From quad-core processors to high-end graphics cards, we asked game developers what components they'd recommend
Game loading too
slowly? Building your own gaming PC could be the answer – and it doesn't
have to cost the earth.
There's little doubt that PC
gaming is undergoing a renaissance at the moment. With the current
generation consoles chugging interminably slowly toward retirement,
frustrated gamers are switching to computers with quad-core processors
and top-end graphics cards that produce visuals of breathtaking fluidity
and detail.
But it's not all about graphics performance. While
there are certainly detractors, Valve's digital download service Steam
has revolutionalised the games buying experience, offering easy access to hundreds of titles, many at vastly reduced prices.
Meanwhile,
increasingly popular online multiplayer titles like DotA, Guild Wars 2
and Tera are only playable on PC. Plus there's the explosive rise of the
indie scene, with many small studios ignoring the console platforms
altogether in favour of PC development. If you didn't have a PC last
year, you had no chance of playing brilliant offbeat titles like FTL,
Slender and Hotline Miami. You were out of the loop.
And while
we're expecting huge announcements from Microsoft and Sony this year, we
won't see a new console until October, with the PS4 more likely in
Spring 2014. Even when these new machines arrive, current speculation
suggests they're going to be built from the same sort of off-the-shelf
components you could jam into a gaming PC – except with a gaming PC you
can switch the key elements out a year later for something more
up-to-date.
So if you're a new PC owner, or just want to upgrade
your current machine, we've compiled a guide to building a decent gaming
machine for 2013. I've asked several PC developers for their input, and
we've tried to look at both high-end and budget options. Here goes...
Processor (CPU)
For the brain of your computer there are really only two manufacturers in the running: Intel and AMD. "I would definitely recommend Intel," says James Hannett of Mode7, creators of award-winning strategy game Frozen Synapse.
"AMD processors currently use more power and are generally slower than
the Intel equivalents. AMD's Bulldozer series was a disappointment for
the desktop market. Bulldozer's successor Piledriver was a big
improvement in some ways, but by then Intel had moved on as well. Now
Steamroller's been delayed until next year, and what I hear isn't very
encouraging".
If you go with intel, and can afford it, you'll be
wanting one of the Ivy Bridge processors, which come in three
increasingly powerful flavours: i3, i5 and i7. "If it's top-flight
you're after, the Core i7-3770 line is where it's at," says Al Bickham
at Total War developer, Creative Assembly.
"That's not just for games, but for other multithreading-heavy tasks,
such as video encoding. They tend to retail around £230 depending on the
clock-speed – they go up to 3.6GHz out of the box. But you can still
get fantastic performance – and arguably much better bang for your buck –
from the i5 series. Ivy Bridge i5 CPUs come in dual or quad-core
flavours, so if it's a quad-core you're after, something like an
i5-3570K is a great choice, and around £170".
And here comes your
first big construction dilemma: do you want to overclock your PC?
Overclocking is when you tweak the settings of the CPU to run at a
faster speed than the manufacturer guarantees it is stable at. It's
something many experienced gamers do, and its fine if you have a
well-built machine with lots of fans to keep things cool. If you head
down this route, you'll want the i53570k and a Z77 motherboard; if that
all sounds a bit scary (it does to me), stick with the cheaper combo of
i5-3570 and H77 motherboard.
Some PC retailers are suggesting that
the bottom of the range i3 is now too slow to handle modern games, but
our panel refutes that. "The i3 3220 can certainly hold its own when
paired with a decent graphics card," says Hannett. "However, as it's
only a dual core processor you might find that games released in the
next couple of years will cause it to struggle."
Ah, yes, cores.
Currently, most PCs at the lower end of the market will offer dual-core
CPUs, which as Hannett says is absolutely fine for most current game
releases. However, as 2013 goes on, we're going to get lots more Triple A
titles looking for quad-core power. If you're only running indie titles
or older budget titles you've downloaded from steam, you should be fine
on dual-core for a good while. But with PCs it always pays to think as
far ahead as your wallet will allow.
At the ultra-budget end,
you're going to be wanting at least two cores running at 3Ghz or more.
Hannett reckons AMD still does well with integrated CPUs and that the
AMD A10-5800K will be fine. Bickham says, "if you're on the strictest of
budgets, a dual-core i3 such as the 3.3GHz i3-2120 will still do the
job at around £90. And it's a great overclocker if you fancy dabbling in
the dark arts…"
Bottom line: The Intel i7-3770
if you're rich, the i5 2500K, i53570 or i53570k if you're doing okay,
the AMD A10-5800K or i3 if you're just about hanging in there.
Graphics card (GPU)
This is the thing that
does all the calculations for the game visuals, including rendering
geometry and spitting out all those lovely special effects. According to
most of the developers I spoke to this is where the big money should go if you can afford to max out on just one component.
Once
again, we're looking at a two-horse race: Nvidia v AMD, the former with
its Geforce range, the latter with Radeon. This is a much closer
competition though and both brands have their acolytes.
"If money
is no object and you want the best right now, something like the Nvidia
690 is available for around £800-£1,000." says Philip Robinson of indie
developer Born Ready Games, which has just launched its visually stunning space shooter, Strike Suit Zero. Boasting 4GB of RAM and a dual-GPU set-up the 690 is a formidable beast – and will need a larger PC chassis to house it.
"If
you want close to the top of the line, then I would recommend either
the Nvidia GTX 680 or the AMD HD 7970, both approximately £400,"
continues Robinson. "However, I believe the best approach is to go for
the Nvidia GTX 660 Ti or the nearest AMD equivalent at £230, and then
replace it 18 months on". This may sound expensive to some – my Xbox 360
has pretty much done the business for six years at just £250 (plus £40 a
year on Xbox Live Gold, of course) – but then every PC gamer has to
decide how up-to-date they can afford to be.
Hannett, too, has
his eye on those mid-range cards: "I would recommend either an NVIDIA
660 Ti or an AMD 7870. There's not much to tell them apart so shop
around on price and bundled games".
As for budget options? "Right
now, you can net a Radeon HD 6870 – AMD's previous-gen top-end card
which handles DX11 games with aplomb – for the miserly sum of £100, if
you shop around," says Bickham. "This will offer great frame rates at
resolutions up to 1920x1200, and it'll even make a respectable stab at
2560x1600 – the kind of resolution output by 30-inch panels".
Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry has just written a guide to budget graphics cards for Eurogamer. "Less than £100 gets a GTX 650," he says. "If you can afford £130, get a Radeon HD 7850 1GB. The Digital Foundry PC
has a Radeon HD 6770 which is old, but actually outperforms its
successor and we got ours for £70 – a fair bit cheaper than the GTX
650".
Whatever you go for, though, check the card's onboard RAM.
Cheaper options will offer 1GB, more expensive items, 2GB or more. "1GB
would probably just scrape through for games in 2013," says Simon
Barratt of FourDoorLemon.
"However, I imagine you will be making tradeoffs with performance
depending on the texture quality you select without a 2GB GPU".
That's
an important point. Although your graphics card is important, if you're
prepare to dial down all those extravagant effects and play at a lower
screen resolution, you can get away with cheaper hardware. If you want
texture detail at photorealistic levels as well as super smooth
tri-linear filtering and dynamic lighting on every pixel, compromise
clearly isn't for you.
The bottom line: unless
you're a lottery winner, stay clear of the ultra top-end cards, the
performance hikes aren't noticeable enough to warrant the £1,000 price
tags. At £200-250, look for the Nvidia GTX 670 or 660 Ti, or for just
over £100 the Radeon HD 7850 or 7870. At the bargain bucket end, a
Nvidia GTX 650 or Radeon HD 6770.
RAM
The
amount of memory your PC has will affect how quickly it can deal with
software tasks. So how much do you need? "Since we're talking about
gaming PCs and not computers designed for intense graphical rendering or
particularly memory-intensive programs we don't have to go crazy," says
Nick Tannahill of Firefly Studios, creator of the Stronghold Kingdoms
series. "Get 4GB if you're on a budget and 8GB if you're not. Onboard
memory is one of the easiest components to upgrade or replace, just make
sure you buy DDR3 and don't mix different types of RAM. Ignore MHz,
there is little difference between 1333MHz and 1600MHz and price is more
important".
Bottom line: aim for 8GB if you can – it'll be fine for several years. 16GB will really sort you out.
Storage
You have two options here. Well,
three actually. You can go for a classic hard disc drive (HDD) or you
can opt for a more modern solid state drive (SSD), which has no
mechanical parts and is much quicker. SSD drives are also much more
expensive though, so once again, compromise might be the best option.
"I
highly recommend both an SSD and a hard drive," says Robinson. "The
concept here is to use an SSD – ideally 128GB – for your operating
system. This massively decreases the computer's boot-up time. Everything
else should be stored on a hard drive. You can get a decent 1TB (one
Terabyte) drive for less than the SSD. If you want even faster gaming,
and you can afford it, you could buy a second SSD as well, and then
install the games you are currently playing to that drive. This will
decrease load times".
Bottom line: Go for at
least a modest SSD and a large hard drive. Install only your current
games on the SSD and remove to the HDD when you're finished with them. A
128GB SDD should be enough to hold your operating system and a couple
of games.
Motherboard
This is the PCB to
which all the components are attached, the unglamorous middleman of the
PC innards. Does it matter which you go for? "Yes," says Bickham. "But
it depends how many frills you want. Most motherboards carry onboard 5.1
sound-cards, but high-end ones tend to pack frilly extras such as
fan-speed controllers and built-in Wi-Fi modules.
"The crucial
thing is to match the socket type of your processor to a relevant
motherboard; for example the Core i5-3330 requires a motherboard with an
1155-pin socket. Motherboards also support a range of different memory
speeds, but of course, you need to match the right type of memory to the
motherboard. However, the variance between memory speeds makes much
less of a difference to gaming frame rates than your selection of CPU
and GPU. Just make sure you get more than 4GB of memory – we tend to use
6 or 8GB – as Windows consumes a base amount of this beneath the game
itself."
Bottom line: If you just want something
that does the job, make sure it's compatible with you graphics card and
CPU socket. "Think about whether you want to overclock or have more than
one graphics card," says Tannahill. "This may sound crazy at first, but
later on you may want to do this if the price of your card drops
dramatically".
Case, fan and power
The
big box you jam all the stuff into is mostly an aesthetic choice, but
you'll need to make sure it's big enough to contain all the components
you've chosen – and that it has room for a fan to cool everything down.
At the budget end you have less concerns: "You can skimp on the case and
fans as low-end components don't tend to pump out much heat," says
Leadbetter. "The case we chose cost £16 and has just one 80mm fan. I'd
be a bit more wary about the PSU (power supply unit) though. The 430W
Corsair Builder we chose is £35, but it's superb value and great
quality."
It's important to select a good quality PSU that can
cope with the power required by your PC's components. This is measured
in watts, and you can get units that will support over 1000w, although
you're unlikely to need that amount of oomph for a standard gaming PC –
if you're unsure, use a PC stockist who'll provide advice based on your
machine's specifications. There's a detailed guide to PSUs here.
Bottom line:
choose a case that's big enough for all your components (duh) and allow
space for cooling. And according to several of the developers I spoke to, a low quality PSU can damage components over time, so don't scrimp
on that.
The big question: build it yourself?
It is
possible to buy all the components you need and construct the machine
yourself. This will be cheaper than purchasing a ready-built machine,
you'll know exactly what's in it, and you can install the operating
system yourself without the retailer bunging in loads of ad-ware. The
downside is that you'll need to check the compatibility of all the parts
and if you do anything wrong, like accidentally salthering thermal
paste all over your graphics card, it could end up being very expensive.
Fortunately, there are lots of places you can go for advice and guidance. Digital Foundry has galleries showing you exactly how to build its recommended £300 PC. Computer Active has a video guide to building a PC, as does NewEgg. There's also a dated but still very good guide here. Ebuyer and Aria are both good places to buy components as they'll help you check the compatibility of all your bits.
If
you choose to have a company assemble your set-up for you, there are
plenty of options. Guardian Games Blog reader Simon Beck has been
building gaming PCs for years and has advised other readers on where to
buy their own machines:
"Nowadays, you can buy really very good pre-built machines like the Gladiator range from Aria, the Titan range
from Overclockers. It's worth bearing in mind that a well-chosen £600
system will be able to run all the latest games at close to maximum
settings. The PC arms-race has really slowed down now that all the big
FPS titles are also on consoles – I am still using a PC I built for £900
two years ago and it will run BF3 on Ultra.
"There is also the middle ground of PCSpecialist – I've sent a number of Games Blog readers there for a gaming machine. They will build everything for you, but their PCs are very highly configurable – you can really have pretty much any spec you want. If you start with something like the Fusion 650 it will be fantastic out of the box, or can be made into an absolute beast by upgrading some of the components. The Vortex 500 is a more budget-friendly choice, but again you can adjust the specification as much as you want".
"There is also the middle ground of PCSpecialist – I've sent a number of Games Blog readers there for a gaming machine. They will build everything for you, but their PCs are very highly configurable – you can really have pretty much any spec you want. If you start with something like the Fusion 650 it will be fantastic out of the box, or can be made into an absolute beast by upgrading some of the components. The Vortex 500 is a more budget-friendly choice, but again you can adjust the specification as much as you want".
Bottom line:
building your own PC from scratch is reasonably straightforward and has
price and performance advantages, but it's intimidating for tech
newcomers. Buying your kit from a company that will put it all together
will ensure you're getting the machine you want with no cheap components
hidden away inside – but you'll pay more for it.
Finally,
there's another possibility looming on the horizon: the Steam Box. For
years, Valve has been threatening to launch its own PC-like console; a
high-spec machine designed specifically for digital gaming. An opening
gambit – the Piston – was announced at CES this year, but we can
probably expect a more powerful model later this year. So should gamers
wait?
Most of the developers I spoke to said that there was too
much uncertainty right now, and it could be a year or more before we
have a Steam Box that really showcases the concept. As Bickham puts it,
"as a PC developer, we're interested in everything that Valve does. But
for gaming in the here-and-now, nothing beats a decent rig with some
shiny innards. Plus, the occasional overstocking incident with e-tailers
means that shopping around – once you've isolated the parts you want –
can net you some real bargains".
The thing with PCs is, there is
always something spectacularly powerful just down the road – that's
Moore's Law for you. At some point, you've just got to hold your breath
and jump in.