What's the Most Important Component of a Gaming PC? — TechDay (2024)

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What's the Most Important Component of a Gaming PC? — TechDay? ›

The GPU is the cornerstone of a gaming PC, responsible for rendering the complex graphics and effects that bring games to life. A powerful GPU can handle higher resolutions, faster frame rates, and more detailed textures, providing a smoother and more immersive gaming experience.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

Together with the CPU, the GPU has a direct effect on your in-game FPS and is a must-have for anyone who wants to play demanding, graphics-heavy games.

Every game has different PC requirements, which can be found on the game's official page. Modern titles are highly intensive and require a powerful CPU-GPU combo, at least 8GB-16GB RAM, and sufficient storage to run without bottlenecks.

Generally speaking, the higher the clock speed per core, the better. When choosing a new CPU, look for the highest clock speeds possible within your budget while also ensuring you have the cores/threads you need for your workloads.

GPU. A laptop's GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, creates the pixels that form the images on your screen when gaming. Along with your CPU, it's the key to enjoying smooth frame rates and high-resolution gameplay. If you're looking to game in 1440p or 4K, a capable CPU and GPU is a must.

Your graphics card is the centerpiece of your gaming experience, but you can't unleash its true performance without the right graphics driver. Updating your graphics card driver can be a huge FPS booster.

Prioritize choosing the right CPU and GPU, especially if you plan to play at higher resolutions or FPS. Consider an SSD for faster loading times. Make sure the system has plenty of accessible USB ports for connecting gaming devices.

If you're serious about gaming, select a gaming PC with a powerful CPU processor and video graphics card. Don't neglect cooling, as gaming uses a lot of power. If you're buying a gaming laptop, see whether it has built-in heatsinks for additional cooling and consider a laptop cooling pad.

Sure, high-end PCs are going to be expensive, but it's important to understand what you're paying for, and what you shouldn't be. For a high-end PC, what you're looking for is a machine that will run all of the newest games at all of the highest graphics settings, and continue to do so for some time, preferably years.

Is the i5 or i7 better for gaming? ›

The i7 is faster than the i5, and can handle more intensive tasks. If you are a power user who often uses demanding applications, or if you plan to use your computer for high end gaming or other resource-intensive activities, an i7 processor would be a better choice.

In the battle of high-end AMD vs Intel CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 families square off against Intel's Core i9 and Core i7 lineup. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the uncontested fastest gaming chip on the market, and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D isn't far behind. As mentioned, these chips do carry a premium, though.

The i9 line is the top of Intel's consumer stack, representing the peak of what Intel can do on either desktop or laptops, while the i7 fulfills the niche of being a more modestly priced engine for prosumer content creation and a solid driver for gaming throughout.

When building or buying a gaming PC, the graphics card is where you should pay the most attention. It's the component with the biggest hand in beautifying your games, spitting out high frame rates, making it possible to play higher resolutions, like 4K, and enabling higher-end visual features, like ray tracing.

So, if you want enough overhead to keep playing new releases in the future, 16GB of RAM is recommended. If you plan to do more than just gaming, consider 32GB.

A PC is built from these basic components: a motherboard, a CPU, a GPU, system memory, a hard drive or SSD (solid state drives), a power supply unit (PSU) and a case. These days, parts are designed to be highly interoperable, but the invaluable website PC Part Picker will help you to spot compatibility issues.

RAM (random access memory) is a key component in any gaming PC. Adding more RAM can boost system responsiveness and improve frame rates when compared to systems with less memory. Read on to find out how RAM works, how to find compatible modules, and how much memory you really need for gaming.

The processor might be the single most important component you choose for your build. Memory and storage fuel the processor which controls every data transaction within the PC. When you're determining which CPU to install, pay attention to the gigahertz (GHz) – the higher the GHz, the faster the processor.

No single part more than the graphics processing unit, or GPU, will hold the biggest factor in gaming performance.

A PC is built from these basic components: a motherboard, a CPU, a GPU, system memory, a hard drive or SSD (solid state drives), a power supply unit (PSU) and a case. These days, parts are designed to be highly interoperable, but the invaluable website PC Part Picker will help you to spot compatibility issues.