Cooler Master’s original Cosmos case was one of my favorites – alongside the Antec 900. It has great cooling, looks, it’s quiet, and durable – the problem is the price. Still, if it fits in your budget, I say go for it.
The Cooler Master Cosmos is more or less legendary among top-of-the-line enclosures. It’s not hard to see why, either: it’s big, it has loads of expansion, and it looks like a giant refrigerator…for your computer. That said, some time has passed since the Cosmos originally landed with very little in the way of updates. Today, Cooler Master brings us the long-awaited update, the Cosmos II. With a $349 MSRP and a shipping weight of nearly fifty pounds, this enclosure is oversized in every way. Will it retain the cachet of its predecessors, though, or have advances in the computing market since the era of the original Cosmos left the Cosmos II a shiny relic of a bygone era?
PhysX is a little discussed component of nVidia geforce video cards which is unique to the nvidia line. It is a proprietary element which was originally developed as a separate PhysX card designed to provide a boost in processing power for physical calculations in video games.
Game manufacturers have access to an SDK where they can develop some of their game physics code to process with the PhysX engine – providing a substantial increase in processing power over simply utilizing the system’s CPU (much in the same way that the discrete graphics card removes graphics processing from the systems CPU).
PhysX is relatively new and in some views surprisingly underused. The reasoning for this is no doubt due to the limitation that you require the usage of an nVidia video card running PhysX. Game publishers can’t load critical game elements with the necessity of PhysX as they would obviously lose out on a huge customer base of people who do not utilize nVidia cards.
There are two things I really like about PhysX. The first is that the concept of offloading calculations of physics in video games provides the potential to create visual affects which are completely mind-blowing – thinks like particle physics, dynamic environments, and fluid calculations. The second is that PhysX offers a way for you to increase your video card’s lifespan. One thing you can do with nVidia cards (which you can’t do with AMD’s cards) is to run two completely different model nVidia cards together, running one as a pure PhysX card (as long as it is an 8 series or higher card with 256 mb ram or more) while the other acts as the video card.
Ultimately, the proprietary nature of nVidia’s PhysX requiring the usage of an nVidia card will restrict this feature to fewer games – and in those games it will only serve to add extra on top of the game, as it is unlikely any game publisher would make it a requirement. When I upgrade to a new system, I plan on using my current 8800GT as a PhysX card – and I think if you have the option, you should consider it when upgrading.
For a list of games which utilize PhysX, check out the bottom of the PhysX wiki article.
We are in sort of a lull right now – the beginning of the new year brings change, and having just passed the holidays, some of us may be in a situation to build a new gaming computer. CES this week is showing us some really awesome technology that will make it’s way to PC gaming over the next couple years. So you might be asking, should I build a new system right now? Let’s consider what we have:
Last year brought us Intel’s Sandy Bridge. The preferred processor for gaming right now is the i5-2500k paired with either a P67 or Z68 board. My recommendation for mid-range video card is the nVidia 560ti (I would also consider the 560ti 448 cores). Ram is incredibly affordable right now. SSD prices have dropped dramatically and manufacturers have churned out many new models – there is lots of competition there, and some very find options. We have also seen the introduction of hybrid HDD drives with SSD attached for caching. In the meantime, HDD prices have remained high after the Thailand flooding disasters.
Now we look forward to this year, and what is coming to us in April. In April we will see Ivy Bridge plus a new motherboard chipset supporting this. Ivy Bridge looks have a 70% boost in cpu graphics support over Sandy Bridge – what this means in terms of gaming is not quite known yet. Simply put, the i5-2500k equivalent in Ivy Bridge is going to be the new king of the hill. Along with this we will see PCIe 3.0 and USB 3.0 – possibly even some Thunderbolt support.
The new platform brings us a lot of new goodies – it’s not every year that you see an upgrade in gfx support architecture – so I would say this next tech upgrade is “significant.”
The question if you are looking to build right now is, do you wait 4 months for a new system?
Any system you build right now is going to be a fantastic system – it is safe to say a mid range sandy bridge system built right now will likely last you 3-4 years, as it will take a couple years for game manufacturers to start producing en masse the type of games that will take advantage of PCIe 3.0. However, if in two years you want to play the newest games at max settings, its possible you may need to upgrade again then. Right now it is difficult to tell the route which video games will take considering the new technology we are about to come into – it’s safe to say that a couple companies will make games pushing that tech to the limits (think Crysis when it first came out).
I’m actually in this boat right now – I’m looking to upgrade (I would also like to bring y’all some cool video of the process), but I would prefer to do so with the Ivy Bridge system – I’m just not sure 4 months is worth waiting for. As is said, you can always wait for the next tech upgrade, but then you will be left sitting there doing nothing.
Those of you returning to visit will notice a few changes going on – I’m working to make the site a bit more pleasant to look at and easier to navigate. The major changes are completed at this time, but there will be some minor one’s coming down the road. I’ll be having a proper logo made up for one, as well as a couple freebies that I want to give away – so stay tuned.
Those of you who are new, welcome! I hope you enjoy…
Between now and when I get those freebies up, I’ll be setting up a quick email subscribe for those of you who want an update when that goes into place.
Also keep in mind I have the Build a Gaming PC Facebook page set up, where I like to share industry news, tidbits, reviews and fun stuff of that nature – I’ll also be updating on site based things there as well.
I’m also looking to share certain news items on Build a Gaming PC as well – not on the same volume as the Facebook page, just a few times a week in between the major articles.
When building a computer, the subject of cooling often just gets glossed over – “buy an after market fan.” It’s a pretty simple solution, and is quite effective. The other option is Liquid cooling – and for a long time this has been a somewhat complex and involved solution. There are now liquid options that are just as easy as Air, and diving into the custom liquid solutions is actually not that difficult. First, the differences between air cooling and liquid cooling:
An air cooler is basically a metal block with finned radiator design on top – usually with fan mounted to it. The heat dissipates up the fins and is then distributed to air via the fan (and/or other moving air components). You will notice RAM often has a metal “heatsink” on it as do certain chips on the motherboard – these usually don’t have fans because the amount of heat being distributed is typically not too great that the moving air in the case can’t take care of it. A typical liquid cooler is a metal block with hollow section that has tubes attached to it. The heat dissipates into the metal block and is then transferred to the liquid which is flowing in a specific direction through the metal block. The basic reason for going liquid over air is that liquid transfers heat much more efficiently than air, allowing for much higher levels of cooling.
The easiest way to do liquid cooling is to purchase an all-in-one unit, typically made for the CPU – such as the Corsair H100. These units are installed very much like air cooled units, but they come with tubes attached to an external fan (typically attached internally to an external port). These are basically the cooling block, pump, and radiator all in one. They are designed to not need a reservoir.
Those CPU units are excellent if you are looking to do some decent overclocking with your CPU (though there are air units which handle this just fine as well). They are also well suited for processors like the Sandy Bridge E, which naturally runs hotter than regular Sandy Bridge – as a note, you can just look at the wattage of a CPU to determine roughly the level of heat it produces. Sandy Bridge E is a 130W CPU vs the Sandy Bridge i5-2500k which is a 70 Watt CPU.
Aside from those premade CPU units, if you want to also use liquid cooling for your graphics card, RAM, motherboard, and even hard drive, then you want to look towards building a custom liquid cooling solution. Here I want to touch on the basics of this. Once understanding the basics, it is not that difficult to dive in – so to speak.
The Liquid cooling systems is typically comprised of four core components.
The water/heat block to transfer heat from the component
The pump to move the liquid through the system
The reservoir to hold the liquid used by the system
The radiator to exchange heat from the liquid system to air
Once understanding this, the critical detail to figure out is how much you are going to cool with liquid. As previously stated, you could easily acquire a stand alone CPU liquid cooler and be done with it – you could also put together a custom liquid cooler for the CPU which would no doubt be able to provide higher levels of performance. The real reason to put together a custom liquid setup is to cool multiple components.
Let’s say we want to do this for the Ultra Dream machine build. To start, we would want liquid cooling for at least the CPU and the two graphics cards. The way you handle multiple components in a liquid cooled system is quite simple – this involves setting up a loop for the liquid to travel. In this case it would be from reservoir to cpu to gpu to gpu to radiator. You might wonder – won’t each successive component receive heated water? This conundrum is handled by acquiring the proper type of pump for the amount of components you are using. A larger pump moves more water faster, increasing the rate of heat exchange, increasing the amount of heat that can be exchanged.
This means that you can create extremely customized system setups. For a fully liquid cooled system – including chipsets – it isn’t uncommon to build multiple loops. The company I prefer for looking into custom built liquid cooling is Koolance – while I have not used them personally (as I have not custom built liquid cooling), they have been around a long time, are well reviewed, and well respected.
With the release of Intel’s Sandy Bridge E series CPUs, I can now take my Ultra Gaming build dreaming to the next level. Previously I have presented realistic gaming builds, in the ‘mid-range’ and ‘budget’ level categories – these have been based on developing systems of value that will allow you to play video games for many years while staying within a specific budget. In this article, I’m skipping over the ‘high-budget’ build and going straight for the Ultra Dream system.
There is no reasonableness in this build. If you want a build that gets you the best performance value for your money, check out the mid-range budget build. This Ultra Build here is simply an incredibly awesome system, made with the most powerful hardware available. It takes advantage of the increased memory and video bandwidth using all four slots of quad channel ram, and using both 16x/16x SLI video slots. I suppose I could go all out with 4 video cards, but then I wouldn’t have room for the PCIe based SSD, and the unnecessary, but still surprisingly appealing Killer gaming NIC.
I would take it a step further and go all out with custom liquid cooling, but I honestly don’t have the experience with extreme custom liquid cooled systems. I’ve always used air cooling, because unless you are overclocking to the extreme, or using a system like this, air cooling is fine. In this system, I will be using a liquid cooling block for the CPU only. In the near future, I plan on writing up an article on custom liquid cooling, as I started researching it for this article.
The CPU choice is obvious – the i7-3960X is the most powerful. It’s also over $1,000 for the processor alone – but here we aren’t worried about that. The CPU will be cooled by the excellent Corsair H100 As previously mentioned, Asus provides yet again another superb quality motherboard. For the RAM, I chose the Corsair Dominator because of the higher speed (DDR 2133 vs DDR 1600) – also we don’t NEED 32 GB RAM, but we CAN use 32 GB ram, so we take 2 packs of 4.
For the GPU – as it is the ULTRA system, one could easily plug in two GTX 590s for the set. There are two main reasons I am not going with the 590. First, the 590 runs hot – or at least there were problems with this at the release of the card. The performance of the 590 is undeniable, but two 580s is absolutely amazing. If I were going to go with two 590s, I would only do so with a custom liquid cooled system – I wouldn’t want to do so with air. I also chose the 3GB memory version of the 580 vs the 1.5, as we are going for a large 30″ monitor – possibly two.
The SSD you might find odd. First off, I’ve always loved the Revodrive concept – it’s basically an SSD slotted via x4 PCIe into the system. The result is you end up with twice the read/write as a normal SSD. The downside is price. I picked the 240GB for operating system and games/programs, with a set of RAID HDDs in the background for storage. I have on the list 2 1TB WD Black Hard Drives to be set in RAID – I would actually go with 5 1TB drives set up in RAID 5, giving the perfect combination of speed AND security. Hard Drives are expensive right now though, so starting with 2 is fine.
The Killer NIC is something that a lot of people might call a way to throw away money. While I wouldn’t recommend the NIC to someone building a “regular” gaming system – benchmarking has shown that Killer’s NICs do have an effect on lowering latency. If I were a hardcore gamer, or “pro” gamer, I would probably look at adding one to a mid-range or high-range gaming build – every little bit helps.
The case I chose because I always wanted the Thermaltake Level 10 – which runs in the $800 range, is difficult to work with, and doesn’t have amazing cooling – but my oh my does it look sweet. The Thermaltake Level 10GT has a lot of improvements. It’s lighter, cheaper, and has excellent cooling. It also can easily fit the Corsair H100 CPU radiator block. It also looks awesome. Check out the Gaming Case article for some other options.
The Monitor is the 30” I selected on my Gaming Monitors article. You could also go with two 30”, or two 27”, or three 27” – remember this setup has 2 GTX 580s in x16/x16 SLI. Super.
That about wraps up this splurge of an article. I surely do love dreaming about systems like this. The total for the above listed is $5000 without the monitor and $6200 with it, so if that looks like spare change to you, then you should definitely indulge. In the future after I put together the liquid cooling article, I’ll likely revisit this and update for full liquid cooling.
Greetings! I wanted to take a brief interlude to invite you to join the Build a Gaming PC Facebook. As you can see on the site here, I like to write articles explaining details and reasonings for all different aspects of building gaming computers – from looking at my preferred z68 motherboard to explaining cpu cache. I also like to put together my recommended builds for different budget ranges.
The Build a Gaming PC Facebook page is a place where I like to share daily news and tidbits related to building gaming computers and the pc gaming world in general. It’s a great place to stay up to day and see cool things like different computer cases, headsets and the like.
So please take a moment and come like the Build a Gaming PC Facebook page – join the conversation!
The release of Bulldozer showed us that for the meantime, Intel is the king of the castle – for the mid range build (and top end), Intel holds the cake with the i5-2500k for gaming. Now we can take a look at the budget range and consider what sort of budget gaming pc system can be built for those who have a constricted budget.
A quick word: The easiest way to save money building a system is to cannibalize old systems – using parts from previous systems. This of course only works if you have built systems in the past, or want to take apart an old premade system. Parts I like to cannibalize are hard drives, optical drives, sound cards, and sometimes RAM (new RAM tech is cheap these days) as these components can be used for a long time. One word of caution; Hard drives can last a long time, but when building a new system it is recommended to acquire a new hard drive as these WILL die eventually so they are better as secondary storage drives in the system (they won’t be accessed as much, so this lengthens their usability).
With all that said, I’m going to lay out the specs for a Budget Build. Similar to how I set up the Mid Range Build, the Budget Build isn’t just the cheapest components available – this is about value. I still want to build a system that will last a number of years and will have the least amount of problems (again, picking well rated manufacturers with good return policies).
In order to reach a ‘Budget’ level, we have to sacrifice somewhere – that area is going to be in higher level game performance. The goal with this system is to be able to play any current game – not necessarily on the highest levels – but also to be able to play most games for the next 3 years or so. This is of course speculative, but it all comes down to finding the best performance for the price range we are looking at.
In the Bulldozer article I mentioned that I was going to look at AMD for the budget build – this is because AMD tends to lend itself to the lower range of spending. While their CPUs are excellent, Intel’s Sandy Bridge offering still tops AMD at the lower level – not just with individual performance, but also with the potential to upgrade to the supremely powerful i5-2500k.
I gave you a choice between the H67 and the P67 – this depends on your desire to upgrade in the future. If in 6 months (when Ivy Bridge comes out and the Sandy Bridge prices drop) you decide to upgrade to the i5-2500k – and you want the ability to overclock – then you will need the P67. If you don’t see yourself taking this future upgrade to overclocking path, the H67 will serve you fine.
Changes 1-25-12: After reviews, reading experiences and feedback, as well as Tom’s Hardware’s charts, it is clear that the HD 6790 is head and shoulders above the 550TI – so I have removed the 550TI. At this budget level, the money is better placed with the HD 6790. I have also switched the Antec 300 with the Antec 300 Two – newly released upgrade to this great budget case.
Just as with the Mid Range Build, this doesn’t include the monitor and other peripherals. One can of course interchange between this Budget Gaming PC and the Mid Range Build, and this system is easily upgradeable.
Choosing among the vast array of gaming pc cases is a very personal decision – it is quite easy to find one which has excellent cooling and sound ratings, which is liked by many people. However this is something that you will live with for quite awhile – which will adorn your desk (or floor) and thus should be something you really feel excited about having. I was originally going to avoid making recommendations on gaming cases, but I have since realized that this website is a complete representation of my feelings towards building computers – so I should just throw it all out there.
Remember: The case is one of the least important in terms of performance, there are just a few overall points to keep in mind.
Things to consider:
1) Unless you are going for liquid cooling, airflow is important. Having a case that allows good cable management is key.
2) Cases made out of aluminum are AWESOME. Very light and Very strong. Cases are commonly made out of a combination of steel and plastic. The more plastic a case is made out of, the less sturdy the case will be overall. Most cases will have the front/outside panels made of solid plastic, so disregard the visual architecture (the plastic molding).
3) Some cases also come with interior lights. IF this computer is going to be in the same room that you sleep – you may not appreciate the interior lighting. Don’t let that dissuade you from buying a case you like though, as you can always disconnect the LEDs if it becomes a problem.
4) Accessibility: This is the overall word I use to describe the ease of accessing sections of the case while being able to fit all your ‘stuff’ (cards, drives etc).
I like Antec because their cases are extremely solid, usually with excellent airflow and easy accessibility. Antec will be on my list a lot. Second behind Antec, I tend to like NZXT – they rate well and look good. Following that there are a couple cases from Thermaltake and Cooler Master which I like. One of my favorite off-character cases that I like is the Cooler Master Cosmos (the original) – mainly for its tremendously sturdy design (it is really heavy) and it’s negative airflow (at least in the first version). I like it mainly as a liquid cooling case. That particular case is rather expensive for what you get, so I haven’t found it worth going for myself – I just kind of…like it.
My Personal choice for Mid Tower is the Antec 900, although I am interested in the Antec Lanboy – which isn’t for everybody. If I was on a budget I would go with the Antec 300. I used the Sonata series for a long time – it is very compact and well built.
One thing you will note is that I did not list cases that include a power supply. As I previously noted, the power supply is one of the most critical components and not to be taken lightly – so I always prefer to purchase separately and from a very small list. See my article ON POWER SUPPLYS IASERKNA
(Honorable Mention) Antec Sonata Elite<< This is a good alternative to the 900 if you absolutely hate the blue lighting and don’t want to deal with it.
(Honorable Mention) Antec LanBoy Air Modular Case << I love the concept, I just haven’t had the opportunity to form more than a visceral opinion.
Changes 1-25-12: I’ve added the Antec Eleven Hundred here – this is now my preferred case. It is about the same price as the 900 V2, has amazing performance, looks awesome – and includes great built in wire management capabilities. Here is an excellent review at Overclockers. I’ve also replaced the Antec Three Hundred with the Antec Three Hundred Two – a recent update. Read more about the Three Hundred Two at Anandtech.
I usually don’t go with a full tower system. When would you need this? Typically when you plan on having a large number of extra stuff in your system. If you plan to go SLI, then you may want to look here – though most Mid Towers (such as the 900) can take 2 video cards, if you want to expand to 3 or 4 then you will need a larger case. Also, if you have an inordinate amount of hard drives (I actually have 3 in my system currently, as I tend to reuse old ones), then you need more hard drive space – ditto for optical drives (multiple blue ray burners, card inputs etc).
As you can see, Full Tower is usually not necessary – if you are going by my mid range build suggestions, then you won’t need this.
If, however, I was going to get a Full Tower case – I would go with the Antec 1200. The Silverstone I included because it tested so darn well – if I was going purely on numbers alone, I would probably go with the Silverstone – but I love Antec’s Cases too much for that.
You will have noticed throughout this article that I constantly used words like ‘feels’ ‘love’ and ‘like’ to describe my decision for choosing one case over another. That’s simply because it is a completely personal decision. While it is naturally important to make sure you have a case that will fit your components (mid tower at least for a standard motherboard) There are too many good gaming pc cases (in terms of treating the components right – airflow and accessibility) to say that certain cases are ‘the correct choice.’ The ones listed above are what I would chose from, and that is that.
Changes 1-25-12: I’ve added the Coolermaster Cosmos II to the list – the original Cosmos was one of my favorite cases, and this new version carries with it some of the things which I loved about the original. It also has one of the things I don’t like – a ridiculous price tag of $350. If you don’t have a limited budget, you would love this case. Check out the review at Kitguru.
Also, if you aren’t a member of my Build a Gaming PC Facebook Page, you should check it out – I publish industry news and reviews on a daily basis. Every now and then I come across cool new case reviews and share them there.
I just wanted to take a moment to tell a little story of how I got started building gaming computers. My story is probably like many, beginning when I was in high school – actually with the release of Starcraft and Diablo 2 (I think it was starcraft first). I met my best friend in freshman Marine Biology – we sat around the same table and I overheard him talking about Starcraft and BOOM, best friends.
The wonderful thing about building gaming computers is that it makes it possible for so many people to have these sorts of experiences. If I couldn’t build my own computers, it’s likely I wouldn’t have been into computer gaming as much as I am. Having an up to date system is necessary for playing the latest games, but if you want to be able to play the latest video games with good quality experience you don’t need to spend a boatload on a premade system – simply build a gaming pc.
I got into building gaming computers when I was in high school. I wanted to keep having the ability to play new games, and often times that requires upgrading your system (especially if your system is a prebuilt paperweight from Gateway). I learned all about building computer systems in a high school class – had loads of fun destroying circuitry by fumbling around with cheap spare parts (a friend of mine actually blew up a system by forgetting to unplug it from the wall…screwdriver met motherboard attached to power supply) – and eventually learned everything I need to build a gaming pc.
Early on, I was in the segment of people who want to play video games, but don’t have a powerful enough system and not very much money. Now, I am in a position where I can save up – spend a little bit more – and build really solid systems of value that will last for years. This is what I preach now – if you can save up a little bit more ($1,000 instead of $600 for example), it is worth it to produce a system that can last you easily 2-3 times as long and be a better overall experience during that time.
When you are in the state of needing to build less expensive systems however, you limit your choices. This is actually where I recommend looking at AMD. They provide quality powerful processors, but at lower prices than Intel. It’s a basic trade-off – you get what you pay for. Actually in terms of extended value, you get slightly less than what you pay for with AMD (as you will have to upgrade sooner), but game playing ability compared to price, they are pretty comparable. If you have the ability to cannibalize some basic parts like hard drive, cd drive, case, and power supply – you can easily build a new system for a $200-$300. This was a pretty darn good deal when I was younger.
So what about you, my faithful readers? It would be cool if y’all would share your experiences getting into building gaming computers.