Gaming PCs

If you’re willing to push the boat out a little, you can add a whole new dimension to games with superior graphics and an all-round performance boost. reviews six mid-price models

Consoles are great, but they simply can’t match the graphical power of a decent gaming PC. With the right processor and graphics card, you can achieve far higher-quality visuals and enjoy all the game modifications you desire. Of course, you also get high performance for all your non-gaming needs and that graphics card will also offer a considerable performance boost to other applications, such as photo and video editing software.

Processor

Different games place different demands on your computer hardware, but choosing a gaming PC involves a balancing act between CPU and graphics performance.

For gaming PCs we’re happy to allow overclocked processors, which will significantly increase your overall processing power without having to stump up for the most expensive chips. Five out of our six review systems are using Intel’s quad-core Core i5-4690K processor, with the sixth using the standard non-overclockable version of the same chip.

Nominally this chip runs at 3.5GHz, but with the right power and cooling this can be pushed much further – as far as 4.6GHz in the Case of Dino PC’s Spark GTX 960. The Core i5-4690K is a great starting point for a gaming PC and there’s not usually much to be gained from upgrading to a Core i7.

Overclocked processors place additional demands on the system’s power supply and also require better cooling, so expect to pay more for PCs with extreme overclocking.

Motherboard

There are several points to consider when choosing the right motherboard for your PC. If you’re not into technical details, you may be tempted to overlook the motherboard and concentrate on the processor and graphics, but the motherboard is equally important.

Graphics card

Paul Monckton

If you want to keep costs down, you can go for an Intel H81 Express chipset. These boards will cost significantly less than premium motherboards based on the enthusiast Z97 chipset, but come with reduced features. Crucially, the H81 Express chipset doesn’t officially support processor overclocking, but the feature has been independently enabled by many motherboard vendors and work just fine.

Opting for a lower-cost motherboard can also allow you to spend a little more on your graphics card, which can have a big impact on your final performance figures.

This option is not without risk. Although your warranty protects you from system failures due to overclocking, it’s theoretically possible for Intel to pull the plug and put pressure on vendors to remove the overclocking features in forthcoming BIOS updates. Similarly, Windows Update could also be used to install new processor microcode with the same effect.

The Z97 Express chipset brings many extra features, including more USB 3.0 and SATA ports, support for Intel Smart Response Technology, RAID and PCI-E M.2 SSDs. It’s usually the graphics card that will determine the overall quality of your gaming experience. Once your processor is fast enough, it’s down to the graphics card to deliver the game to your screen.

To ensure smooth gameplay, you generally want to achieve a minimum of 60 frames per second (fps) in your game. This is the limiting speed of most PC displays, so you won’t really need to go faster than this unless you have a high-speed gaming monitor that allows for faster refresh rates.

Any extra performance will then allow you to increase the quality settings in your game, making characters sharper, textures more realistic and graphical effects more immersive. NVidia’s new GeForce GTX 960 offers an excellent balance of price and performance at this price range and features in four out of six of the PCs in this group test. Another great performer is AMD’s Radeon R9 285 DD Edition, which edged just ahead of the GTX 960 in most of our tests.

If you need more power, you may be able to fit a GeForce GTX 970 within a £1,000 budget, although you might have to make some cuts elsewhere. This would give you twice as much on-board memory for textures and multi-screen use, as well as a significant boost in performance at the higher quality settings.

Don’t worry too much about choosing between AMD and nVidia. As is usually the case, it’s down to which graphics card vendor has done a better job optimising any particular game for performance on its own cards. If you have an idea of which games you want to play, it can be worth investigating how well any given card performs with those particular games before you make your decision.

Cooling

Cooling is essential if any CPU is not to overheat, but especially one that’s been overclocked. The basic Intel CPU cooler vendors often fit will save you money, but it can be noisy and won’t keep your processor as cool, and will need careful attention paid to airflow through the case.

Expensive water cooling systems allow for extreme overclocking, but more modest budgets will generally allow for a smaller, sealed liquid-based coolers such as the Corsair Hxx range. Alternatively, you can go for a heat-pipe based cooler, which will give better cooling than a standard model while making less noise, thanks to larger, slower-moving fans.

Gamers like their systems to look the part, but the case needs to be practical. Internal