Corsair Labs: February 2007 - Building an Affordable Gaming PC » Introduction: Gaming machines don't have to be expensive

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PC gaming is exceptionally popular and can be a lot of fun, but nobody likes trying to run a modern high-end game on a 3 year old, outdated system. At the same time, not everyone wants to drop thousands upon thousands of dollars on the most ridiculously equipped gaming rig from a specialty boutique computer builder.

So what's the answer? Believe it or not, it's possible to get great gaming performance from a system that doesn't necessarily break the bank. Our goal today is to talk about building the best possible system you can for around $1500 US at the time of this writing. With some careful component selection, a little bit of knowledge, patience, and some tweaking, you can build a rock-solid gaming box.

Let's start with our component selection:



We'll get more into which part is which on the next page.

Next Section: Which parts to choose? There are so many out there! »

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Introduction: Gaming machines don't have to be expensive Which parts to choose? There are so many out there! Building it, one step at a time. Prep the case. Motherboard Fitting and CPU Installation. Heatsink and Memory Installation Power Supply, Optical Drive, and Hard Drive Installation Badges? We aren't going to make a joke about stinkin' badges! Installing Windows and Drivers Let's configure our BIOS and run some benchmarks! Overclocking in the BIOS Benchmarking an Overclock: Stock vs. OC results! Memory & Video Card Overclocking Conclusion and Substitution Advice