Ps2Fantasy.com suggested PC configuration
Many think that a PC optimized for gaming is costly, but this isn't true. You can find a truly powerful machine at good prices, and accessing our sponsor's website you can try to configure your machine and see the final price.
CPU
The core of your PC, even if not as influential on the overall power of the system as many imagine. It is much better to have a well balanced machine than one with a very expensive, current top of the line CPU mixed with poor quality components. While most recent games run well on processors with a clock speed around 2 GHz, a PC with a processor at least around 2.8 GHz or equivalent (an AMD XP 2800+ runs at about 2 GHz, but can offer better performance than a Pentium 4 running at 2.8 GHz, hence the name), is powerful enough to keep you running for a while.
Graphics Card
I suggest a card from NVIDIA or ATI with 128 MB of memory. The best cost/performance trade-off is found in models that were released between 1-1.5 years ago; note that graphics cards are probably the easiest component to upgrade in your PC, as it's very common for gamers to replace their graphics card after 2-3 years from the purchase of the PC. Current top of the line cards are amazingly powerful and very expensive, but not essential for a smooth gaming experience, if you have a well balanced system
Sound Card And Speakers
Any relatively recent 5.1 soundcard will do the job here; some motherboards have 5.1 cards built in, so you don't need to buy one separately. Of course, to get the most of a 5.1 card in the few games that make full use of surround speakers like DOOM 3 and to enjoy some movie with 5.1 support on your PC, you need to purchase a 5.1 speaker set. Creative and Logitech both make solid speakers systems; in general, to enjoy games, a 5.1 speaker set costing below 100$ is the perfect choice; some speaker sets can also be used with consoles, so if you are interested keep an eye for this option when you purchase one. If you don't have the space in your room to use a 5.1 speaker set, go for a good 2.1 (2 speakers + 1 subwoofer) speaker set, or a decent pair of headphones.
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RAM
RAM is where information currently in use by the system is loaded; basically, while the Hard Disk is mainly used to store data and programs, RAM is where programs in execution and information in use are loaded, since access to data in the RAM is much faster than access to data on the HDD. The more RAM you have, the better. If you have not enough RAM, space on your HDD will be used to create additional virtual memory; when this occurs while you are playing a computer game, it often means you will experience dreadful slowdowns that can ruin the experience. 512 MB of DDR SDRAM is the minimum you need in a PC designed to play games or in a PC running on Windows XP for that matter; 1024 MB of DDR SDRAM is highly suggested, as RAM can be more important than any other component in running some games smoothly (this is terribly true, for example, in Star Wars Galaxies). Anyhow, if you really don't want to spend an extra $50 when you purchase your PC, you can plan to update your system RAM later, when you really need it (installing new RAM should be as easy as 1-2-3 on a well designed PC).
Hard Disk Drive
Many will argue that an 80 GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive) isn't enough, but I'm against monster-sized HDDs because they tend to slow down the system and they require long maintenance sessions even on a next-generation PC. Unless you plan on creating and editing several long digital videos at the same time, or you need to store dozens of movies and graphics on your HDD, 80 GB is the best size to grant you plenty of space to install your games and run them smoothly. Using your main HDD to store dozens of Gigabytes of multimedia data is useless if you consider that you can purchase a good DVD/CD writer for under $100 - a DVD has a capacity of 4.7 GB, so you can transfer data on a DVD and free space on your HDD in a few minutes. This will always give you better performance than running a game on a HDD filled with 120 GB of data. If you can, purchase an 80 GB HDD with an 8 MB cache, which should considerably speed up most operations. A final parameter to take into consideration is the HDD rotation speed - a HDD spinning at 7200 rpm is almost the standard nowadays for new gaming PCs.
Monitor
Flat LCD monitors are the latest trend. They look cool and consume less energy than classic CRT monitors, but they are extremely expensive (especially models with a decent refresh rate), they don't deliver the high contrast, color accuracy, and the overall vivid image of the cheapest CRT monitors. That's why graphics designers and gamers still prefer CRT monitors over LCD monitors. You can find great 17 inches CRT monitors at low prices - just make sure that they can support a good refresh rate (85 MHz is good) at 1024x768. Most 17 inches monitors support higher resolutions, but for a good refresh rate at 1280x1024 and above prices increase substantially. Dpi (dot pitch) indicates the sharpness of the images - the lower the value, the sharper the image you get. Monitors with low dpi are very expensive, and truly required only by professional graphics designers. There are also flat screen CRT monitors that are excellent for gaming and emit less radiations, but they are much more expensive than normal CRT monitors.
Input Peripherals
There are hundreds of nice peripherals you can find for your new machine, but at first focus your attention on purchasing a nice keyboard and a good mouse. You should be able to go to any computer shop and try the most common keyboard and mouse to find the one you prefer. There are keyboards that offer lots of extra stuff, like buttons to easily access multimedia and Internet functions, but I personally prefer basic, simple keyboards with a clean layout and keys that 'feel' good. Mice come in an even wider variety, but my suggestion is to get a solid optical mouse with the always useful scroll button in the middle. There are many good makers of keyboards and mice; Microsoft and Logitech are well known to create solid, nice keyboards and extraordinary mice (we use Microsoft's top of the line cordless optical mouse to work on graphics, and it's just wonderful), but there are also good manufacturers like Trust that offer quality at lower prices. Our suggested mice: a Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse (perfect also for professional graphics software like Photoshop) or a Logitech MX510 (rightfully marketed as a gamer's mouse).
The voyage begins
This is just the beginning of this series of articles, and definitely the less interesting and more generic of the pack. Stay tuned on Ps2Fantasy.com, and our soon to be revealed new website, for the next updates. For any questions, requests for future articles, or any comment, don't hesitate to contact us.
- Harry (13 Nov, 2004)
