4. Desktop and laptop gaming

We have discussed gaming consoles but of course the standard desktop and laptop is also an excellent gaming platform.

But to do so it does need to have fairly advanced graphics cards and a decent sound system to get the best out of a modern game, especially the sports and action ones where fast moving graphics is part of the experience.

You can purchase a computer with gaming in mind from the outset. For example a good gaming computer specification is shown below.

• Quad Core processor
• Speed 3.6GHz
• Nvidia or AMD graphics card
• 16 GB RAM
• Overclocked
• SSD plus hard drive
• Advanced cooling (water)

Some points on a dedicated gaming computer:

'Quad core'. This means the computer chip has four CPU cores allowing games to run faster. The leading makers of CPU chips are Intel and AMD

Fast graphics card - leading makers of graphics cards are Nvidia and AMD, prices can be lowish for a budget card or very expensive for the latest, fastest cards. A high-end card means even the most demanding games will run smoothly.

Massive amounts of memory (Up to 24Gb), again this speeds up the game

Advanced cooling. Computers of this type consume a lot of power - 750 Watts to a thousand watts in not unusual. So it needs a very good cooling system.

Overclocking. This means the CPU clock is run faster than normal. This makes the machine faster, but the downside is that the chip runs hotter and it may be less reliable.

SSD plus hard disk. The SSD is a Solid State Disk. This is much quicker than a hard disk as it has no moving parts and so the operating system, programs and data can be loaded much faster. It is expensive though.

The computer specified above is quite advanced and so you should not be surprised to know that such a machine is very expensive. However, even 'normal' desktop or laptop can run most games perfectly well.