Tag Archives: Gaming

Can I build a $600 gaming machine?

The CAN$600 question is, can an uber-affordable machine deliver an acceptable gaming experience?  And the answer is: with the right expectations, yes. The first thing that has to go out the window is the idea that you have to play … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, PC Gaming, Upgrading | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Can I build a gaming computer under $1000? (Apr 2015 edition)

It’s April 2015 and we are revisiting our exercise in budget computing: Can we build a computer that will give acceptable gaming performance for under $1000 (In our 80 pound weakling Canadian dollars)? In the past year we have seen DDR3 … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, PC Gaming, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Can I build a gaming computer for under $1000 (Feb. 2014 edition)

Feb. 2014 An exercise in budget computing is to build a computer that will give acceptable gaming performance for under $1000.  In the past year we have seen hard drive prices skyrocket, then come back down to near normal pricing, … Continue reading

Posted in General Computer, How-To, PC Gaming, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Q. Can I get a good gaming laptop? For under $700?

First things first.  There is no such thing as a real gaming laptop – not if you mean a laptop machine that is portable, battery powered, and has game performance comparable to a desktop machine with a good graphic card … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, PC Gaming, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. Will my computer run games on the highest settings?

The answer is, it depends. It depends on the graphic card:  Gaming is 90% about the performance of the video card (GPU). As long as you have adequate RAM and a reasonably modern CPU, then the video card Graphic Processing … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, PC Gaming, Performance, Upgrading | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. What does it mean when a video card is bottlenecked by a CPU?

Short answer – it doesn’t mean anything.  Read on for the longer answer: What is bottlenecking? The concept of bottlenecking is that a program will only run as fast as the slowest component that it uses in the computer. When … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, How-To, Performance, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. Can I upgrade the video card in my machine?

You can upgrade the video card in a desktop Windows machine as long as 1) The motherboard has an available PCIe x16 slot, 2) There is physical space in the case for a full length, double width card (most modern … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, How-To, Performance, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. Can I build a $1500 – $2000 gaming computer?

See the previous article on building a sub-$1000 gaming computer Once we get to a $1500 – $2000 budget for a gaming machine, we can look at a better-appointed case and some serious graphics power. We’ll start with the over-clockable … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, How-To, Performance, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Q. Can I build a gaming computer for $1000?

An exercise in budget computing is to build a computer that will give acceptable gaming performance for under $1000. The biggest bang for the buck component in a gaming computer is the video card, so sacrifices will have to me … Continue reading

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, How-To | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment