My Dream Ultimate gaming PC(ebuyer competition)

My dream gaming PGC (personal gaming computer)

I am writing this blog to detail out my dream PGC which I have reedited to suite the ebuyer contest recommendations as I had written this before now. And I have also listed the reasons why I have picked the components for this ultimate gaming rig. First of all, I will list down the components that will make up my dream PGC. They are as follows:

CPU: AMD FX 8150 http://alturl.com/jp8ss

MOTHERBOARD: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7  http://alturl.com/58kro

Graphics card: NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 590 http://alturl.com/m9pcj

RAM: 2x Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1866 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel http://alturl.com/5jezv

PSU:  Antec HCP 1200 http://alturl.com/2aibi

PGC CASE:  Antec 302 gaming case (just released) http://alturl.com/goq68

CPU COOLER: Corsair H100 Hydro http://alturl.com/meyqx

Headset: Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G35 http://alturl.com/khmg5

Hard disk: 2x Western digital caviar green 2TB in RAID 0 http://alturl.com/8o32w  

SSD: 2x Crucial M4 256GB SSD http://alturl.com/75njm

Note: The above listed components may not be the best of the best by this current industry standard. They are what in my imagination will be enough to be my ultimate gaming rig. I have taking time out to research out these listings which I deem in my head to be the ultimate performance PGC that suits my needs.  Thank you.

Why I chose these components for my ultimate gaming rig:

     Now let’s see why I would say the following components are more than enough to be my ultimate gaming pc and will run current games and intensive task, and how all of them make up my ultimate gaming rig. First of all we shall look at the components that make up my PGC and why I have chosen them:

CPU: The CPU (central processing unit) is the main chip in a computer that does all the maths, computational tasks and physics of a computer (though lately gpus incorporated some physics capabilities as well such as the NVidia PhysX). It may also be useful for other things not mentioned of. It is one of the most important components of a computer. The CPU I have picked for my gaming rig is the AMD FX 8150 which is the top of the line processor from the people over at AMD. This processor is part of a family of processors introduced by AMD called bulldozer. Though the processor hasn’t really received a warm welcome to the mainstream gaming computer industry I see the processor has some hidden potential which windows 7 just hasn’t seen yet as the scheduler in windows 7 is not properly optimized for this new architecture, but nevertheless as shown in this review http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1285/pg10/amd-fx-8150-black-edition-8-core-processor-vs-core-i7-2600k-review-deus-ex-human-revolution.html, it clearly shows that the AMD FX 8150 performs slightly better than the Intel 2600k in games which is more expensive and as such I have deemed the AMD FX 8150 more than enough to run my games and have picked it for the CPU spot on my Ultimate gaming rig. Remember the most expensive is not always the bestJ.

GPU: The GPU (graphic processing unit) is the main chip in a computer that does the entire graphics and animations for a computer. It also has some capability of doing Physics work as NVIDIA as show. It is mainly used when playing games and doing some animations or Photoshop editing. It is the most important component when gaming and as such I have picked the NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 590 which is the top of the range dual graphic  chip on one silican from the guys over at NVIDIA. It is currently the best dual chip on one silicon graphics card available beating out the AMD RADEON HD 6990 in performance which I say kudos to guys over at NVIDIA as they are both dual chip on one silicon GPU. Its capabilities are unlimited and it is a beast at running the current gen games and applications. It has an outstanding 3 GB GDDR5 memory capable of storing textures for a 2x monitor set up running battlefield 3 which is just astonishing. I could have picked an NVidia GeForce GTX 580 in SLI instead of this but SLI set ups aren’t always the best as they can have some very bad frame rate drops in some games, they don’t always give you double the power and have quite a lot of compatibility issues (some people might differ but oh well this is my ultimate gaming set up which I deem capable of running any current game with 1 monitor in 1920x1080 or even 2 J) and besides it has other great futures like Direct x 11 and NVidia 3d vision which I plan on using in the future and new compute capabilities like CUDA which I plan on studying to see how it could really be useful with the Fermi architecture. So with these I have chosen the Nvidia GEFORCE GTX 590 for my GPU spot in my ultimate gaming rig.

RAM: RAM (random access memory) is the main temporary storage area of a computer. It stores data for applications about to be used or running in the background.  RAM really isn’t an issue when it comes to gaming though having more RAM is still beneficial. Even the fastest RAM on the market today only gives you about 2% increase in performance in games compared to the standard 1333 MHz ram as shown in this review http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2011/01/11/the-best-memory-for-sandy-bridge/6 and  the biggest jump as shown in the same review in different sections shows that 1600mhz ram is just ideal for anything you will be doing with your PGC. And as such I have opted for Corsair Memory Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1866 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel for my RAM of choice.

Note: Memory more that 8GB is only needed if you are running professional applications or doing excessive workloads on a PGC.

PSU:  A PSU (power supply unit) is the component in a PGC that delivers power to the rest of the PGC. It is a very important component in a PGC as a PGC that doesn’t deliver current properly to a PGC can cause certain components in the PGC to malfunction. I have chosen the Antec HCP 1200 modular PSU for my PGC as it can properly deliver the right voltage to all my components and I have enough power to add another NVidia GeForce GTX 590 for a SLI set up in the future. It also bears the badge of 80 plus gold certification which means it has past stressing testing for delivering enough power for an average of above 80% efficiency which is very good for a PSU.

PGC CASE: A PGC case (personal gaming computer case) is simply a case to contain all PGC components. I have chosen the Antec 302 case as my PGC case because of its superior air flow and design.  It has just been released so it might not be well known but as shown in this review and unboxing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubX0pKrtZiI, it has a very good design quality and build up. It also has holes for water cooling which is good especially if you are an over clocker as having these means you can easily install an external water cooling option. The case also seems very sturdy and wide so airflow shouldn’t be any problem. I particularly like the back motherboard fan port which even gives it more airflow advantage as just installing a single 120mm fan there can help caught off a few degrees from motherboard temperature. It also has a nice cable management system which also helps with airflow in a case. And so with these features I have chosen this case to fill in my ultimate PGC case spot.

Motherboard: I have picked the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 based on the good reviews I have seen about it, it seems like a very capable board. I had a very bad experience when I first built my PC. Because I though motherboards where not really useful so I got the cheapest I could get and to my surprise I realised that they are important as the one I got then was the ASROCK N68C-S UCC which had hyper transport  2000mt/s and had lots of latency in games but I wasn’t really sure why that was. The hyper transport 2000mt/s was not the highest my CPU could go and I was not happy about that, but when I got my new motherboard the Asus M5A78LM-USB 3 there was a mass reduction in latency in online games for some reason and I was very pleased with my upgrade and I now had the full 4000mt/s of my CPU which was pleasing to know. And because of this I have now rated motherboards as fairly important when choosing a gaming pc. And as the reviews say I have that this motherboard is a solid performer I have chosen to go with this.

Hard disk: I have gone with a 2x Western digital caviar green 2TB in RAID 0 because I know games nowadays are very heavy on space and so I want to have more than enough space both for current games and for games to come. And also for my medial files and pictures as I don’t like format my windows install regularly I will need at list one for backup in case. There is not a lot to say about the type of hard disk you go with I just say go with the one that give you better rpm and spaceJ.

SSD: SSD’s have nearly become compulsory in the last few years in gaming builds and I have gone with 2x Crucial M4 256GB SSD. As to me they are they are one of the best bang for buck SSD’s in the market and as their reviews say they perform very well. These are obviously going to be used as my boot drive. And for games like battlefield 3 which take long to start up I am going to be using some of the SSD space for that as well. I just hope with the hard drive shortage that SSD prices come down.

CPU COOLER: I have gone with the CORSAIR H100 HYDRO COOLER as the CPU cooler can really cools and performs well when overclocked CPUs. As I really like overclocking I am going with a water cooled system and the case I am going with also has the adequate spaces for a water cooling system. My current CPU is an AMD PHENOM II X4 965 overclocked to 4000 MHz J which I struggled to get to but is really good for this CPU and is stable 24/7. This CPU cooler should be able to keep my FX cool when overclocked as that is what I plan to do when if I ever get or win a rig like this J

Headset:  I have chosen the Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G35 as my preferred gaming headset as it has superior sound and quality according to the reviews when put up against similarly priced gaming headsets.  It seems like a very good performance headset so it has gotten the spot in my Ultimate gaming rig.

Conclusion: The G rig or PGC I have just put down now is what I deem as my ultimate bang for buck gaming PC. I know this gaming set up is not the best of the best but I know it is capable of been my dream Ultimate gaming PC This G rig as I have imagined should be able to play any current game and I believe would be would still be future proof. I hope this rig really comes alive one day as that would be a great joy for meJ. Thank you.

Written by: Timothy Haastrup(College student and 16 years old live in Hertfordshire UK for the ebuyer competition and for my new target rig). I couldn't properly insert the badge to my blogpost so I decided to make an image with a link on it :D. Hope I still qualify. The badge though which I tried inserting is still at the top hand right corner of the page.