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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pellette and

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Speaker 1: I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting

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Speaker 1: across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland

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Speaker 1: Jack Flack always escapes all Betty does. So what does

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Speaker 1: that mean? Well, it means that we're gonna go into

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Speaker 1: a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from James

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Speaker 1: from Carmel, Indiana, and James says, Hello. First of all,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to thank you for making my irritating chores

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Speaker 1: a little better. Secondly, I have a lot of free

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Speaker 1: time now that my football season is over, and was

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Speaker 1: thinking about building a low powered gaming computer. Right now,

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Speaker 1: I have a Mac Mini, which is great unless you

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Speaker 1: want to play games. I was wondering if you could

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Speaker 1: do a podcast over how to build your own computer,

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Speaker 1: or lead me to a site that does a good

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Speaker 1: job explaining it. How stuff Works only has an article

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Speaker 1: over converting your computer to a media computer. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for the podcast, James. Well, James, we thought

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Speaker 1: we'd talked a little bit about what makes a gaming

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Speaker 1: computer good and uh, unfortunately part of that is is money. Um.

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Speaker 1: It turns out that low powered gaming computers may not

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Speaker 1: really meet your needs if you want to play the

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Speaker 1: latest and greatest games that are on the market right now,

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Speaker 1: that's true, Um, a lot of cases you've got to

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Speaker 1: worry about. It's really a gaming computer is not significantly

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Speaker 1: different from a regular computer in that it has the

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Speaker 1: same kinds of components. But what a gaming computer has

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Speaker 1: that's different from your standard desktop or laptop computer is

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Speaker 1: generally high, very high end components, such as the motherboard

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Speaker 1: with a very high end processor, or the graphics cards

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Speaker 1: sometimes more than one graphics card, um, and and things

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Speaker 1: like that cause still a lot of money. But it

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Speaker 1: really it really depends on the games that you're trying

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Speaker 1: to play. If you're going to be, you know, working

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Speaker 1: on Beguiled for hours on end, you're probably not going

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Speaker 1: to need the same kind of processor that somebody who

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Speaker 1: plays World of Warcraft might. Yeah, and if you play

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Speaker 1: World of Warcraft, you may not need the same sort

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Speaker 1: of processor that someone who's playing a really advanced first

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Speaker 1: person shooter would need. These these different games have different

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Speaker 1: different requirements. So things like real time strategy games and

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Speaker 1: massively multiplayer online role playing games for the most part,

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Speaker 1: don't need the like cutting edge of technical specs to

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Speaker 1: be able to to run well on your machine. But

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Speaker 1: if you are someone who wants to play games like well,

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Speaker 1: you know the upcoming Duke Nukem, which will be out

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Speaker 1: any day now again just like over the last twelve years.

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Speaker 1: But no, seriously, Duke Nukem is supposed to come out again. Well,

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Speaker 1: if that's gonna be a typical first person shooter, it's

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Speaker 1: gonna try and take advantage of the latest and greatest

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Speaker 1: tech that's out there that it necessarily requires that to run,

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Speaker 1: but that if you have the it'll if you have

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Speaker 1: something that's really advanced machine, it will take advantage of

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Speaker 1: that and you'll have a better experience overall as a result.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, you need um. The three biggest components are

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Speaker 1: your CPU, your video card, and RAM. Now on top

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Speaker 1: of that, you're also gonna need to worry about storage

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Speaker 1: because some of these games are huge, and unless you

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Speaker 1: are playing some sort of streaming service where the game

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Speaker 1: is stored in the cloud somewhere, you're gonna need to

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Speaker 1: have that storage on hand. So, um, yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: look at the specs on on really advanced gaming PCs

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Speaker 1: that are out there being sold as gaming pecs, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna notice that that they have some wicked specs on them.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the CPU is gonna be really fast. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes you can even choose to have your CPU overclocked,

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Speaker 1: which means it's going to run more cycles in the

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Speaker 1: same amount of time and normally, like it would normally

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Speaker 1: run a certain number of cycles, over means use cram

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Speaker 1: more cycles into that same time period, which requires some

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Speaker 1: adjustment on the part of the computer owner. Actually, of course,

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Speaker 1: you can't go in and you know just a setting

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Speaker 1: a software setting in your operating system to over clock it.

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Speaker 1: You actually have to make a modification to your computer

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Speaker 1: to make that happen. Yeah, and uh, and overclocking can

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Speaker 1: lead to some problems. Um, the biggest usually is overheating. Actually,

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Speaker 1: that's a That's another component about PC gaming rigs that

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Speaker 1: we need to address and in this podcast, is that

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Speaker 1: you have to have a good cooling system. That's true,

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Speaker 1: some people use a liquid cooling system rather than just

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Speaker 1: the standard fans that come with the box. Right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The three main methods that you'll probably see in most

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Speaker 1: gaming PCs are fans. And then heat sinks, yes, a

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Speaker 1: heat sink and thinking of that, but yeah, and and

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Speaker 1: water cooling systems or liquid cooling systems. So yeah, all

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Speaker 1: all of these are very basic ways of move heat

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Speaker 1: away from the processor because of course, as processors heat up,

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Speaker 1: just like any electronic element, if it gets too hot,

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Speaker 1: it's going to stop working. And that's kind of frustrating

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Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of a game. That's true,

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Speaker 1: and I think it would be worthwhile to mention the

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Speaker 1: reason that gaming computers are so sophisticated. It's uh, and

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Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, especially with these more advanced

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Speaker 1: games and games in which there is a lot of

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Speaker 1: rapid action stuff like um, I would say, racing simulators, uh,

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Speaker 1: first person shooters, things like that, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: movement on the screen. And of course, uh, at the

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Speaker 1: point we are now, these games are very very sophisticated.

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Speaker 1: But the thing is the computer in order to make

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Speaker 1: this action look so uh so real and so dynamic

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Speaker 1: or unreal depending on how you look at it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: not the game unreal, but yeah in that case too

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Speaker 1: back in the day, yea, but yeah, I mean in

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Speaker 1: order to do that, the computer is having to make

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Speaker 1: a lot of calculations to render that on the screen,

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Speaker 1: and it requires the CPU and the graphics processor to

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Speaker 1: do a lot of computation, which is why they get

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Speaker 1: so hot as they're doing a lot, a lot, a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of work. Um. And that's that's what makes

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Speaker 1: so much of the difference. And it requires the memory,

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Speaker 1: which is what Jonathan was talking about about the RAM, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because what the memory is letting you do is it's

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Speaker 1: s laying. It's slaying. The computer access information in an

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Speaker 1: almost instantaneous, uh fashion. I mean, it's so fast it

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Speaker 1: might as well be instantaneous to us. Now, if if

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Speaker 1: you didn't have a lot of RAM, that would mean

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Speaker 1: the computer would have to start to search for that

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Speaker 1: information on your hard drive. It wouldn't be stored in

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Speaker 1: that tipporary storage system for the computer, so it would

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Speaker 1: mean that it would have to slow things down in

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Speaker 1: order to search for that information. And that could even

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Speaker 1: uh cause your game to have one of those annoying

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Speaker 1: loading screens that all gamers absolutely hate. Um. That's something

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Speaker 1: you want to avoid, which is why you want to

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Speaker 1: have a lot of RAM. In fact, I was reading

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Speaker 1: one specification or one one article that was talking about

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Speaker 1: creating a a gaming PC, and they were their demands

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Speaker 1: for RAM. We're pretty darn high said that an absolute

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Speaker 1: minimum would be two gigabytes of RAM, and that to

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Speaker 1: be on the safe side, you should have no fewer

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Speaker 1: than four gigabytes. But if you have four gigabytes RAM,

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Speaker 1: you have to remember that using a Windows machine. And

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Speaker 1: we're really talking about Windows machines here because that's what

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Speaker 1: the majority of games, that's the platform that they use.

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Speaker 1: You can have really good games on other systems, including

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Speaker 1: you know, the Mac, which for a long time the

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Speaker 1: joke about max where that, yeah, it's a great computer

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Speaker 1: unless you want to play a game on it. But

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Speaker 1: that's changed significantly, but it's still true that most games,

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Speaker 1: most of the advanced games come out on PC first

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Speaker 1: and sometimes exclusively. Well, if you want to have more

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Speaker 1: than around three gigabytes of RAM on a Windows based machine,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna need a sixty four bit version of the

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Speaker 1: Windows operating system. So we're talking, we're talking basically Vista

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Speaker 1: or Windows seven. Right, you can't you can't use you know,

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Speaker 1: the operating systems simply cannot support more the older operating

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Speaker 1: systems versions of Windows cannot support that much RAM, so

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't do you any good to add more RAM

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Speaker 1: to it. Um. Before we get too far, you mentioned

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Speaker 1: also the fact that the reason why you need this

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Speaker 1: powerful computers because of the the fact that you've got

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Speaker 1: all these you know this, these dynamic graphics, and that's

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Speaker 1: the computer has to paint the picture over and over

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Speaker 1: and over again. Yes, um, and we're talking about resolutions

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Speaker 1: of around that's lots and lots of pixels. Yes, it is.

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Speaker 1: And so when you think about the computer has to

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Speaker 1: be able to paint each of those pixels or display

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Speaker 1: each of those pixels. And if stuff is changing really quickly,

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Speaker 1: it has to be able to respond to that and

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Speaker 1: repaint those pixels. And the way that where the motion

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Speaker 1: is nice and smooth and it doesn't look choppy, or

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Speaker 1: there aren't trails everywhere unless it's part of the you know,

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Speaker 1: the game's design, and uh and so yeah, that requires

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Speaker 1: that's what where all that processing power needs to go to.

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Speaker 1: So I remember back when I first had a computer

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Speaker 1: that you didn't have to worry about this so much.

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Speaker 1: Like the computers were increasing in power over time, Moore's

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Speaker 1: laws More's law, so we would after every couple of years,

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Speaker 1: you'd want to upgrade because you wouldn't be able to

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Speaker 1: run some of the latest programs. But your basic computer

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Speaker 1: graphics card and basic computer sound card was enough to

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Speaker 1: handle pretty much anything out there. It wasn't until the

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Speaker 1: first person shooters started to take off, really, the Quake generation, uh,

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Speaker 1: Doom and and Wolfenstein three D, that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: The the games that came before it still ran pretty

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Speaker 1: well on your basic three eight six machine. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: until you started getting a little further in where you

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Speaker 1: started need specific kinds of graphics cards in order to

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Speaker 1: render graphics that were in a game. That's about the

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Speaker 1: time I stopped playing PC games, Yeah, because it got

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Speaker 1: to a point where it was clear that in order

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Speaker 1: to play the latest and grades PC games, I was

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Speaker 1: going to have to be on a fairly regular upgrade

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Speaker 1: cycle for my machine, possibly as as frequently as every

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Speaker 1: six months, in order to be able to run the

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Speaker 1: the latest games. And eventually you would have to upgrade

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Speaker 1: your entire machine, not just components, because your computer would

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Speaker 1: no longer be able to support the latest cards that

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Speaker 1: were on the market. That's true, and I think that's

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Speaker 1: why so many gamers prefer the desktop computer to a laptop. UM.

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Speaker 1: Not that you can't make some of these modifications to

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Speaker 1: a laptop, for example adding more ram UM, but in

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Speaker 1: a desktop computer. And this really does go for for

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Speaker 1: MAX and PCs both. UM. If you have a tower

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Speaker 1: uh desktop computer, especially although you know some of the

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Speaker 1: other configurations also work. It depends on the MANU factor

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Speaker 1: really more than anything else. But um. For example, if

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Speaker 1: you took a one of the all in one pieces

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Speaker 1: where the monitor has the computer built into it, um,

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Speaker 1: those are generally sealed up a little more in a

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Speaker 1: in a configuration in which it's very difficult to get

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Speaker 1: in and say change out your CPU. Well yeah, especially

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Speaker 1: since especially since most of those machines are designed in

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Speaker 1: such a way where the components all fit very snugly

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Speaker 1: together and there's very little room. So unless you're using

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Speaker 1: a new component that's exactly the same size as the

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Speaker 1: old one, you may be stuck. You may not be

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Speaker 1: able to put it back together properly. Right. But in

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Speaker 1: some of the other, the tower configurations especially, you can

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Speaker 1: open up the box, pull out the card in question,

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Speaker 1: and replace it with another one. If you know what

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Speaker 1: you're doing. It's good to be very very careful when

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Speaker 1: you're doing those kinds of things, but it's a lot

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Speaker 1: easier to install a new card, replace your hard drive,

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Speaker 1: add ram um, you know, in those in those types

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Speaker 1: of boxes, simply because of the way that they're built.

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Speaker 1: That um. That's why if I were going to build

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Speaker 1: a gaming computer for myself, either build one or buy one,

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Speaker 1: I would prefer to get a desktop computer with a

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Speaker 1: very large monitor, you know, so you could see lots

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Speaker 1: and lots of action and um. You know, I would

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Speaker 1: probably prefer a Mac, but I would want to get

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Speaker 1: a Mac Pro where I could you know, upgrade it

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Speaker 1: in the future, because you know, the specs, the specs

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Speaker 1: shift over time, as you pointed out. As a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, I think a good rule of thumb is

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Speaker 1: to look at the system requirements on the box of

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Speaker 1: the game you're playing. If you're just hitting the system requirements,

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Speaker 1: you're not going to have a particularly good experience in

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Speaker 1: my uh, in my you know, personal experience, in my

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Speaker 1: history with it. It'll run the game, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of times it will be jittery and laggyuch fun. You

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Speaker 1: have to turn the detail level down so that you

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Speaker 1: don't have as many polygons rendering on the screen, so

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Speaker 1: you can you can play the game at a smooth

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Speaker 1: clip without it looking really jagged. Basically, basically what he's

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Speaker 1: saying is the graphic you have to kind of turn

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Speaker 1: down the level of the graph fix processing so that

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Speaker 1: it doesn't fill in all the depth, the depths of

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Speaker 1: the shadows and highest highlights and textures, so that you

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Speaker 1: can still see and you can play the game. You know,

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Speaker 1: if if the game play is more important to you

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Speaker 1: what it is to me than the graphics. I love

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Speaker 1: good graphics, but you know, if the game doesn't play

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Speaker 1: well kind of bugs me. You might as well deal

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Speaker 1: with that. We'll go watch a movie. If if the

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Speaker 1: games aren't play well, it looks pretty. It's all. It's

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Speaker 1: all cinematics. But well, uh, and you mentioned the possibility

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Speaker 1: of using more than one graphics card. That's that's a

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Speaker 1: fairly recent development with you know, back in the day,

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Speaker 1: it was one of those things where you would get

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Speaker 1: one graphics card and you had to choose carefully because

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Speaker 1: some games supported a certain family of graphics cards and

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Speaker 1: other games we're using a totally different, uh graphics model,

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Speaker 1: and you might not be able to play a game

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Speaker 1: based upon the kind of graphics card you have in

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Speaker 1: your computer. Um, now you can use that. Well. In

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Speaker 1: Video and A t I have have really dominate the

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Speaker 1: market quite a bit. And of course am D purchased

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Speaker 1: A T I and from what I understand, they're phasing

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Speaker 1: out the A t I name, So am D then yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they each allow you to use more than one

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Speaker 1: video card if you have the right motherboard. That's something

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Speaker 1: else we should point out is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the the components that you have in a gaming PC

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Speaker 1: will depend entirely upon which motherboard you have. Not all

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Speaker 1: motherboards will support all formats. In fact, your CPU will

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Speaker 1: really what you should do, and we'll get into this

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Speaker 1: more when you're talking about building a gaming computer is

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Speaker 1: pick the CPU you want first, then find the motherboard

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Speaker 1: that supports that CPU. Because you can't just you can't

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Speaker 1: just go into a computer store and buy components willy

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Speaker 1: nilly and expect them all to work when you hook

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Speaker 1: it up together. Some of them may not hook up

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Speaker 1: together at all. Best, do a little research before you

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Speaker 1: get started, or consult with an expert in the store. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: in Video and and a m D have this Uh,

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Speaker 1: this where you can hook up more than one video

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Speaker 1: card at a time to your machine, which means that

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Speaker 1: the two together can process graphics much faster than a

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Speaker 1: single card could. It's kind of similar to how CPUs

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Speaker 1: now come. In multi coore formats, you can get dual

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Speaker 1: core or quad core or even more um for CPU

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Speaker 1: and each core can do some calculations. Now, in order

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Speaker 1: to take advantage of that, games have to be designed

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Speaker 1: in order to to use that. That's true. That that's

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Speaker 1: true of any software for doing video editing or graphics

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Speaker 1: editing of some kind. A lot of those programs are

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Speaker 1: designed to handle the especially the newer versions. I should

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Speaker 1: say older versions weren't necessarily but yeah, I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you're if you're operating system isn't designed to do it,

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Speaker 1: and you're the game itself isn't designed to handle running

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Speaker 1: across multiple cores, it won't be able to take advantage

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Speaker 1: of that. Yeah. So right now, it's not unusual to

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Speaker 1: find games that are good for dual core processors. You

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Speaker 1: can find quite a few, and there's some they're coming

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Speaker 1: out that are designed for quad core processors or two

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Speaker 1: at least two. They're optimized for that. So you know,

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Speaker 1: it's always a good idea to go ahead and look

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Speaker 1: at what's what's sort of the leading edge on the

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Speaker 1: market there, because that's where everything's gonna go. It may

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Speaker 1: not be able to you know, you may not have

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Speaker 1: games that take advantage of it right away, but that's

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Speaker 1: where they're heading. So there there's no way to future

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Speaker 1: proof a gaming PC. No, no, you can't do it.

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Speaker 1: So that's one of the other things you have to

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Speaker 1: resign yourself too, is that when you build a gaming PC,

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Speaker 1: it may be state of the art right now and

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Speaker 1: in a year it may be average. Yeah, And that's

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Speaker 1: one of the big barriers to gaming PCs in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: is because one they're expensive and too they have a

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Speaker 1: very limited shelf life as far as being the best

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Speaker 1: of the best goes. Yeah, yeah, that's true. You can

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Speaker 1: you can look online and find a number of manufacturers

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Speaker 1: of of gaming PCs and they'll have just watch the

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Speaker 1: websites and the specs will change very very quickly. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't think except for really the high

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Speaker 1: end graphics and video processors. Maybe music. Yeah, there's some complications.

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Speaker 1: Most most people don't really need cutting edge equipment like no,

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Speaker 1: but so I mean, if you really want the sophisticated machines,

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Speaker 1: the gaming machines are the ones I think. Yeah, and uh,

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Speaker 1: when we come to sound, that's another element you for

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Speaker 1: modern games. You don't want anything that you don't want

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Speaker 1: a sound card that won't support at least five point

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Speaker 1: ones around sound. Yeah, you'd probably want seven point one

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Speaker 1: because there are games out there that take advantage of

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Speaker 1: the seven point one channel sound system. So, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're starting to get it pretty expensive here. And let

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Speaker 1: me give you three different manufacturers of gaming PCs that

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Speaker 1: that are kind of typical in the in the marketplace.

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Speaker 1: So there's there's the CyberPower PC line. Yeah, there's the

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Speaker 1: Velocity Raptor line, and then there's alien where, yes, um,

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Speaker 1: these are manufact was known for producing high end, super fast,

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Speaker 1: super sophisticated gaming PCs. Yes, I went on alien Ware.

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Speaker 1: Just chose alien Ware because I'm really familiar with the

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Speaker 1: brand and I thought it might be interesting to just

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Speaker 1: see what happens if I were too heavily load down

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Speaker 1: a gaming pc kind of give it all the bells

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Speaker 1: and whistles. Okay, and we should point out to I'm

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Speaker 1: I feel compelled to point out that that that's of

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Speaker 1: the recording today, because we just finished talking about how

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Speaker 1: quickly they go out of dates. By the time this

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Speaker 1: podcast publishes, it may very well be that the state

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Speaker 1: of the art is not what I have listed. And

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to give all those specs because that

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Speaker 1: would just be ridiculous. It would take we need another podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'll just say that I loaded it up with the

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Speaker 1: fastest CPU that was available, the largest hard drive, the

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Speaker 1: fastest optical drive which included Blu ray reading and writing UM,

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Speaker 1: the best video cards that I could get in the system.

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Speaker 1: I added a monitor, added a card that would allow

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Speaker 1: you to hook up to I think three additional displays,

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Speaker 1: so you could have four displays running off of this

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Speaker 1: one machine, which is kind of absolutely insane. I can

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Speaker 1: imagine having UM one display in front of you, with

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Speaker 1: two other displays flanking it, kind of in a slightly

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Speaker 1: tilted towards you slightly to give you kind of that

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Speaker 1: surround feeling, and then have a fourth display that just

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Speaker 1: has your regular like instant message and stuff on it

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Speaker 1: just in the background, you know, just if you want

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Speaker 1: to check UM or hey, put it behind you and

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Speaker 1: put a rear view mirror up. Anyway, so once I

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Speaker 1: added all of these things together, the price tag came

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Speaker 1: to a total of ten thousand, three hundred twenty two

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Speaker 1: dollars and ninety three cents. And that's in US dollars.

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Speaker 1: That's an expensive computer. Yes, it is um actually expensive

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Speaker 1: computer system because it did have lots and lots of

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Speaker 1: extra stuff. But yeah, we're it was by the way,

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Speaker 1: just so you know what the model was, it was

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Speaker 1: the Alien where area fifty one a l X then

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Speaker 1: with all the options, and that included a custom made

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Speaker 1: water cooling system and all that good stuff. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's expensive. Now, if you want to build your own,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna save lots of money, but it is going

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Speaker 1: to require research and uh and some careful shopping. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and you'll be able to find some fairly cheap parts

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Speaker 1: online as well as in various stores. Uh. I know

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Speaker 1: Tiger Direct is a good resource for things like like

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Speaker 1: motherboards and CPUs and that sort of stuff, but don't

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Speaker 1: think and places like that. So, like I said before,

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Speaker 1: the first thing you need to do is consider what

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Speaker 1: CPU you're going to use, because that's going to that's

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Speaker 1: gonna drive further decisions down the line. So you figure

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Speaker 1: out what kind of CPU. You want you know whether

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Speaker 1: that's going to be the fastest one on the market

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Speaker 1: or if it's just going to be an a nice

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Speaker 1: competitive one. Uh. Then you have to find the motherboard

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Speaker 1: that will or the kinds of motherboards, because it's going

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Speaker 1: to be more than one, but the motherboards that will

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Speaker 1: support that CPU. You also want to be able to

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Speaker 1: see what kind of connections you can make to that

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Speaker 1: motherboard because when it comes to graphics, there are two

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Speaker 1: different kinds of of of graphic hookups that you can

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Speaker 1: go into. There's pc I Express and there's a g P. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so pc I express is ah, well, you may remember

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Speaker 1: back in the day, pc I was the way to

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Speaker 1: hook up graphics to your computer. Remember that. Yeah, pc

401
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Speaker 1: I uh was very limited, didn't have a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of throughput for for information, and a g P kind

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Speaker 1: of replace that. So a g P is sort of

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Speaker 1: the current standard, I would say for graphics cards. And

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Speaker 1: uh it's an a g P slot that's on the

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Speaker 1: motherboard and most motherboards will support one or the other.

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Speaker 1: They don't support both. Um. Now there's pc I Express,

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Speaker 1: which is faster than a g P. In fact, I

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Speaker 1: think I read somewhere that it's up to four times

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Speaker 1: faster than a GP, so it puts through more information

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Speaker 1: and less time. So it's if Since it's faster, it

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Speaker 1: will probably end up eventually becoming the new standard for graphics.

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Speaker 1: So if you want something again, there's no way to

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Speaker 1: future proof. But if you want to try and ride

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Speaker 1: that wave, pc I Express might be the right way

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Speaker 1: to go. But again, that's going to your motherboard will

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Speaker 1: will determine which kind of video card you can use,

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Speaker 1: so make sure that the motherboard supports it before you

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Speaker 1: go and buy your video cards, and also make sure

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Speaker 1: that your motherboard can support more than one video card

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Speaker 1: if you plan on buying multiples. Um, go ahead. I

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Speaker 1: was just gonna say, uh, one thing too. I didn't

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Speaker 1: want to sound like I'm down necessarily on gaming laptops,

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Speaker 1: but in general a laptop isn't going to because there

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Speaker 1: are some very very sophisticated ones. Dell's Alien Wear line, uh,

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Speaker 1: since they've been acquired by Dell earlier this year. Um uh,

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Speaker 1: you know has some really nice laptops, and I've seen

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Speaker 1: some others. To the downside being that it's not as

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Speaker 1: flexible as far as being able to make upgrades to

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Speaker 1: the machine, and in general, laptops aren't it doesn't you

431
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:22,959
Speaker 1: know that laptops have slightly slower processors at least as

432
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:26,840
Speaker 1: of right now than most desktops, especially the high high

433
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: end desktops that you would use for graphics and video

434
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 1: and gaming. Yeah, and you can't you have a lot

435
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: you're you're you're very much limited on how to cool

436
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: your laptop compared to a desktop. Um, you're not gonna

437
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: find a whole lot of really sophisticated cooling mechanisms zero

438
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: essentially looking at heat sinks and fans, and they run

439
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: hot anyway. It seems like a lot of people have

440
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: commented on that. And you know, I actually was going

441
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,680
Speaker 1: to talk about peripherals a little bit, but we're starting

442
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 1: to run short on time, and you know, maybe we

443
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: could actually do revisit that at a later date, because

444
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: they have some really sophisticated stuff. Yeah. And and even

445
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: if you're again going back to building your own if

446
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: you're building your own desktop, I mean, there are other

447
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: considerations you'll have to make beyond the CPU and motherboard

448
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: and RAM and your video card. You we will have

449
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: to figure out what kind of case you want. You're

450
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: gonna need a You're probably gonna want a case that's

451
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 1: gonna be easy for you to access those those periper

452
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: not peripherals, but those cards, so that you can swap

453
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,159
Speaker 1: them out if you, you know, either burn through a

454
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: card or if you want to upgrade. You want something

455
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 1: that's gonna be easy to access. Um, you're gonna want

456
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: something that's gonna be easy to cool. So you're gonna

457
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: need a cooling system of some sort of at least

458
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: a fan, probably more than that, if you're really pushing

459
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: the edge of the envelope here, and uh, and a

460
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: power supply. You're gonna have to make sure that whatever

461
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,480
Speaker 1: power supply you get is going to be able to

462
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: supply enough power to your machine to make it run.

463
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: As it may turn out that you've got all these

464
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: really awesome components in your computer, but your power supply

465
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: can't support that much power, and then and then you've

466
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 1: got to go out and get another one. I did

467
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: think of one other thing that we haven't touched on.

468
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:09,719
Speaker 1: What's that Internet? If you're playing something that requires an

469
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: online component, such as a massively multiplayer online role playing game, UH,

470
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: you're going to want a nice fast Internet connection which

471
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 1: is partly inside your computer and partly outside your computer,

472
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: because if your internet service provider can't deliver reasonably fast,

473
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: reliable connection, you're going to end up getting killed very

474
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: frequently if you're playing something like a first person shooter

475
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: online or UM or you get dropped from the game,

476
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: dropped from the game, UM, and UH, part of that

477
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: is inside your computer. You do need to make sure

478
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: that if you're playing wirelessly. Now you know, wireless connections

479
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: are not always as reliable as a UH an Ethernet

480
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: connection would be. UM. You know, I think that's certainly

481
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: a lot better than it than it used to be

482
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 1: years ago. But still, I mean, you might you might

483
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,879
Speaker 1: have some latent between yourself and the wireless especially if

484
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: you have other things in your home that are interfering

485
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: with your connection and the distance between you and the

486
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: wireless router. UM. But also you know, if you if

487
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: you have a a connection that supports for example eight

488
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: O two down eleven N, which is the most recent

489
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: UH proposal for the standard, it gives you you know,

490
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: the fastest UH most UH you know, the longest distance.

491
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: They look at the range here, the widest range for

492
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: the connection. UM. That's also something to take into consideration. Um,

493
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 1: you know, wireless connections are going to be more reliable

494
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: for people who are not necessarily needing to uh stay

495
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: on top of a very fast action game. Um, you know,

496
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: it's it's not as much of an issue for them.

497
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 1: So you might might find people using wired connections, you know,

498
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: for people who really need to stay online constantly for

499
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: a for a nice reliable connection to the internet. Right.

500
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 1: And and if you're one of those people who still

501
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: likes to do land parties, yeah, then you're going to

502
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 1: want to take the end to consideration too, because clearly,

503
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: if you if you're doing land parties, maybe a gaming

504
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: laptop is the right way to go, or maybe you know,

505
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: you might want to consider a desktop that's you know,

506
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: easily portable and doesn't have a big water cooling system

507
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: attached to it. Yeah. I actually saw when I was

508
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: doing research for the podcast some that had handles built

509
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: into the case for the desktop, which is an improvement.

510
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 1: I had some friends at a former job that used

511
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: to play games over land parties, and uh, they had

512
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 1: slings set up for a desktop tower computer, an actual

513
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: and if you haven't seen these before, it's an actual

514
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: sling fabric sling that they would use to carry over

515
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: their shoulder with their stuff so they could bring it

516
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: in to the to the land party. And it just

517
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: seems like it would be very, very unwieldy to try

518
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: to manage that, but you know, they wanted their best

519
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: machine for the job. So and if you believe that

520
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: land party are dead, then you haven't been reading the

521
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: StarCraft two complaints because from what I understand, they've they've

522
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: pulled the ability to do land parties from the game,

523
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that StarCraft players really

524
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: enjoyed doing. They're just playing over battle that there's nothing

525
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: quite like playing playing a networked game in the same

526
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: general physical space as other people. Because yeah, you can

527
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: smack talk over various protocols that that will carry your

528
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: voice and everyone will be able to hear it. It's

529
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: not the same as being able to make eye contact

530
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: with the person while you're making smack talk. That's true

531
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 1: that you're not like you're looking away from the screen anyway,

532
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: but momentary glance I do, but that's because I'm so

533
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: darn good, um nice, please don't kill me on Xbox Live.

534
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: So anyway, the that that kind of wraps up the discussion. Now,

535
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: now James did ask about sites that would let you

536
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: kind of tell you about building your own computer. One

537
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: one resource I found that was very helpful was build

538
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: game Computers dot com. And that was build dash Gaming

539
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: dash Computers dot com. That actually has a pretty good

540
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: um round up on all the components that you might

541
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: need or want in a gaming computer and sort of

542
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: the stuff you need to look for and the things

543
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: to keep in mind. I drew a lot of resources

544
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: from that particular website, so that one comes recommended from me.

545
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: And uh, I guess that wraps up this discussion about

546
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: gaming PCs. I don't think I'll be but building one

547
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: anytime soon, just because despite what I said earlier, I'm

548
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: really not that great of a gamer, and uh and

549
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: I'm kind of lame. I've gone to the console gaming

550
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: world and I don't see myself turning away from that

551
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: anytime soon, except for maybe Civilization five. I've got to

552
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: get on the CEV five train, because I'm looking forward

553
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: to that. It's I've got friends who have been playing

554
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: it for a few days now and they love it,

555
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: and I want to. I want to play against them,

556
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: you know, Tom Maritan, Ronica Belmont for one. Really Yeah,

557
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: they're both big bands and they're both playing, So I

558
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: want to conquer tom Merritt's little village and and then

559
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: and then mock him mercilessly, although he'll probably wipe me

560
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: out anyway. If you guys have any comments or questions,

561
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook and Twitter, remember where tech

562
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: stuff HSW on both of those, or if you want

563
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: to send as an email. Our address is tech stuff

564
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com and Chrisma ill taught

565
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: to you again really soon if you're a tech stuff

566
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: and be sure to check us out on Twitter text

567
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,479
Speaker 1: stuff hs wsr handle and you can also find us

568
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash tech stuff h

569
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: s W For more on this and thousands of other topics.

570
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com and be sure

571
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: to check out the new tech stuff blog now on

572
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: the house stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the

573
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you