In the last few decades, video games have become one of the most popular pastimes globally. In 2022, there are over 2.5 billion people who play video games regularly. In the past, video games were often considered to be for children and teenagers, but today, the average age of a typical gamer is 34 years old. Video games have an almost universal appeal, and this has been due to the rise in both the quality of titles and the immense range of games to choose from. If you are considering purchasing a PC to play games on, there are several important factors to consider that will ensure that you purchase a suitable machine. This article explains three key points that will help to determine what type of PC is needed.
Laptop or Tower PC?
The first consideration is whether to purchase a tower PC or a laptop to enjoy video games on. There are pros and cons for both types of computers. Laptops have the distinct advantage of being lightweight and highly portable, which can allow for gaming on the move or easily taking the computer over to a friend’s house to game together. Today’s modern range of laptops that are designed for gaming feature dedicated graphics cards with fast processors and enough RAM to cope with the most demanding of titles. Nvidia Lenovo Laptops are a perfect choice for gaming as their high specs can easily cope with the latest games at high resolutions and smooth framerates. Tower PCs sacrifice portability due to their increased size and weight, but as a rule, they tend to be cheaper when compared to gaming laptops with similar specifications. This is because the components do not need to be as small as they would be in a gaming laptop. Put simply, if budget is a priority, a tower PC may be a better choice, but for portability and flexibility, gaming laptops win.
What Games Will Be Played?
It is also vital to fully understand the types of games that will be played on the gaming PC as this will determine how powerful it needs to be and, therefore, the general price of the hardware. Today’s biggest and best games tend to be extremely memory, graphically, and CPU intensive as they use state-of-the-art effects, like ray tracing, to create highly realistic gaming environments. This will require a PC to have a high-performance CPU and graphics card to display the graphics at their optimum resolutions. Conversely, if you only plan to play older games or those that are less demanding in terms of processing power, then a lower spec machine should easily handle these.
Pre-Built or Custom Rig?
The final consideration is to decide whether you wish to purchase a pre-built gaming machine that you can pick up online/in-store or a custom gaming rig that is made exactly to your specifications. Pre-built machines tend to be a better choice for gamers who do not wish to customize their machines or are not comfortable with the idea of building a PC themselves. If you have a degree of knowledge when it comes to gaming machines and know exactly what hardware components you want in the gaming machine, it can be beneficial to build your ideal setup and choose specific graphics cards, amounts of RAM, and sound cards etc.