Gaming has become a big industry in India, with so many new intriguing games launched in just the past year and many more around the corner, it is only going to get bigger. Often, we might not be able to find a laptop or a desktop that works well with our gaming needs so it is good to assemble one.
This guide will take you through detailed steps of building a powerful machine which can tear through any game your throw at it.
Step 1 - Set a firm budget
In today's market there are way too many options at every price range, hence having a firm idea of how much you are willing to spend will help point you in the right direction. In this guide we will mainly look at the most popular price ranges in India. But the lesson learnt can be applied to any price point in any region of the world. The price ranges we will cover are -
•₹40,000 - ₹50,000: This price range provides brilliant value for money and will suit a casual gamer well who just wants to play the newest of the games at high quality.
•₹70,000 - ₹80,000: In this price range one can get so much performance that even while playing the heaviest titles there will still be some juice left which could be used for streaming the gameplay on YouTube or Twitch.
•₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000: This range would most likely suit a professional gamer or a content creator dealing with heavy 4k footage or playing the biggest titles with zero compromises.
Step 2 - Choosing the CPU and the right companion motherboard
There are only two desktop CPU manufacturers in the world, Intel and AMD. In the past three years AMD has levelled with and surpassed Intel in almost all aspects including gaming. Hence choosing an AMD CPU would not only future-proof your computer but also provide it with newer technologies like PCIe Gen 4 which Intel doesn't offer yet.
Let's look at the recommended CPU and motherboard chipset combinations in conjunction with our price ranges:
Note: If you are pairing the Gen 3 Ryzen CPUs with B450 or X470 motherboards, the motherboards would require a bios flash hence going with B450M for lower-end chips and X570 for higher chips would make the building process much easier. These are our recommendation for the three different price ranges:
•At ₹40,000 - ₹50,000 price point a Ryzen 3 3500 along with a B450M Motherboard will fit well. Ryzen 5 3500 with its 6 Zen 2 cores and 12 threads would perform great in any game. Since games usually only require 4 cores, with its 2 extra cores this CPU could also handle some basic streaming if required.
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000 range, a Ryzen 3600X along with a high end B450M motherboard, would serve a gamer very well at this price point, the great single core performance of this CPU would be able to handle any game at high details even while streaming at 1080p 30FPS on Youtube or Twitch.
•As we get to the 1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000 price point, we can get some class performance from our CPU, the Ryzen 7 3800X paired with any mid-range X570 motherboard with its 8 powerful Zen 2 cores and 16 threads can handle anything from gaming to 4K video rendering with relative ease.
There are plenty of motherboard manufacturers but the ones that have set themselves apart in the market in terms of performance and quality are very few namely MSI, Asus, ASrock and Gigabyte, hence we would again recommend that you stick to their lineup.
Step 3 - How much RAM Do you need?
RAM is very volatile in terms of its pricing and is very essential to the system's performance especially when you have an AMD CPU at heart. Hence it becomes very tricky to buy the right RAM.
The Ryzen CPUs love fast DDR4 memories hence in terms of frequency you would at least want 3200MHz RAM. We would still recommend 3200MHz RAM even if you have an Intel CPU, but you can drop down to 3000MHz if you have price constraints.
•If you just want to play games and stream rarely then an 8 GB DDR4 3200 MHz stick from either Corsair, Adata, Hyper X, G Skill or Kingston would be enough for the purpose and this amount is also recommended at the price range of ₹40,000 - ₹50,000. If in future, there is some cash lying around then adding another identical 8 GB stick would future proof your system for a few thousand rupees.
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000 anything less than two sticks of 8 GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM would be a crime. If in some case, there exists some headroom going for 3600MHz RAM would significantly improve your system performance. This amount would be enough for basic video editing and streaming as well.
•When you want to edit 4K video then you at least need 32 GB of fast DDR4 memory so either 2 sticks of 16 GB DDR4 3600MHz or 4 Sticks of 8 GB DDR4 3600MHz would be our recommendation. This would also fit in well within our ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000 price range.
Step 4 - GPU, the real heart of a gaming computer
It's the GPU that will deliver you the detailed graphics and high FPS, which is a desire of every gamer in the world. Currently in the Indian market GTX or RTX Graphics cards are the best bets because they offer then best price to performance ratio.
•At our ₹40,000 - ₹50,000 budget the best fit is the GTX 1650 Super from reputed manufacturers like Zotac, MSI, Gigabyte, GALAX, INNO 3D or Sapphire. It is the best card for budget 1080p gaming with guaranteed 100+ FPS in most popular Esports titles at High - Medium settings and matches very well with our CPU of choice - the Ryzen 3500.
•While at ₹70,000 - ₹80,000 The RTX 2060 is going to deliver enough performance to play at 1440p or even at 4K in some cases. This card also supports Ray Tracing feature which really brings the reality into any game that supports it. You can easily get 100+ FPS at 1440p and 60+ FPS at 4k.
•As we reach the ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000 then there aren't many choices there is either the RTX 2070 or the RTX 2070 Super. If there is possibility of squeezing in the RTX 2070 Super then it wouldn't be a bad investment. The RTX 2070 and its super variant along with its Ray Tracing support can also easily play any game at 4K high settings. This card can easily deliver 90+ FPS at 4K in most games.
Step 5 -Choosing the optimum power supply
It's actually very simple to choose a power supply there are only two rules:
1.Choose at least an 80+ rated power supply from experienced manufacturers like Corsair, Cooler Master, Gigabyte, Seasonic or Thermaltake.
2.Choose a PSU which has capacity of 20%-30% more power capacity than what your computer needs, since this would future proof your build and never lets your PSU run at 100% while doing heavy tasks.
These are our recommendations at the price ranges:
•At ₹40,000 - ₹50,000: 500W 80 + ratted
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000: 650W 80 + Bronze ratted
•At ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000: 750W 80+ Bronze ratted
Step 6 - Storage
In 2020 an SSD is a complete necessity since these are super-fast storage units and make loading different files for processing much faster than a normal hard drive. But a hard drive has its own benefits mainly, mass storage. Hence in each of our budgets we will have a combination of the two types of storage.
It is of prime importance that we would install our OS on the SSD otherwise we would lose the purpose of putting one in. Windows basically works instantaneously on an SSD making our computing experience a breeze. We would recommend that you stick to one of these reputed storage manufacturers like Gigabyte, Intel, WD, Samsung, Adtata or Toshiba. As a reference point in terms of speed HARD DRIVE < SATA SSD < NVMe SSD.
•At ₹40,000 - ₹50,000: 120GB 2.5 Inch SATA SSD + 1TB 7200rpm Hard drive
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000: 256GB NVMe SSD + 1TB 7200rpm Hard drive
•At ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000: 512GB NVMe SSD + 2TB 7200rpm Hard drive
Step 7 - Choose your cabinet
There are several types of cabinets in terms of standardised sizes like MINI ITX and Micro ATX, Full Form ATX, Mid Tower etc. But we will focus on Mid Tower since these Mid Tower cases have optimum air flow and enough space for any of the systems we are building.
There are a lot of choices like RGB, side panel and design hence it comes down to personal preference, but the only thing to keep in mind is that you purchase a cabinet from a reputed manufacturer like Corsair, Cooler Master, Antec, Thermaltake, Circle, Antec, LIAN Li, NZXT. In any case, here our recommendations:
• At ₹40,000 - ₹50,000: ANTEC NX 200
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000: COOLER MASTER K 501 L
•At ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000: COOLER MASTER PRO 5 RGB
STEP 8 - CPU Cooler
CPU Coolers, as the name suggests keep the CPU cool, also good cooling would help your CPU reach its peak more often and for longer. Liquid cooling is only recommended when you are planning to Overclock your CPU, keep in mind that overclocking voids all warranties. But at a higher budget an AIO Liquid cooler would be a better choice Also, we again recommend sticking with reputed manufactures like Corsair, Cooler Master, NZXT, Thermaltake or Antec.
•At ₹40,000 - ₹50,000: AMD Cooler (Comes inside the CPU BOX)
•At ₹70,000 - ₹80,000: COOLER MASTER HYP.410 RGB
•At ₹1,00,000 - ₹1,10,000: COOLER MASTER ML 120 RGB
Building the computer
After buying the parts from an online retailer or offline, you can either build the system on your own or if you have bought the parts offline, they would usually build it for free or for nominal charges.
If you want to have the experience of building the computer on your own, then thousands of detailed YouTube videos that will guide you through the process very smoothly. We would recommend videos of the YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips.
So, get building and happy gaming!
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