming conputer?

davidk65 | 21:10 Sun 20th Nov 2011 | Technology

4 Answers

A teenager I know has asked his parents for a "gaming computer" for Christmas. He already has a laptop but claims it is too slow and not powerful enough for games!
Is there such a thing and what is the typical specification of this type of computer?
An added twist to to this request is that he claims that if he had the money to buy the components he would assemble the kit and save a lot of money, is this practical?

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Aquariel

It really depends on what games he wants to play. There is no definite spec of a "gaming computer". For example, recent releases such as Battlefield 3 and Skyrim need more powerful hardware than, for example, Call Of Duty : MW3. The main requirements for top games these days seem to be a quad-core CPU and a fairly beefy graphics card. My system uses an Intel core i5 and an nVidia GTX560 Ti graphics card, which is recommended for decent Battlefield 3 performance, and is a very good gaming computer.

As I built the whole system myself, everything would probably cost over £1,000 separately. Similar systems already built seem to cost about the same, as far as I can tell, so I don't think he would really save that much. But he would learn a lot more by building it himself !

SlackAlice

There are lots of gaming pc's and as always it depends on your budget. This is an example base unit, doesn't include monitor, keyboard or mouse.

http://www.arbico.co.uk/product.php?pid=100170

You can get them dearer or cheaper!! What sort of games is he expecting to play, a lot depends on that?
Self build is an option, but you need to do a fair bit of research as regards compatibility and price. It doesn't always work out cheaper.

davidk65

Question Author

Thank you both for your reply. I see it need a lot more investigation. Because he is still at school I would worry how much time he would spend studying and how much time he would spend playing on this device? But we shall see what Father Christmas brings.
Thank you.