Gamers are notorious for their hardware lust. We talk about pixels and triangles incessantly and worship at the altar of the GeForce 3 when it comes to pure, monitor-melting power. We use strange things like fans and minifridges and liquid nitrogen to force processors beyond their performance limits. Like the grease monkeys of the Fifties, we too spend a great deal of time tweaking our machines for optimum performance, only it doesn't require going outside.
All this lusty hardware talk can be intimidating for the wannabe gamer, or for those who actually have budgets. Fortunately, games tend to be a bit behind the power curve. As of now, for example, processors are roaring past 1 GHz while most games require merely a Pentium II 266 to run decently. However, you can't be a kewl d00d if you don't have the goods and, really, bragging about your Celeron 300 is just plain embarrassing.
Fear not, for a mighty computer is within your grasp. It won't be bleeding edge (we're working with a $1500 budget) but it WILL last you for a good long time and give you all the gaming lovin' you need while you sell kidneys to build The Ultimate Gaming Tower O' Power.
A case is a case is a case, right? Cause, all it does is just sit there, and stuff, right? Well, no. Your case should do three things:
- 1. Provide ample space for all the wires, pieces, parts, gizmos, doohickeys and thingies that go inside it
- 2. Provide adequate airflow for all those high-power, high-heat things like processors and video cards. Make no mistake; cooling is a major issue when it comes to performance, which is why some people use liquid nitrogen to keep things nice and cold.
- 3. Finally, your case should be easy to work in. Those sleek black desktop units look so very cool that you could easily be swayed, but jamming hands and screwdrivers and pliers into a case the size of a toaster oven makes life difficult quickly. Tower-type designs are the way to go.
The Enlight case is a fixture in the Value Gaming PC guide and, after extensive research, there's not a better case for the money. For $50 you get 4 5.25 and 2 3.5 External drive bays and 1 3.5 Internal drive bay. This provides a great starting setup, with room for extra hard drives, a CD burner, and anything else that will be needed later.
If you shop around some, you can get an extra case fan with your case, giving you extra cooling power to keep all those fancy, heat-generating parts cool. Make sure you get a 300W power supply, as the mighty Athlons need all the power they can get, and vendors vary when it comes to the "bundled" power supply. When in doubt, spend the $5 to get one.