Since the early 2000s, the Ars System Guides have been helping those interested become “budding, homebuilt system-building tweakmeisters.” This series is a resource for building computers to match any combination of budget and purpose.
The main Ars System Guide is great for what it is—an updated, step-by-step look at the best components for an all-around desktop build. But even this beast has some limitations and a few gaps. And if our System Guide build got much bigger, it might not ever get published.
In particular, there are sizeable gaps between the Budget Box (our low-end, affordable build) and the Hot Rod (that “just right” bowl of build porridge). Quite frankly, there’s also an enormous gap between the Hot Rod and the God Box (where money is no obstacle). But if you do a focus shift from capable-all-around boxes with gaming capability to boxes that are purely gaming focused, you have an equally seismic shift. There’s where the newest System Guide comes in. Meet the special Gaming Boxes.
The goal of Gaming Boxes is two-fold. First, we want to help build boxes that are the best gaming performance for the money. Second, we want to do so while highlighting different price points than what we see in the main System Guide. Let’s get to it.
Shrinking differences
The differences between the specialty Gaming Boxes and others may be smaller than some think, though. Many gamers have large collections of downloaded games, which means Gaming Boxes actually need fairly large amounts of storage. The shrinking cost of LCD monitors, affordable SSDs, fast video cards, and other components all mean that the adjustments in a build from a focused gaming box to a more well-rounded box aren’t all that bad on the wallet.
Meet the boxes (and their requirements)
The Gaming Boxes give a greater emphasis on gaming performance than the boxes in the main System Guide. Hot Rod-class performance on a Budget Box price, or so goes the cliché. For those who desire something more than the Hot Rod but don’t need all the storage or processing power of the God Box (and with a stronger bent on value), the Gaming Boxes can provide that, too.
Previous Ars system guides
Ars forums: Gaming Box discussion
February 2013: Ars Bargain Box
December 2012: Ars System Guide
The Value Gaming Box sits between the Budget Box and Hot Rod for price but aims for Hot Rod-level gaming performance. With gaming as the primary focus, things like low noise might take a hit. However, modern components today tend to have energy efficiency designed in, so the power and noise penalties aren’t too bad. A target price between $1,000-1,200 seems to be an attractive spot for the Value Gaming Box. It budgets for a reasonable CPU and GPU plus a small(ish) SSD while leaving flexibility for individual builders to bump up a component or two if budgets allow.
The Performance Gaming Box has many similarities to the Hot Rod, only done bigger and faster. The base components making up the Hot Rod today actually look quite solid, so bumping up some areas (such as CPU or memory) end up being a relatively poor value. Keeping those in the same class as the Hot Rod and focusing on the parts that matter for more gaming panache—the video cards and monitor in particular—seems to find the best balance between performance and money. Other components do end up tweaked as needed to handle the increased power draw of a pair of high-end video cards in SLI/Crossfire (plus these can accommodate more gaming-specific demands).
Value is still a key, and to that end, the Performance Gaming Box ends up targeted somewhere around $2,500. This forces some difficult choices. Bumping up both frame rates and resolutions can cause a serious strain on the video subsystem as well as significantly increasing the cost of the monitors necessary to support higher frame rates, higher resolutions, or both. Needless to say, things can quickly get out of hand as we found in our time searching for reasonable configurations.
Gaming peripherals
Full Story: Ars Technica System Guide: Gaming Boxes | Ars Technica.