How to setup a balanced Gaming-PC Setup

The biggest problems people will run in to while picking the parts for a Gaming-PC-Setup are bottlenecking and input lag. I play Counter-Strike titles for almost 7 years now and after 2 years of playing minigames or against my friends just for fun in Counter-Strike: Source I discovered another level of this game. With CS: GO I got introduced to the competitive aspect of Counter-Strike.

I used to play CS: GO competitively with a Gaming-PC that delivered solid 200 FPS on 1080p (1920×1080) and during this time I always felt like the enemy can see me earlier. It took me a year to realize that I’m bottlenecking my PC with my bad 60 Hertz monitor because it can only show 60 FPS. Upgrading to a 144 Hertz monitor was just mind-blowing and literally a game-changer. At this point I started learning a lot of things about bottlenecking and input lag in a Gaming-Setup.

What is “Bottlenecking”?

From cars, to PCs or even our body. Something is always holding something else back or bottlenecking a whole process. Everything has bottlenecksand there is no way around them until something runs perfectly and instantly.

In PC-Systems the data is being send over many components from the storagethe most common bottleneck is the GPU-CPU bottleneck.

Imagine buying the most expensive Graphics-Card and placing it in the oldest System you can find. Besides of compatibility you start a game and your gaming experience on that machine will probably improve slightly. The old system is getting pushed to its limits and send out as much data as it can, while our expensive Graphics-Card can only work with the information that it receives from the system that means it will sit down and relax the most time.

What can we do about bottlenecking?

The answer is to reduce them. Avoid extreme bottlenecks and think about the goal that you are trying to achieve and then direct your resources to the things that you care about to optimize the process.

Pick the right parts for your Gaming-PC

In the overwhelming market for PC-Components are a lot of variations for every component especially in the Gaming genre you will find yourself in marketing traps like fancy RGB-RAM sticks with an overkill speed while the system can’t make use of it.

To solve this problem and make it easier for you to pick the right parts we will go through a fixed process in order to receive a balanced outcome.

GPU – Graphics Card

The Graphics-Card or GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) will receive the needed data from the CPU (Central Processing Unit) and turn it into a picture that’s send to your monitor to make it to your eyes. In a Gaming-PC the GPU is the most important component that is why it is recommended to invest 40-50% of your budget into the Graphics-Card. When it comes to choosing the right one for your needs it depends on your budget and the games you want play because older games that are build on a CPU-Based-Engine like the Source-Engine wont benefit as much from a High-End GPU like a AAA-Gametitle.

For example, you plan to build a PC for 4K gaming at high details in a Triple-A game like Farcry that has High-Hardware-requirements then you will choose a High-End-GPU that is a proven expert at handling this game and build up from there.

CPU-GPU balance

You need to make sure that the CPU is in the same performance class as your GPU in order to make use of it. Placing a High-End GPU in a system with a Low-End CPU will run into a bottleneck because the CPU can’t handle all the other information like physics besides the visual information of the game that it needs to send to your GPU in order to be able to create a picture and send it on your monitor.

Upgradeability

In terms of upgradeability the GPU is independent to the other parts in your system and fits on every motherboard with a PCI-Express Slot. However, when it comes to a GPU upgrade just keep in mind that the CPU you are using is still able to fill it with the needed data to make use of it.

CPU – Processor

After we picked the GPU, we are going to pick the heart of our PC, the CPU because it will determine every other part we will pick after it. New CPUs will use DDR4 RAM. Again, we have 2 companies to choose from, Intel and AMD. Intel CPUs are known for its high clock speed, but they can get pricy while on the AMD side you get more cores for the same price.Some games benefit from the high clock speed and can’t use more than 4 cores in that case a quad core CPU with high clock speed is the way to go. Programs like Adobe Photoshop will also benefit from high clock speed while video editing and rendering likes more cores.

Look at the games you play and the programs you are using and then choose your CPU from there. However, when it comes to price/performance the AMD-Ryzen will give you the best results because the CPU is cheaper and easier to overclock.

Upgradeability

A CPU upgrade will cost you the most in the worst case you will have to upgrade the whole PC. You must remember that your GPU still goes well with your old GPU in order to not run in a huge GPU Bottleneck. Look at the Power supply you are using and if your new configuration needs more power.
Older CPUs are running on DDR3 RAM and once you upgrade your CPU to a new one that runs on DDR4 you will need to buy DDR4 RAM and a motherboard with DDR4 slots as well.

RAM (Random-Access Memory)

Random-Access Memory stores the data and machine code that is currently being used on the machine. DDR4 is the latest and fastest version of DRAM on the market. Programs get loaded into the RAM from our SSD or Hard-Drives because the fast performance is needed to feed our CPU with its needed data to turn the ones and zeros into a visualized image.

As always, we have different speeds that are measured in MHz and determent how fast the RAM can feed the CPU with the data from 2133 MHz up to 4266 MHz. CPU companies like Intel include the maximum supported DRAM in the Memory Specification for the specific CPU which often lays around 2400 MHz.

So why are companies like G-Skill advertising speeds that almost double that value?

This is the point where sanctioned overclocking (XMP) comes in place. XMP will allow the CPU to receive the data at speeds above the supported speed for the CPU. To use XMP you first need a Motherboard that supports it and secondly you must turn it on manually in your BIOS.

However, sanctioned overclocking is still overclocking, and you could run into problems from not booting at all to crashes from time to time depending on the specs you are using.

I recommend Dual-Channel 16GB (2 x 8GB RAM Sticks) with 2666 MHz because for the most CPUs and games that is the sweet spot where performance scaling drops down a lot while the prices keep going up. However, High RAM-Memory-Speed for example 3200 MHz could be a big deal depending on the CPU you use and the games you play. Some games love higher RAM speeds and get insane results like 10% FPS-improvement while others don’t care at all and only get an improvement of 1%.

Motherboard

Motherboards have many different sizes. The most commons are:

• Standard-ATX (305 x 244 mm)
• mini-ATX (284 x 208 mm)
• micro-ATX (244 x 244 mm)
• Mini-ITX (170 x 170 mm)

For a common PC-Setup I recommend choosing the Standard or micro-ATX format.

Your CPU of choice will determine the motherboard you will have to buy because of the socket your CPU is using for example Socket- AM4 for AMD or 1151 for Intel.

After finding a Motherboard with the right Socket you still have a lot of variations that are not necessarily needed like a click BIOS with better overclocking support, XMP, additional ram slots for upgradeability, better cooling and additional PCI Express slots for all kinds of stuff like networking.

In the case you are planning to invest in an overclockable CPU with an unlocked multiplier like the K-Series from Intel you should get a Gaming-Motherboard that supports overclocking like the Z-Series for Intel-CPUs.

SSD and HDD

Storage made huge jumps in the past and the times where a PC reboot took 2 minutes are over. From HDDs to NVME M.2 SSDs, all of them have the same task, they store data but there are many differences between the old HDDs and the new SSDs. The write and read speed of an HDD is limited by the hearable physical platter in it while SSDs don’t use that anymore and reach read and write speeds that are way faster.

• HDD ~80-160 MB/s
• SATA-SSD ~500 MB/s
• NVME M.2 SSD ~3.000 MB/s

What kind of storage should I choose for my System?

An up to date PC-System should always have an SSD in it to at least store the operating system and your games on to reduce the loading times tremendously. I recommend an 250GB SATA-SSD and an HDD or SSHD for all the data you don’t need every time you use your PC because the price/GB is still way lower. I personally use an 120GB SATA-SSD for windows 10 and my favorite game CS: GO. For everything else I use a 1TB SSHD, but I will upgrade to an 250GB NVME M.2 SSD soon.

If you would like to upgrade to an NVME M.2 SSD you will have to look for an M.2 slot on your motherboard that supports NVME.

Case

Cases come in many different variations and sizes like

• Full-Tower
• Mid-Tower
• Mini-Tower

I would recommend a Mid-Tower because it has a balanced airflow with upgradeability for more fans, mostly supports all kinds of motherboard sizes and enough space for your desired GPU and CPU cooler.

Before we can pick the cooling for the CPU, we should find a case that supports the size of our motherboard and the desired cooling. For example, an All in One CPU-Water cooling loop will come with a radiator in different sizes that goes into the front, back, top or sometimes in the bottom of your case depending on the room for it, while an Air Cooler goes directly on top of your CPU. Every good case covers the information you need to know in order to pick the right size for your cooling.

Cooling

Keeping the CPU at a low temperature is a big deal. Some CPUs will automatically clock its speed down in the case its running to hot and I would personally never use the stock cooler that the CPU comes with. To keep the price and the maintenance/risk level as low as possible I recommend Air Cooling.

However, with the AMD-Ryzen CPUs a new stock cooler got introduced and if you would Ryzen Build that runs on its base clock the stock air cooler will do its job completely fine.

Power Supply

After we picked all our parts, we need to power them and because we picked all the other parts first, we can choose a Power Supply that uses just the power we need. However, you should leave your GPU a little headroom and in term of upgradeability just a tiny move upwards never hurts. However, you can save some money by calculating the amount of power your machine needs to run but never save at the brand. Remember that cheap china Power Supplys are the reason why many houses burned down.

To find the right amount of wattage for your configuration you simply enter your parts into this calculator from outervision and you are good to go it will add a little headroom like I recommended before as well.

Building the Gaming-PC

After you picked all the parts you want to use and you have them on your table the only thing that you will need to do is putting the Gaming-PC together. Sounds easier than it is right?
Im sure after you watched this Video you would be ready to build any PC without a problem.

Game genres

If you would like to build a PC-Setup around a CPU based game, you shouldn’t invest 50% of the budget into a GPU like its recommended for a Gaming-PC because the CPU would work hard while our GPU is sitting at a usage around 70%. Instead you will go for something around 30% and invest in a Higher-End-CPU ­­­­­­­­­­that’s a proven expert for this game.

Competitive E-Sport titles for example CS: GO

CS: GO is unique in its resource usage mainly it’s a CPU based game (because of the source engine) with low-hardware-requirements but to get the best result and advantage over your enemy’s you want to place at least a decent Mid-Level-GPU in it. However, in the CS: GO scene its normal to set the graphics settings all to low and play on an overkill value like 300 FPS (more is always better) and with a 144 Hz monitor because it has such a high level of competitivity. No one wants to lose a round because of a frame drop while all 4 team mates are watching you. Moving into the pro scene you will see those guys playing on the best Gaming-PC you can buy now with a low resolution like 4:3 on a 240 Hertz monitor to get the best performance possible.

Battle Royale Games for example PUBG

Battle Royale Games will stress any PC to its limits because it has so much information to handle: The Map with many hills, plenty of Loot, up to 100 detailed Player models, detailed buildings and Physics like bullet drop.

PUBG is an unoptimized Battle Royale title and it’s one of the hardest games to handle for your PC. No matter how powerful your Gaming-PC is you will still recognize tremendously FPS drops in some situations.
For example, at the start all 100 Players jump down at one small spot. This will have such a high impact on your system and the server the game is running on that it is hard to reach a butter smooth experience.

Triple A games for example Battlefield

Triple A gamers like to have the best graphics experience on the market and that’s why you get High-Hardware-Requirements.

These games are GPU friendly and in the most cases well optimized that means a well-balanced High-End-Gaming-System will be able to run it stable on high graphic details at 4K resolution and in the most cases on 144 Hertz, but this is again situational depending on the scene and your specific components.

MMORPG

MMORPGs have low-hardware-requirements in the most cases that’s why you should aim for a Mid-Level-Gaming-Setup to stay future proofed without switching to low graphic details.

However, while building a PC around a MMORPG you should focus on the CPU because of the huge amount of information the game is sending to your CPU, it will have to render all the huge worlds, plenty of player models, spells or effects. However, most MMORPG gamers use 60 Hertz monitors because either the PC isn’t powerful enough to reach 144 FPS in that game anyway or it is capped to 60 FPS in the game settings. In the case you use a 144 Hertz monitor on 60 FPS you want a monitor with G-Sync or Free-Sync depending on the Graphics-Card you are using because this will reduce tearing and input lag, but this will get pricy on 144 Hertz.

Peripherals

The biggest issue I have seen so far with Gaming-Setups is the balance between your peripherals and your PC. Having a High-End-Gaming-System but using a 60 Hertz monitor with bad response time and a cheap wireless mouse/keyboard combo feels like driving a 100.000$ sports car in a city. You have all that power, but just can’t use it all it can do is being loud, fancy and expensive because the powerful engine needs a lot of fuel while you at the end get the same result as someone with a 1000$ car. You drove from A to B with the same speed.

To fix this problem we will look at your Gaming-PC and how it performs in your specific game. Then we will move to the budget you can use for the peripherals and after that we can balance it to get the best result possible.

Monitors

The monitor is one of the most over looked parts of Gaming-Setups while it has in my opinion the biggest impact on the gaming experience. As high refresh rate monitors got more popular and more affordable. People started realizing that it not only delivers a smoother image because more frames are shown per second but also reduce the input latency between the actions you make with your mouse and the image shown on your monitor.

This might be not a big deal for the average gamer but for the competitive aspect of games this was a game-changer. While upgrading your monitor you have 2 things to look at.

Refresh rate

60 Hz / 144 Hz / 240 Hz monitor – Hertz will determinant the shown FPS by your monitor. In the case you use a 144 Hz panel it will pick 144 of the frames send by your GPU per second. However, to receive a butter smooth experience you still want to reach more than 144 FPS in your game because dropping under the value can cause stuttering and high input latency.

Response time

It’s the measured time it takes for a pixel to change from black to white or from one shade of grey to another. Having a monitor with bad response time will cause ghosting. That means in fast scenes your monitor can’t switch a pixel off fast enough and the fast-moving object will get followed by a “ghost” the best example for this to test it yourself is the cursor on your desktop. If you would move it fast enough you will see it appear in more than one spot.

Are high refresh rate monitors worth the money?

If someone would ask for my opinion on what monitor, he should buy next, I will always recommend 144 Hertz refresh rates with 1ms response time. Upgrading from 60 Hertz with bad response time to a high refresh rate like 144 Hertz is such a big jump in performance. You will turn your PC on, move the cursor one time and you’ll never want to go back to 60 FPS again. I personally would always choose a higher refresh rate over a better resolution.

Everything above 144 Hertz will be better invested in the PC itself or the peripherals like a Gaming Mouse with a High-End Sensor until you are not playing like 10 hours a day or planning to move into the pro scene. In the case you already got everything you need to reach more than 240 FPS in the desired game and still have some money left to spend on your setup, sure go for a 240 Hertz monitor.

CS: GO Pro-Gamers use High-End-Gaming 240 Hertz monitors while most of them play on a lower resolution than 1080p but in the most cases this is just personal preference and not hardware based because they play like this for years.

Hardware-categories

Gaming-Hardware is often split into four categories:

• Entry-Level
• Mid-Level
• High-End
• Enthusiast

Entry-Level-Gaming-Computers

Entry-Level-Gaming-Computers or Budget-Gaming-PCs are designed for people that are new to gaming and who mostly play Games with Low-Hardware-requirements like Browser-Games, MMOs and Free-to-Play-Games.

However, while others recommend an all in one Ryzen-CPUs with an integrated GPU called APU. I personally would always go for a CPU only unit around the same speed but invest in a GPU because once you get into games that require a bit more GPU power (for example Shadow of Mordor) your APU will run into a huge bottleneck with its compared high CPU but low GPU power.

In that situation the most gamers will simply upgrade to a GPU and the old APU graphics unit will be useless.

Example for an Entry-Level Gaming-PC

AMD-Ryzen Gaming Setup

Mid-Level-Gaming-Computers will run Games in Full-HD (1.920 x 1.080 Pixel) on high details without a problem and in some cases VR (Virtual Reality) or a higher resolution like 4K/UHD (3.840 x 2.160 Pixel) on 60 FPS is be possible as well.

Example for a Mid-Level Gaming-PC

High-End-Gaming-Computers with a powerful GPU, CPU and fast RAM will run Games in 4K/UHD (3.840 x 2.160 Pixel) on high details without a problem and VR (Virtual Reality) will not be a problem as well.

Example for a High-End Gaming-PC
Enthusiast-Gaming-Computers are designed to run any Game in 4K on 144-Hertz monitors. They often contain two High-End-GPUs in SLI (Scalable Link Interface) and overclocked Top-End-CPUs cooled by water.

Example for an Enthusiast Gaming-PC