It isn’t that often that I stray off of my main topics and into gray areas that only semi-relate. This is one of those occasions so if you’re here to learn about guild management or MMO design, you can probably just skip this article. If you’re interested in building your own gaming PC for your MMO of choice, however, you just might find the little bit of knowledge I have helpful. I’ve been building my own machines for years now and I do a lot of research in the area. I always try to balance price with performance and, even though there are a million better articles about this out there, the MMO audience might not be reading them. Today’s class is a brief, dirty and fast paced look into the subject of PC building.
Research is the key to success when building your own PC. If you’re like me, you just don’t have the budget to make costly mistakes like mismatched ram or poorly chosen hardware. A little bit really goes a long way and there are key two areas you need to be familiar with. The first one is pretty simple. Visit the sites of the people who do benchmarks and look for the hardware you’re considering. Generally sites like Tom’s Hardware and The Tech Report are my favorite. They do provide overly in depth reviews, though, that are catered to guys like me. For the average user pick the piece of hardware you’re looking at, scroll to the bottom of the first page and use the drop down to go directly to the conclusion. That will get you an answer you can immediately use without confusion.
The second bit of research is a bit more technical. When you’re building a PC you need to understand that these days your mother board and RAM pairing isn’t quite as friendly as it once was. That is why you need to go and find the QVL (Qualified Vender List) of the mother board you want to buy. It will tell you exactly what RAM can be used and in what configuration. Some mother board companies provide worse QVLs than others. In my experience EVGA provides little detail while ASUS is extremely thorough. Regardless of your brand preference, make your life easier and buy RAM based on that QVL.
Once you’ve selected a motherboard and RAM based on the QVL you can move on to processor. Be certain you know what socket your motherboard is. This can be found in the product information and is generally pretty simple. You’re either looking at Intel or AMD and then the specific socket number. The motherboard w/ill indicate the socket and you can buy the processor via that. Choosing your processor can be a tricky thing to do. You’ll want to balance cost versus power. These days you can’t just look at the clock speed when you make your choice. You have to consider cores, threads, and a few other things. The best method to select a processor for me is to find the manufacturors product list and look at the range. I try to purchase the very top mid-range processor. Anything above that will usually double the price for very little reward.
Now that you’ve selected the motherboard, RAM and processor you’ve done all of the heavy labor! The rest is mostly down hill. In my next part I’ll cover picking the other pieces of your PC and, perhaps, a few tips on how to assemble them.
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