Optimum computer performance for work. How to choose and buy a home gaming computer? What should be the RAM

Computer technology has become an integral part of our lives. Any office, home cannot be imagined without a computer or laptop. Before going to the store, you should think about how to choose a good computer for home, work and play, the purpose of acquiring a computer and the tasks that it will perform. The goals can be completely different: work at home, in an office environment with Internet access, video conversion, photographic image processing and much more. It is necessary to determine the purpose of the purchase in order to choose a high-tech device according to the essential parameters and features.

If a computer is chosen only for the home, with the help of which they are going to go online, communicate via Skype and social networks, watch movies, download video games, then its price can be inexpensive. About 300 dollars.

When purchasing an inexpensive device, you should remember: the cheapest modern computer will work much faster than the system unit that was released on the market three years ago and was especially cool at that time.

Computer for home use

If computer equipment is necessary for work, there is no need to rush. It is necessary to collect as much information as possible, read the article how to choose a good computer.

Bonuses and additional payments to the salary of the seller often depend on the revenue of the store. Therefore, he can sell what is completely unnecessary at an inflated price. After examining the entire range of products presented, collecting reviews and comprehensive opinions, you will find the best computer for yourself.

There are a huge number of system blocks on the computer market. All of them have different power, performance, system requirements.

The main characteristics that you should pay attention to when buying a computer:

  • RAM size ( RAM computer) provides data storage. Its minimum size is 4 GB (gigabytes), the maximum is 8 GB. If you are going to use, download and store a large amount of information, then 8 GB of memory is the most acceptable option.

Comparison table of DDR3 RAM

  • The most important properties of the processor are the type and frequency, the number of cores. The speed of the computer processor depends on the value of the clock frequency. It denotes the number of operations performed by the system per second. The higher the frequency value, the faster the computer runs.
  • There are two types of video cards for computers. Integrated - built into the motherboard. It cannot be changed. Computers with integrated video cards are suitable only for work in office mode. Discrete - this is a separate card, installed in a special compartment on the motherboard. The video card is chosen according to your needs. If you are a video game lover, the card must be powerful. The price of a card directly depends on its power. Cards for gaming games are expensive.
  • Motherboard. Its size doesn't matter. The main requirement for the board is its uninterrupted operation.
  • HDD. The larger the hard drive on your computer, the more information you can store on your computer.
  • What you need to pay attention to when choosing a system unit is the cooling system. If the cooling system does not work properly, this may cause damage to the technical device.

Photo of the cooling process in the system unit

  • Optical drive. Choose the drive that has the ability to write information to more formats. Write speed is also important.
  • Number of connectors. If you use flash drives every day, charge your phone, camera through a computer, the number of connectors will matter.
  • Operating system. It is possible to buy a computer with an already installed system, or without it. Keep in mind, a computer without installed system, will cost less.
  • The weight of the system unit. This option should be of interest to laptop buyers. When buying a stationary system unit, this information is not important.
  • Choose a computer for gaming, home or work according to significant characteristics, with an acceptable price-quality ratio.

Gaming PC

The cost of computer models ranges from the cheapest copies, from 10,000 rubles to fancy and stuffed with everything you can devices costing more than 60,000 rubles. Suggested review computer technology, will answer the question: which computer is better to buy.

Processor-based system unit Intel Core i5 and i7:

  • An expensive device for 50,000 rubles Intel Core i5-4670K.

Powerful Gaming Computer (AMD):

  • Expensive processor 60,000 rubles Amd Athlon II X4 840.

AMD-based system unit up to 30,000 rubles:

  • This option costs 30,000 rubles, the functionality corresponds to the cost. Processor AMD FX-6350.

System block on Intel-based Core i3:

  • Intel Core i3- 4130. The price of this device will be approximately 23,000 thousand rubles.

Computer up to 15,000 rubles Intel:

  • This option, not expensive, but good, is the Intel Celeron G1820.

Budget computer up to 15,000 rubles AMD:

  • From the AMD series, we can offer the AMD A4-5300.

AMD Series

When buying in a store, be sure to check the availability of all documents for the computer, instructions, receipt. Make sure you get a warranty.

Conclusion

Progress does not stand still. Technologies are developing rapidly. Therefore, when buying a super modern computer for a lot of money, produced, for example, this year, one must be prepared that after a while it will no longer be as powerful and functional as new models. We hope this article helped you learn how to choose the right computer.

Video review and tips from experts:

10 tips for buying a computer

Purchasing a computer is a very responsible business. First, it's an expensive purchase. Secondly, it is a technique on which, perhaps, serious work depends. Thirdly, even experienced users do not always know how to choose the best PC components, since the market is very volatile.

We will try to help you choose a good modern computer. Of course, the relevance of the article will be greatly lost with each passing month, but the basic principles will help you navigate in the near future.

So, there are over a dozen areas of PC application (from office work before graphic modeling). Let's limit ourselves to the most popular tasks. So, we need a computer to play modern video games, listen to music, watch movies, and, of course, type texts and surf the Internet. A sort of digital entertainment center for the whole family. Having outlined the goal, let's move on to the solution.

Modern computer can become a real entertainment center at home

We will try to choose the most reasonable system, taking into account the best combination price and quality, while maintaining more opportunity to improve the computer (upgrade) in the future. We decided to advise you on what you need to pay attention to when buying. Conventionally, when choosing a PC, you need to answer 10 questions:

  • How suitable is the monitor for solving your tasks?
  • Is the case reliable and easy to use?
  • Is the motherboard able to work stably with other PC components?
  • Is the processor suitable for multimedia applications?
  • How much RAM should be?
  • Will the video card handle modern games?
  • Can optical drive work with DVD and record?
  • How big is the hard drive capacity?
  • Will the audio system sound "flat"?
  • Which manipulators are best suited for multimedia and games?

We will try to help you answer these questions by recommending a solution.

In my previous article, I talked about how to choose components for assembling a budget home computer. It is realistic to assemble such a computer within 15,000 rubles and it will fit for work and study, and running modern games on it will be impossible.

But after all, someone wants to have a high-performance computer on which it will be possible, in principle, to do anything. This is the computer on which all modern games will run, powerful graphic programs and the entire system as a whole. Accordingly, such an assembly will cost you about 45,000-50,000 rubles and probably even a little more. But such a computer is completely unreasonable to buy if no one will play games or work in professional graphic editors! In this case, just overpay a large amount ... In the end, you can take something mediocre (thousands for 25), on which you can play some modern toys (but not at the maximum graphic settings) and at the same time, of course, to work.

Therefore, in today's article I will talk about the choice of components for assembling a gaming home computer and by reading given material, you will already be guided from which price category and which components to choose and you will be able to buy everything yourself!

There is an option to simply buy a ready-made (already assembled) system unit and not bother with the selection of components, but it will cost more and not very high-quality parts could be stuffed into it during assembly! Read more about buying a ready-made computer in the previous article by clicking on the link above. I recommend reading that article in order to understand the difference between the components for a budget office computer and a high-performance gaming computer.

If you are a beginner and do not yet know which computer component is needed for what, what it looks like and what characteristics it has, then I strongly recommend that you read my article about this:

Well, now let's proceed directly to the choice of all components for the subsequent assembly of a home gaming computer! We will not consider the choice of laptops / netbooks here, and this will be discussed in one of the following articles.

We select components for assembling a high-performance gaming computer!

If you decide to assemble a very powerful computer, then you have money, at least in the region of 50,000 rubles today, since everything, as you know, has risen in price a lot. We will select the components for assembling a gaming computer. When assembling such a computer, the main money will fly away to the processor and video card.

In the previous article, I already said that, in my opinion, it is most convenient to select components for the subsequent assembly of a computer through online stores, where it is possible to flexibly filter the selected product by characteristics. Here is an example of such stores for the city of Moscow: Ulmart, Wow! , Citylink . You can also select the desired product through the service from Yandex - Yandex-Market, which at the same time will indicate all the stores in your city, where this moment It is possible to purchase the desired product and at what price!

    Processor selection. A processor from the Intel Core i5 family of one of the modifications is suitable. I have heard more than once that even in cool games more new line- Core i7 does not boot to its fullest and that some significant difference from Core i5 is often imperceptible. At the same time, I myself have Core i5 installed on one PC, and Core i7 on the other, and at the same time I can run the same modern new products with the same performance here and there. Then why do we need to overpay the extra 4,000 rubles now? I think that an i5 processor with the addition of a powerful graphics card and good RAM will be more than enough.

    The Core i5 processor (like the Core i7 and almost all other lines) is sold not only in one modification, as beginners might think. There are several varieties of these families of processors, differing from each other in frequency, number of cores, volume internal memory(Cache) and other additional parameters. The price range for Core i5 processors will be from about 10,000 (if you take the cheapest Core i5) to 18,000 rubles.

    You can take, for example, this one: Intel Core i5-4690K, on ​​average, for 15,000 rubles (in my example, 15,670 rubles):

    The selected processor, according to the characteristics, has an LGA 1150 socket, therefore, when choosing a motherboard, it will be necessary first of all to make sure that the board supports such a processor!

    If you take everything to the maximum for a gaming computer, then at a cost it will bypass some server computers and go beyond 150,000 rubles. Because even if you take core processor i7, which is from a higher class, then their cost starts from 19,000 and can exceed 70,000 rubles! We, accordingly, will not consider this :) We will meet somewhere in the region of 50,000 rubles, taking into account that such a computer will freely draw all modern games without slowdowns for a long time to come!

    Choosing a cooler (fan) for the processor. When buying a good processor, the cooler that comes with it in the kit can be safely thrown aside :) We buy powerful hardware, which means we need to take care of good cooling. And if, when choosing a budget version of a computer, you can safely install a built-in cooler and not be afraid of overheating, then when assembling a gaming PC, it is better to immediately buy a good cooler!

    Which company to choose a cooler is everyone's business, and here you won't see any big difference in quality and price. But the most famous and proven are: Zalman, as well as cooler master. You can buy a suitable one for 500-700 rubles on average.

    It is very important that the cooler fits your processor socket, otherwise you simply cannot install it on the motherboard! To do this, the characteristics always indicate compatibility with sockets. If we take the example of a processor that I showed in point #1, then it has an LGA 1150 socket. This means that the characteristics of the cooler must indicate that it is compatible with this socket!

    Here is an example: Zalman CNPS 90F for 490 rubles:

    A good cooler that is compatible with the selected CPU socket and inexpensive.

    Motherboard selection. The motherboard for a gaming computer will cost us almost as much money as we charged for budget computer, which you can't really play games on. We definitely need support for the processor we have chosen (in my example, the processor socket is LGA1150), modern ports, support for the most modern video cards and the ability to install at least 8 GB of RAM with a frequency of at least 1600 MHz.

    By firms, we choose Asus, Gigabyte or MSI as the most priority and reliable, and at a price somewhere around 3500 rubles. Such a fee will meet our requirements.

    Here is an example of a suitable motherboard for 3520 rubles:

    The board has everything we need:

    • The board supports the processor, which I showed in the example in point #1. The specifications of the board indicate that it supports LGA 1150 socket and Intel Core i5 processor type.

      It has the necessary PCI Express x16 3.0 slot for installing a modern video card.

      Supports installation of up to 4 RAM modules with a total maximum capacity of 32 GB and with a module frequency of 1600 MHz. We have enough 8 GB of RAM.

      Has USB 3.0 outputs. Useful for connecting modern fast flash drives and external hard drives.

      There are SATA3 connectors for connecting modern hard drives and SSDs inside the computer case.

    Choosing a gaming graphics card. Buying a video card is one of the most crucial moments when choosing components for a gaming computer. The choice of this component will take us a decent tidy sum from the total budget - about 15,000 rubles! :) But we want to play modern toys comfortably and without brakes, and at the same time also new items coming out in the future, don't we? So, you can't do without a really powerful video card.

    According to the type of video processor, video cards are divided into 2 types: AMD Radeon (ATI) and NVIDIA GeForce. It is pointless to talk about the advantage of any of these two video processors. In one game, a video card with an AMD processor may perform better, in another - a card with an NVIDIA processor.

    In mining, for example, they succeed significantly Radeon video cards and always earn more than GeForce. You can read about what mining is, as well as the results of my experiments, starting from this article:

    Consider the important parameters of a video card that you should pay attention to when choosing it:

    • Video card memory type. The video card has its own built-in memory for storing game data in order not to use RAM, which will be slower to access and, as a result, performance will be lost.

      Now on the market you can find video cards with memory: GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, GDDR5. The older the type of memory, the faster it is and generally better its characteristics. The most modern at the moment is GDDR5, and we will aim at it when choosing a video card.

      Video card memory. The larger the amount of memory built into the video card, the more game data it can store there and not access them in the slower computer RAM. As a result, performance is greatly increased! Now on the market, as a rule, you can find cards with memory from 512 MB to 6144 GB. It is not at all necessary for us to have a maximum memory of 6 gigabytes, but it is enough to have fast GDDR5 memory and a volume of anywhere from 2 to 4 GB.

      Video memory bus width. This is the "highway" through which data is exchanged between the processor of the video card and its memory. The larger the bus, the more data will be transmitted at the same time and, as a result, the speed increases. On the market there are video cards with buses from 32 bits to 512 bits. A 256-bit bus is enough, if the other parameters are also at a good level.

      Cooling system. Video cards can have active and passive cooling. Passive - a simple heatsink that is installed on the video card. Active - radiator + fan (cooler), which gives good cooling. Know that a good gaming graphics card simply cannot have cooling in the form of a simple radiator! Such a video card will constantly overheat and eventually just burn out. Passive cooling will go on budget video cards that are designed for "light", outdated games and launch simple programs to work with graphics. A gaming video card must have active cooling, and now such video cards often have several coolers (usually 2 or 3)

    Also, when choosing a video card, the question may arise: “Which manufacturer’s video card should I choose?”. There is no definite answer here, but these manufacturers have proven themselves the most: Asus, Gigabyte, MSI.

    And finally, we check the characteristics of the video card so that it has a PCI Express x16 3.0 connector for connecting to the motherboard.

    A good gaming graphics card, as I mentioned above, will cost you around 15,000 rubles.

    Here is an example of a good choice (Gigabyte GV-N760OC-4GD, GTX760, 4096MB, GDDR5, Retail) for 16480 rubles:

    This is such an expensive pleasure - a video card, if you want to play all today's game novelties and have a reserve for the future :)

    Choice of RAM. Everything is much simpler here. For games, we need 8 GB of RAM or more. More will cost already quite expensive, despite the fact that on 8 GB in combination with a good processor and video card, you can play everything in a row. The selected motherboard must support RAM running at at least 1600 MHz! If we consider the motherboard, which I took as an example for this article, then it just supports the operation of the RAM at such a frequency. Accordingly, we also select RAM with a frequency of 1600 MHz. Below is not needed, will run slower!

    Also, do not forget that we need DDR3 memory, which is by far the most popular. The motherboard must support this type of memory! And DDR4 has appeared relatively recently and is even more expensive, and boards with support for such memory will also, accordingly, be more expensive.

    In addition to the amount of memory, its type and frequency, the question may also arise: "Take 8 GB of memory in one module or a set with 2 modules of 4 GB each?". One bar will always cost less than a set of 2 modules. At the same time, 2 slats special technology work faster, but it's not essential, and you won't even notice the difference! Then why overpay, right?

    By firms, we choose Hynix or Kingston. I personally prefer them. As a result, memory for a gaming computer will cost us around 4,500 - 5,000 rubles.

    An example of the selected RAM for 4880 rubles:

    Choice hard drive(HDD). The hard drive has little to do with running games, but you will not just play games and that's it :) You will store some files, documents, movies, programs and anything. Therefore, I recommend taking a hard drive with a capacity of 1 TB. (1000 GB) with a SATA3 connector, which is supported by the motherboard chosen in my example. If you want to have a really modern and fast computer, then you will also choose a board for yourself that will support modern connectors and buses, including SATA3 for connecting hard drives.

    From firms, we stop at Seagate or western digital, as the most famous and reliable. Personally, I tend to prefer Seagate.

    A hard drive with the above parameters will cost around 3200 - 4000 rubles.

    An example of a selected hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200.14, ST1000DM003 1TB) for 3330 rubles:

    Selecting a power supply. Our assembled gaming computer will be quite gluttonous in terms of power due to the video card alone, and therefore you need to take a good power supply. First of all, you should look at the characteristics of the purchased video card, what is the minimum power of the power supply required for its operation. If we take as an example a video card from paragraph 4 of this article, then it requires at least 500 watts. So we take the power supply for a reserve, 600-700 watts, so that it is enough to feed our entire system. Accordingly, you need to choose a power supply based on which video card you have chosen. If it requires a power of about 200-300 W, then it makes no sense to take a 600-700 V power supply, as in my example.

    The next thing that is very important when choosing a power supply is the availability of connectors for connecting all purchased devices. We especially pay attention to the presence of connectors for powering the video card. Modern video cards have a power connector, as a rule, PCI-E 6-pin or 2 PCI-E 6-pin connectors at once, as in the video card I showed on the example (see paragraph 4 of the article).

    Also, the power supply must have connectors:

    • 24-pin ATX for motherboard connection;

      4-pin CPU for connection additional food to the processor

      At least 2 SATA connectors for connecting a hard drive and a floppy drive (or 2 hard drives / SSD, for example).

    There are several manufacturers of high-quality power supplies, and here are some of them: FSP, OCZ, Zalman, Hiper CoolerMaster, Chieftec, Foxconn. But many other companies also produce decent power supplies, sometimes for more low price. Here everyone has their own preferences.

    The power supply we need will cost around 3000-4000 rubles.

    The selected power supply for the system assembled according to the example from this article for 3610 rubles:

    Selecting a CD/DVD Drive. This item is not required if you never use disk drives for any purpose! But personally, I still often need a drive in order to burn a DVD disc with a movie, a CD with music in the car. It is also more convenient for me to run all sorts of boot programs, including installing / reinstalling Windows. Because doing all of the above with a flash drive, very often there are various difficulties that you just don’t want to waste time on. And with disks, everything is much easier.

    If you need a drive, and I think most people need it, then when choosing it, you should definitely make sure that the connection connector is SATA. There are also drives with a Molex connector, but they have long been outdated! Moreover, the board that you chose for a gaming computer is simply obliged to support SATA connectors for connecting devices such as disk drives and hard drives/ SSD :)

    Good companies to look out for when choosing a drive: NEC, Asus, Pioneer, Plexter

    Choosing a simple CD burner/ DVD drive You can freely keep within the region of 1500 rubles.

    An example of a very good drive for writing and reading any CD / DVD discs for 1020 rubles:

    I am not considering buying a Blu-Ray drive here, because they are expensive and not everyone needs them. If you need to burn and read Blu-Ray discs on your computer, then of course you will have to spend somewhere from 5000 rubles instead of 1000-1500 :)

    Just in case, here is an example of a good Blu-Ray drive worth 5500 rubles:

    Enclosure selection. Well, we got to the case, which will serve as a place for permanent storage of all purchased components and provide good air circulation :) special requirements to the choice of the case, in principle, no. The main thing is its size. The case should freely accommodate all our components and, most importantly, the motherboard and video adapter. In order to understand whether the case is suitable for us in size or not, it has a characteristic - the form factor. The form factor indicates which motherboard will fit in the case. For example, if the ATX form factor is indicated in the characteristics of the case, then it will be able to place both a full-size ATX format board and its reduced version - miniATX (or mATX). What format of the board you have chosen is indicated in its characteristics in the "Form factor" column. The board from my example has a form factor - mATX and it is by far the most common.

    Be sure to pay attention to the maximum length of the video card and the height of the CPU cooler that can fit in the case. Modern gaming video cards are quite bulky and it will be sad if it suddenly does not fit into the purchased case :) You will see the dimensions of the video card in its characteristics, respectively. The height of the fan for the processor (cooler) is also indicated in the specifications. Well, in fact, the maximum supported sizes of both are indicated in the characteristics of the case itself ...

    Do not forget that we do not need to buy a case with a built-in power supply, as it is convenient to do when buying a budget version of a computer. We have already chosen a good power supply for our system, and even more so the power supplies that come with the case are often not very good quality, and for a gaming computer, a reliable PSU is very important!

    You can safely buy a suitable case for our pieces of iron up to 3000 rubles. I will not give preference to any particular firms. Everyone chooses a convenient one for themselves, and also often suitable in design.

    An example of a selected case (Cooler Master CMP 350, RC-350-KKN1) for 2390 rubles:

Well, the selection of the necessary components for assembly has been completed. good computer for games :) If you calculate the cost of acquiring all the components according to my examples from this article, you get the amount: 51390 rubles! This is how much assembly can cost you powerful computer. Of course, it is possible and cheaper, but, therefore, you will lose performance somewhere when playing future game hits.

You probably noticed that I did not touch upon the choice of a sound card in this article. Why you don’t need to buy it, I already spoke in a previous article about assembling a budget computer, but I’ll remind you again. Sound card built into 99.9% of all motherboards and it is more than enough for the standard tasks of all users. It is not suitable, perhaps, only for professional work with music. As an example, connecting an electric guitar or some other musical instrument and working with its sound through special programs. For such purposes, you need to buy an external good sound card!

In one of my subsequent articles I will talk about the choice of the main peripherals for home computer, such as monitor, speakers ( acoustic system), keyboard and mouse:

I hope that my articles will be useful to someone :)

That's all. See you;)

Rostislav Kuzmin

Good time, dear readers! When buying any equipment, the user wants to get a device that meets his requirements as much as possible and at the same time at an adequate cost. This applies to all types of household devices - from an iron to a laptop. Today I will tell you how to choose a system unit for a computer for your home and buy exactly what the user needs, and not the seller.

To choose the right computer for home use, you should understand what tasks it is designed to perform. Conditionally, the desires of users can be divided into the following types:

  • networking, surfing, office applications.
  • multimedia tasks - the Internet, movies, music, simple entertainment;
  • special tasks - photo and video processing, rendering, programming, modeling;
  • gaming.

Often, users in the store say: “We need a gaming option,” but at the same time they mean games in classmates or VK. Obviously, the price tag of 60-70 thousand is surprising (this is how much gaming computers cost). For a better understanding of what exactly is needed, it is necessary to highlight the main programs or games that the buyer needs and then it will be realistic to choose the optimal device for the price and characteristics.

Criterias of choice

After the user has decided on what his system specialist should do, it is necessary to proceed directly to the choice. When buying, you should look at several important criteria:

  1. CPU.
  2. RAM.
  3. HDD.
  4. Video card.

Each of the components affects the system in its own way. At the same time, when choosing a PC, balance is important. It makes no sense to buy a powerful chipset and an integrated video card if the amount of RAM is small. In this case, the processor simply will not be able to give out the maximum of its capabilities.

CPU

Not every user knows how to choose the right processor. There is an opinion that it is extremely important to look at the number of cores. This is a common misconception, since in 2019 even the most budget processors can have 4 cores, while more powerful and expensive ones are equipped with only two. By what criteria in this case to determine whether the processor is suitable or not.

There are two major chipset manufacturers in the world - AMD and Intel. There are other companies, but their products are not widely used and are more often segmented, that is, they are used in a certain environment. For example, Russian Baikal chipsets are produced for military purposes.

Which company to buy a processor is an important topic that no user bypasses. Without going too deep into the topic, it can be noted that Intel chipsets are considered better. They run cooler, have a ton of built-in technology, and big choice rulers allows you to choose the best option for any task.

Intel chipset lines:

  • Celeron are entry-level processors for a home computer that won't be used for gaming.
  • Pentium - chipsets with better productivity. Positioned as a combination of performance and price. On some Pentium models, you can play quite well.
  • Core i3 - line with better performance Suitable for active work, multitasking.
  • Core i5 - universal chipsets for any task, including games.
  • Core i7 - a series of processors with high performance, but they are more often chosen for devices designed for "heavy" work.
  • Core i9 - uncompromising gaming chipsets. They have maximum performance and they are also expensive. The choice of esportsmen and those who are not ready to make any compromises.

The line of AMD chipsets is the A and FX series. The second is more productive and here you can choose options for games. Series A has a division - A4, A6, A6, A8, A9, A10, A12. You can conditionally divide:

A8 is an average option for any tasks, but without any special loads, it can be compared with Core i3 chipsets. All chipsets up to A8 - for work at home, skype, surfing. Above A8 - productive options for games and resource-intensive tasks.

Having worked for many years in a digital equipment store and having experience with customers who have already purchased a computer, I concluded that AMD chipsets are optimal for multimedia tasks at home, as they show good level performance and at the same time are inexpensive, but if the user's task is heavy games and applications, then Intel should definitely be chosen. Another observation is that more often buyers buy Intel instead of the old AMD.

It is important when choosing a processor to look at clock frequency. The higher it is, the better. The kernel was mentioned above. A large number of them is good if they are high-frequency at the same time. In some situations, two cores perform better than four. An important point is that some chipsets support smart overclocking technology, that is, the device independently decides when to raise the frequency and when to lower it so as not to load the device once again. The increase in productivity occurs when performing heavy tasks and when working with several programs at the same time.

Recently, Ryzen processors from AMD have appeared on the market. They work just like the previous ones. That is, they heat up and are much cheaper than Intel, but they are not so loaded when working with games and heavy programs. So far, no one knows about them in terms of performance for ordinary users. That's when they start to buy up in large quantities, then at least some reviews and ratings will appear. In the meantime, we will lower them until better times.

RAM

This type of memory is necessary for faster data exchange between the chipset and hard drive. To put it simply, the RAM stores information that the chipset needs more often, and in order not to receive it for a long time from the hard drive, it is written to RAM (random access memory). It is quite obvious that a large amount of RAM is a guarantee of speed. The minimum value for 2019 is 4 GB. Devices should be considered from this value, but it should be understood that this is not enough and in a year there will be a shortage. The ideal option is from 8 GB.

HDD

It may seem to many that this criterion affects the amount of information stored. This is true, but the data transfer speed depends on the type of disk. There are three types of memory:

  1. SSHD.

The first option is classic discs with slow speed and large volume. If an option for a home without games and heavy applications, then it will be enough.

SSD- solid hard a disk without rotating parts, which affects its service life, the volume of work and, most importantly, the speed of data exchange. They are expensive, but if the user has several important applications, then it is worth considering a combination - a small SSD + a large HDD. The first will be used for the OS and applications, and the second will serve as storage.

SSHD is a hybrid of the above types. In fact, there are two types of memory here - small SSD for the OS and a large HDD. Today, such disks are widely used, as they are a compromise between speed and price.

video card

How to choose a video card for the system, which one to choose - integrated or discrete. These are questions that confuse buyers. The video card is the node that is responsible for the graphics in all its manifestations - whether the user watches videos, photos, plays or renders.

Video cards are divided into two types - discrete and integrated. Based on the names, we can conclude:

  • discrete - a full-fledged separate video card;
  • integrated - built-in, that is, in fact, here its functions are performed by the processor.

If the user is not going to play or process photos and videos, then he may well refuse to buy a system unit with discrete graphics. In this case, it would be a waste of money. Otherwise, you should look for models that have a discrete graphics card.

The manufacturers are AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce. Without going into details, it should be said that gamers choose the second option as more productive. The second point is that many games are mostly tailored for GeForce cards.

When choosing a card, you should pay attention to the numerical code of the model. The first number always refers to the generation. The higher it is, the newer the card, that is, it is better to choose it. For AMD, the most relevant generation is 9, for GeForce - 10. The second digit always indicates performance, that is, model 97** is more powerful than 94**, the situation is similar for GeForce. Nvidia gaming graphics cards have a second digit of 5 or higher.

By choosing a chipset, memory and video card, the user has actually determined the most important parameters for himself. Next, you should pay attention to the types and number of connectors, the size of the case, its appearance and location options. These parameters are not key, so everything here depends solely on the specific desires of the buyer.

Top Models

Model for home use - surfing, movies, music, office applications. Classic vertical black case. Chipset - Intel Celeron G4900 with two cores at 3.1 GHz. The video card is built-in. Storage - HDD 1 terabyte. RAM – 4 GB expandable up to 32 GB. The model has a DVD drive with the function of recording discs, as well as a built-in card reader. Connectors: 3 USB 3.0, 2 USB 3.1, 1 Type-C, HDMI, DisplayPort, RJ-45. For the money, it is perfect for both home and office. The operating system is not installed. Price - from 21 thousand rubles.


Device based on AMD A9 9425 series chipset, 3.7 GHz (max), two cores. Like the previous version, the device is equipped with an integrated video card (but you can already play on it), 8 GB of RAM, 1000 GB of ROM. The system unit comes preinstalled with Windows 10, which affects its cost. Option for multimedia tasks at home, including not the most demanding Online Games as well as any office work. Connectors: 2 USB 2.0, 4 Type-C, VGA, HDMI, RJ-45. There is a slot for a drive. The case is black, vertical arrangement. Price - from 26,000 rubles.


A good option for the home and those users who will not only work or surf the Internet, but also want to play. Chipset - AMD A10 9700, 4 cores at 3.8 GHz (max), memory - 8 GB, storage - 1 TB. There is a disk drive, a discrete video card - GeForce GTX 1050. Small in size and finished in blue on the front and black elsewhere. Connectors: 2 USB 2.0, 2 Type-A, Type-C, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, RJ-45. Equipped with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. OS - Windows 10. Price - from 30 thousand rubles.


HP OMEN Obelisk 875-0003ur, 4UA33EA

The HP Omen series is positioned as gaming devices. This model is suitable for games and serious work with graphics. Chipset - Core i3 8100, 4 cores at 3.6 GHz. Memory - 8 GB (max 32). Hard drive - 1 TB + 128 GB. Video card - GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4 GB. Wireless modules– WiFi, Bluetooth. Connectors: 4 Type-A, Type-C, HDMI, Display Port, RJ-45. The operating system is not installed. Price - from 60 thousand rubles. ( 2 shop).

In addition to the fact that the computer stores themselves are divorced immeasurably, besides, in the stores themselves, the choice of both ready-made computers and individual components for them is simply incredible. To an uninitiated user, it will not be clear what is responsible for what and what to choose. Often, people are guided by prices, by the number of gigabytes, gigahertz, cores, or simply listen to what sales managers tell them.
I, in turn, in this field, as they say, "ate the dog" and I know not only what goes with what, but also about more serious and important details, without having knowledge of which, you can commit gross mistakes. In this post, I will briefly try to talk about some of the details of choosing system components and give 3 examples of gaming computer configurations that you can order and assemble, both on your own and in a store.
The first thing to consider when choosing a gaming computer is that you should never buy them ready-made! Those people who are engaged in the selection of components do not at all want to select the appropriate components for a gaming computer, moreover, the finished PCs themselves, as a rule, are much more expensive than the computer you have chosen yourself, or rather its components, for subsequent assembly, and even taking into account that some stores take money for assembly, anyway, the kit you choose will be more powerful and cheaper than ready-made analogues. For this we forget about turnkey solutions and proceed to the choice of components.
When choosing components for a gaming PC, you need to consider the following factors:
1) And most importantly! The performance of a computer and its individual components cannot be measured by comparison with other models based on the amount of memory in gigabytes, or based on frequencies, number of cores, etc. Real performance is measured in terms of specific programs, in real tests that are conducted on popular, reputable publications dedicated to computers and components, you can easily find information on individual components by typing a query into Google, such as - " Intel Overview i5-4590k", or for example "GTX980Ti review". In order to make sure the information is true, go to 3-4 different reviews at once and check the information, if it converges approximately everywhere, then everything is correct.
2) Intel processors, almost always, turn out to be more powerful than processors AMD in games, and it doesn’t matter at all that the same intel i3 has only 2 physical cores, and the same AMD FX-8300 has as many as 8, and even at a high frequency. But the point is that intel processors strikingly large performance of each core and this performance gives them an advantage over AMD processors in games, because games are rather reluctant to optimize for multi-threading (multi-core). Therefore, when choosing a processor, you need to focus on real tests in real games, and not on synthetic tests, such as SuperPi. The most optimal processor for games is almost any intel i5 with a frequency above 3.2 GHz, and if you need more performance, then pay attention to processors with the letter "K" at the end, such processors can overclock, which adds to performance and sometimes very much ! Also, it is worth keeping a balance between the processor and the video card, it is completely useless to put intel i5 in combination with, say, the GTX750Ti, but it will also be too illogical to put i3 and GTX980Ti, it will not be enough. It should be remembered that the processor should not cost more than the video card!
3) A video card is the main component of a gaming computer, on the basis of this component you need to build a gaming computer and the power of a video card is not measured in gigabytes, or simply in megahertz, in fact, there is no power measurement in principle. There are separate indicators, such as - the amount of memory, which is not so important if you have more than 3 gigabytes on a video card from 15000r, or from 2 gigabytes on cheaper cards, or the frequency GPU, which can vary between different models, of the same product (the same chip model, say GTX970, can be produced by a dozen companies and each video card will be different), etc. Also, it is worth considering that there are reference and non-reference designs, what does this mean? The reference design is the standard design provided by the manufacturer for this video card model, the reference design video cards heat up and make more noise, so their purchase is not recommended. Video cards of non-reference design heat up less and make less noise, as they have the best system cooling, with several large and quiet fans, and also, sometimes have a different component base, which allows them to be overclocked more efficiently, so I recommend purchasing only non-reference design video cards.
4) The amount and frequency of RAM - in fact, the amount of RAM for games, only 8 gigabytes is enough, more is not needed in fact, and the frequencies do not play a special role, therefore the best choice, these are 2 memory sticks of 4 gigabytes each with a frequency of 1600 MHz, preferably Samsung Original, or HYNIX Original. Sticks without the word "Original" are counterfeits on these chips and are of inferior quality.

5) Hard drive and SSD - for most games you only need an acceptable HDD, such as Western Digital Black and no positive response from SSD installations, will not be in games, but installing the same SSD allows the system itself to work much faster and speeds up the loading of games itself.
6) Motherboards - the biggest misconception is that expensive, cool motherboards give an increase in performance. This, alas, is not so! The motherboard is the connecting link between the processor, memory, video card and other components of the system, in fact, the motherboard is the wires between the components of the system. But also, it is worth considering that motherboards may have functions that are important to you and you should choose a motherboard based on your needs. When choosing a motherboard, in addition to the obvious things, such as choosing a socket (socket for a processor) and checking compatibility with the selected processor, you need to look at - the number of connectors you need - SATA for hard drives and drives, USB 2.0 and 3.0, etc. look at the presence of such functions as SLI, Crossfire, which allow you to install several video cards at the same time, but if you don’t need such a function now, then it’s better to refuse to buy such motherboards, you overpay huge sums for these functions. The best way, this is a motherboard, costing 4-5 thousand rubles, ATX form factor with an 8pin processor power connector and 4 connectors for memory modules, as well as with 5-6 connectors for connecting sound devices.
7) Power supplies - The biggest misconception about power supplies is that more watts is better. Nothing like this! There will be no difference between a 65 and 1500 watt PSU for your system, if it is built on one processor and one video card. The power supply must be selected based on the consumption of the system. The most powerful video card cannot consume more than 350 watts, the processor, no more than 250 (rare specimens, overclocked, without overclocking, powerful CPUs eat about 80-100 watts), everything else consumes about 70 watts. Therefore, for systems around 30000r, 500-550 "watts" is enough, for powerful PCs, with one video card, "for overclocking", 650 watts, and for the rest, it depends on the number of video cards, but the rule is simple - +1 video card = +300 watts.
8) Do not forget about cooling systems, if the processor is overclocked, then you need to choose a processor "cooler" based on tests, the most best option, for example Coolermaster S200. If the processor is not chasing, then you can choose a simpler cooler, up to 500 rubles, according to reviews on the same Yandex market.

This is how components are selected somehow, and now I will give 3 examples of decent assemblies with a certain price category, these assemblies are intended only for games and do not meet certain requirements, but this does not mean that they cannot, say, be engaged in work, or rendering / audio processing. Also keep in mind that theoretically it is possible to select even more optimal components, but for this you need to start from stores and the presence of certain components in them, these components are selected in one store that delivers goods throughout Russia and has its own representative offices in many cities. (prices are taken from one popular store, its name cannot be indicated according to the rules of chips).

And so here are 3 configurations from me:
The configurations themselves with links to the store:
30.000Р:
Processor (CPU) - AMD Athlon X4 860K Black Edition, OEM 4170r
CPU Cooler - Cooler Master S200
Motherboard - ASUS A88XM-A 3340r
RAM - DIMM DDR3 1600Mhz 8GB Hynix Original 3750r

Video card - MSI R9 270 GAMING 2G, R9 270, 2048MB, GDDR5, Retail 9430r
Housing - InWin IW-EAR007 500W4290r
Total - 30300r
This configuration has a price within 30000r and is designed to replace game consoles, it can play all modern and planned games at settings close to high. If you have money, then you should replace the motherboard with an AM3 + with an AMD970 chipset, for example from MSI and replace the processor with an AMD FX-8300, it will cost about 3-3.5 thousand rubles, but it will be worth it.

55.000Р, video timecode 15:55:
Processor (CPU) - Intel Core i5-4590, OEM 13860r
CPU cooler - Cooler Master CP6-9HDSA-0L-GP 530r
Motherboard - ASUS B85M-G 3640r

Hard drive - 1TB, Seagate SV 35.5, ST1000VX000 3750r
Video card - Palit PA-GTX970 JetStream 4G, GTX 970, 4096MB, GDDR5, Retail 22170r
Housing - InWin IW-EAR007 4290r
Total - 52310r
This system unit is designed for high and ultra settings in all modern games, like the previous system unit, it has exactly the same case, with a built-in 500 watt power supply, mATX motherboard, the same 1TB hard drive. But given configuration, not designed for overclocking, at least the processor, and the power of the video card and processor allow you to play all games comfortably.

80.000R:
Processor (CPU) - Intel Core i5-4690K, OEM 16620r
CPU cooler - Cooler Master S200 940r
Motherboard - MSI Z97S SLI KRAIT EDITION 7520r
RAM - DIMM DDR3, 8GB (2x4GB), Kingston HyperX FURY blue, HX316C10FK2/8 3970r
SSD - SSD 128GB, Plextor M6S, PX-128M6S 4500r
Hard drive - 1TB, Seagate SV 35.5, ST1000VX000 3750r
Video card - MSI GTX 980 GAMING 4G, GTX 980, 4096MB, GDDR5, Retail 33450r
Case - Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-01, CC-9011050-WW 3790r
Power Supply - ATX Corsair CX 750, CP-9020015-EU, 750W 5930r
Total - 80470r

This system unit is at the forefront of technology. The motherboard with SLI support, overclockable processor, power supply and case are designed for installing two video cards, and the existing video card is pre-top and gives stable high fps in all games. This configuration is intended for a narrow circle of people who crave high FPS and juicy pictures.

Of course, not everything is matched perfectly, but it is possible to select ideally only for a specific person and his tasks.

That's all, I hope you enjoyed reading this ton of text and it will be useful to you. And remember - in no case, do not buy ready-made computers, they cost you more and work much worse. In the modern world, there are shops where you will be collected and helped in the selection of components for the system!