Q: I am buying a custom pc, and i would just like to know what makes a pc fast for gaming. also what are the best brands of cpu and motherboards.? Thx in advance.. Crookesy ;)
A: good question i will not only answer this but give you some advice now for starters the thing every one forgets the mother board you must have a good motherboard or no mater how good other components are your still starting on the wrong foot i recomend asus and if you are not going to go for sli any of asus's p35 chipset motherboards are good ( though i would not recomend the p5kse) some good motherborads are the p5k,p5k-deluxe wifi and the p5ke wifi ok have plenty of ram ram is cheap so you have no excuse for not having enough i recomend 3Gb + becuse it is far more economical (price per Gb ) to buy 2x2Gb rather than 1x 2Gb abd 1x1Gb or 3x1Gb i would buy 4Gb even though 4Gb is alittle more than you need it is still good to have a fast procesor is extremely important if you do buy an asus p35 motherboard they all use the lga775 pin configuration this is what most intel processors use you can if get a fast dual core if you are on a budget and will be happy to upgrade in a few years but if you want real performace get a nice quad core the 45nm quad cores are very nice some of these being Q9450(2.66Ghz 12mb L2 chace) Q9550 (2.83Ghz 12Mb L2 chace) q9650 (3Ghz 12MbL2 chace) or if you want some cheaper options there is the Q6600 and the Q9300 if you are an overcloker than the q6600 is a good processor for you as all the 45nm have locked multipliers wich makes avercloking harder and give less performance a good video card is also essential again i have a prefernce to Nvidia as ati has been consitently underperforming your choice will again depend on funding if you have the money than i would get the new 280gtx after the mishap of series 9 the 280gtx is the new 8800ultra (the old best card still very good) but if money goes not permit that there are many alternatives but any car5d from Nvidia series 8 or above will sufice (with acception to the 8400 8600 9400 and 9600 series these are not quite the gaming enthusiests cards though the 8600 and 9600 group will run high end games like crysis quite succsesfully) a good harddrive is important get one that is 7200rpm or more this more is is money permits there are some great drives out from Westerndigital like the velociraptor or the cheaper option would be the older raptors these 1000rpm drives are great also using a raid set up you can increase you performance also also dont be stingy on your perifricals buy a cheap mouse and you will regret it i personaly would only get a laser engine mouse you dont have to buy the logitech G9 to have a laser mouse there are some avliable for as little as $12