How-to: Build a killer gaming PC for under $1,000

What's overclocking?

The "clock" of any processor is the frequency at which it operates, as measured in hertz (or cycles per second). An obvious, though rarely linear, improvement you can make to your PC’s performance is to increase that frequency so that it works faster. That’s all overclocking is, you’re just raising the operational speed in the hope of obtaining a tangibly faster user experience. As with humans, however, a processor that works faster is also working harder, leading to proportional increases in power consumption and heat emission. If you’re not ready or willing to deal with the risks of destroying your computer in the effort of finding out its performance limits, we’d advise sticking to the stock settings.

Some manufacturers do provide pre-overclocked designs, such as graphics board makers who might take a reference chip from AMD or Nvidia and run it faster than recommended speeds after upgrading the cooling and power-regulating components. AMD and Intel also have dynamic overclocking systems for their latest generations of CPUs, which disable some cores in order to provide enough thermal and power overhead to reach higher speeds. The difference between manufacturer-provided overclocks and the DIY version is obvious: the former is much more rigorously tested and doesn’t run the risk of voiding your warranty.

Graphics card: Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti OC 900MHz 1GB ($214.99)

Pick any price point you care for and you’ll find the nearest affordable graphics card from AMD is almost indistinguishable from its Nvidia-built competitor. There are technical differences aplenty, sure, but the two companies are matching each other in performance almost across the board, and where they don’t, the slightly slower chip sits proportionately lower on the pricing scale. That’s not to say that all GPUs provide the same value for money. The $200 to $250 bracket is still the place where you’ll get the most frames per dollar spent, and it’s presently led by the Radeon HD 6950, which consistently outperforms the GTX 560 Ti but also costs a little bit more as a result.

We’ve settled on a happy compromise between the two by choosing a manufacturer-overclocked version of the 560 Ti. Gigabyte’s OC variant of this graphics card doesn’t just turn up the clocks, it also adds higher-quality capacitors and a custom dual-fan cooling solution with four copper heatpipes. It received a glowing review from the guys over at the Tech Report and has enough grunt to allow us to play most games at 1920 x 1080 resolution with all quality settings turned up. 1080p is by far the most popular resolution on desktop monitors today, meaning that you'll be unlikely to need any more firepower than the GTX 560 Ti provides to enjoy games at their highest fidelity on your display's native settings.

Thanks to its strong performance and palatable price, the 560 Ti (and the Radeon HD 6950 alongside it) is a great choice for a lynchpin to build a true gamer's rig around. Should your budget extend further skywards, the GTX 580 from Nvidia and the HD 6970 from AMD are the obvious top-tier choices, though we’d actually recommend against investing in either of them right now. Both companies are scheming up upgrades with a new 28nm production process, which should push the performance ceiling up and prices of current-gen hardware down. In general, the best advice with any graphics cards, and probably hardware in general, is to buy the tier just below the absolute top end, where prices are within closer reach, but performance remains high.

Memory: 8GB Corsair Vengeance CL9 DDR3-1600 RAM ($44.99)

Memory is dirt cheap these days, so you could easily push this boat out to 16GB without bankrupting yourself, but 8GB is sufficient for most tasks. Corsair is a memory maker we’ve used and trusted for a long time and its new Vengeance 8GB kit has proven to be as stable and reliable as the company’s reputation would lead you to expect. Points may be added or taken away for the macho look of the heat spreader, depending on your preference. A good alternative here is the G.Skill Ripjaws set of two 4GB DDR3-1600 sticks. By the way, don’t bother spending extra for faster memory (DDR3-1866) or tighter timings (CL8 or CL7). AnandTech performed a study recently that showed anything over DDR3-1333 was overkill for Sandy Bridge CPUs. We’ve opted for DDR3-1600 because it costs practically the same as the lower-specced stuff.

Storage: Samsung 64GB SSD 830 ($94.99) +

WD Caviar Blue 500GB 7200RPM HDD ($99.99)

Hard drives would be tracking a similar price trajectory to memory right now were it not for the floods that hit Thailand this year, so magnetic storage is atypically pricey. That being the case, we opted for a 500GB archival unit plus a 64GB solid state boot drive. The half-terabyte HDD is still the most cost-efficient way to obtain tons of storage, whereas the SSD is something we now consider a basic necessity in all new computers. Once you’ve booted up a PC from an SSD, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about — it’s a whole new world. To avoid bottlenecks, make sure to buy a SATA III drive. Our chosen Samsung 830 and the similarly priced OCZ Vertex 3 SSD both offer higher than 500MBps reading speeds, which wouldn’t be possible without the 6Gbps bandwidth of SATA III. As far as the HDD goes, when prices return to their usual levels, you should be able to grab a 1TB hard disk without spending much more than we’ve done here.

Power supply: Corsair Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX ($59.99)

Not the latest and greatest model, but in the world of power supplies, that doesn’t actually matter a great deal. What matters is that you’ll get plenty of power, delivered in a reliable fashion. This 650W Corsair unit is certified for 80 percent energy efficiency and comes with Japanese capacitors, which have become an industry byword for reliability. The 120mm fan is big enough to push air around the PSU without getting too noisy, though if you’ve got room in your budget, Corsair’s 750W and 850W Enthusiast Series come with 140mm fans. A nice extra that we couldn’t fit into our PSU budget was a modular design, wherein the cables connecting to the power supply can be disconnected if not in use. That helps cut down on the clutter inside your case, improving both its looks and ventilation.

Case: Fractal Design Core 3000 ($64.99)

We’ll readily admit that these last two parts were lowest on our list of priorities and were therefore subject to a tight financial squeeze, though neither of them is a terrible choice. The Core 3000 is reasonably priced for a case that seems to be lacking little, with removable and rotatable hard drive cages and seven fan mounts, three of which are already populated by one 120mm and two 140mm fans. The flexibility of its design means you can fit even the longest graphics card inside and it has enough clearance for most of the oversized aftermarket CPU coolers. Externally, it keeps to an understated look, with a honeycomb mesh up front and on top allowing for improved air flow. Unfortunately, its build quality left a lot to be desired, as we discovered once we received ours and had to use a screwdriver to turn the supposedly tool-free thumbscrews. Consequently, we wouldn’t really recommend the Core 3000 to anyone that plans on swapping parts out on a regular basis. The good news, however, is that there are usually great deals and discounts to be found on cases, and it’s really just a matter of preference and patience to find the right one. If we were to make this choice again, we might opt for one of Cooler Master’s range of affordable steel cases.

Optical drive: SAMSUNG SH-B123 12X BD-ROM DRIVE ($59.99)

We thought long and hard about dispensing with the optical drive altogether, but games are still mostly bought and sold on discs and it’d be silly to have a Gaming Rig without a convenient way to plug ‘n' frag. The small premium for Blu-ray compatibility was worth it to us, but you could just as easily save that cash and put it toward a mildly faster graphics card.

Total cost before taxes and shipping: $994.91

So now that you've got the perfect parts, it's time to build your machine. That might seem like a daunting task, but believe us, color-coded connectors and one-way slots actually make it quite easy. If you can put together your own IKEA furniture, you're overqualified for the job. All it takes is a bit of patience — expect to spend an afternoon — a small Philips-head screwdriver, and the instructions below!

Setup

It turns out integrated circuits aren't fond of electrostatic discharges (ESD), so before you start juggling processors and memory modules, you'll want to ground yourself. Typically, that means you'll want an antistatic wrist strap to channel static electricity to a bare metal surface on your case, but you can also simply touch the bare case at all times to achieve the same thing. While you're at it, you might want to consider whether you're wearing the right clothes for the task. Socks on carpet are probably not a good idea, and the polar fleece your mom gave you last Christmas is right out. You can build in the nude, however, if you're particularly worried about static, or the other alternative is to invest in some antistatic gloves. By the same token, you might want to leave your components in their anti-ESD bags until it's time to install them, but go ahead and remove each from their cardboard boxes right now. Don't throw anything away quite yet, though!

Motherboard, CPU and memory

Motherboard prep

You can combine PC parts in many different orders, but if you want the least amount of trouble doing so, you'll want to begin by assembling the components that reside on the motherboard. Pull out your motherboard and — here's a handy trick — instead of setting it on a hard flat surface like a table, lay it on top of the ESD bag and foam or cardboard that came with it. You're going to need to push some components down onto the board, but you don't want to damage the soldered pins on the underside.

CPU

See that metal trapdoor in the center of the board? That's a CPU bracket, and you're going to want to pull the little lever on the side (down, out, and up) to open it and remove the plastic placeholder. Inside is the LGA 1155 socket, and you can probably guess what goes in there. Pull out your processor (you're grounded, right?) and gently set it down on the springboard of tiny little pins. There's only one right way to do it, so don't force it down, just line up the little golden triangle at one corner and the notches on either side, and ease it into the socket. Then close the metal bracket again, slide it underneath the retaining pin, and cinch it down with the lever. It should resist you, but if you lined things up right it shouldn't take too much force to lock it back into place.

Cooler

Your boxed CPU should have come with a heatsink and fan combo, and installing it might be the trickiest part of the whole build, because Intel's stock cooler is a little finicky to put on. Here's how it works: there are four spring-loaded quick-release pins that hold the cooler down, a patch of thermal grease on the bottom, and a set of tiny wires to give the fan power. First, make sure all four pins have their arrows facing away from the heatsink, then line up the pins with the four matching holes on the motherboard surrounding the CPU, such that the power cord for the fan can reach a matching socket on the motherboard too. Press down lightly on the center of the cooler to gently squish the thermal grease against the top of the CPU. Next, simultaneously push down on two of the pins on opposite sides of the CPU until they click and are firmly secured into place, then push down on the other two pins until they click as well. To check your work, flip over the motherboard and make sure both prongs of each pin are sticking through the other side. Finally, plug in the fan power cord.

Memory

Now that the hard part's over, let's socket some memory! RAM is one of the most sensitive components in your computer — so take care to ground yourself — but actually installing memory sticks is the easiest thing you'll do. Just be sure you're putting the memory into the right slots; look for the ones with standing clips on either end. Generally, the first memory module goes into the socket closest to the CPU, and the second one skips a slot, but the easy way to tell is just to make sure both slots are the same color. (Don't worry, you can't break anything even if you get it wrong; your computer may just perform slower than it should.) To insert, just pull open the clips on either end of a memory bank (this Asus board actually only has one moving clip per slot), line up the stick with the grooves, and gently slide it into place. Then, firmly press down until those clips click closed, and repeat for the other stick. DDR3 RAM has a groove about two-thirds of the way across the stick, so be sure your memory is facing the right direction before you apply force!