If you ask me, right now is a great time to build a PC. Even if you have no intention of breaking the bank, you can still configure a respectable gaming tower. There are some great technologies to take advantage of, such as Intel's Sandy Bridge
1 and Nvidia's Cuda
2 architectures, that will ensure you will be able to run any game on the market today without compromise. Just recently, I configured what I consider to be a high-end mid-range gaming PC utilizing these technologies. Without further adieu, here is what I put in my PC build:
- Intel Core i5-2500K3 - Not a top of the line Core i7, but easily over-clockable and more than sufficient to handle any tasks thrown at it. If building a PC today, I would not go any lower than quad-core.
- Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD4 - The Z68 motherboards are the first to take full advantage of the Sandy Bridge's potential. While there are more inexpensive alternatives on the market, this mobo in particular includes a 20 GB mSata SSD, ripe for the SRT picking.
- EVGA Geforce GTX 560 TI5 - The first Nvidia graphics card with all cores of the Fermi architecture unlocked. A significant performance boost can be achieved by adding a second card i SLI. However, even one card can adequately handle anything thrown at it today.
- Kingston HyperX 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3 16006 - With the amount of memory you get for the price, this is really a no-brainer. The cost was around $50, after a $25 mail-in rebate and $10 instant discount. At the time of this posting, the asking price is $50 without any rebates or discounts. Another 8 GB of memory can be added down the road, as the Z68 mother board supports four slots totaling 16 GB.
- Cooler Master Nvidia Edition Tower and 750 W Power Supply - Weighing in at about $50 and $100, respectively, and built with SLI gaming in mind.
- Intel X25-M 120 GB SSD and Western Digital 7200 RPM Caviar Black 2 TB HDD - Configured with the OS and most apps booting from the SSD, while games and media is placed on the mechanical drive. I pulled the X25-M from a notebook and used the included 3.5" enclosure to install it into the tower.
- Asus Blu-Ray Optical Drive - Not a writer, as I don't plan on burning any Blu-rays in the immediate future. However, a reader is all that is required in order to rip Blu-rays to your hard drive.
- Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - If you intend to do any serious gaming whatsoever, Windows 7 is still the way to go. Also, 64-bit is a must if you want to utilize more than 4 GB of memory.
There you have it, the main components that I hand-picked to lead me through my PC gaming endeavors for the time being. It would be hard to determine an exact total price point, as I didn't even mention a display, keyboard, mouse, etc., all of which I already owned. However, it is very easy to go in either direction with each component to meet your budget accordingly.
