Are gaming desktops good for school

Our gaming-desktop reviews will let you know if there is room in the system's case for adding more graphics cards, in case you want to improve your gaming performance in the future. Most boutique manufacturers, however, will sell systems equipped with multiple-card arrays if you want to run games at their best right away. AMD calls its multiple-card technology CrossFireX, and Nvidia calls its solution Scalable Link Interface [SLI].

This trend is fading, though. While multiple-video-card gaming is still a path to great gaming, know that a game must be written to leverage multiple cards properly, and game developers in recent years have been de-emphasizing timely support for CrossFireX and SLI in games. Sometimes this support only emerges well after a game's debut; sometimes it never comes at all. Also, Nvidia has been putting a damper on SLI in the last couple of years; it has kiboshed support for installing more than two of its late-model cards at the same time, and only a subset of its higher-end cards can be installed in SLI. Our general advice for mainstream buyers is to concentrate on the best single card you can afford.

Indeed, the most pivotal decision you'll make when purchasing a gaming desktop is which card you get. One option, of course, is no card at all; the integrated graphics silicon on modern Intel Core and some AMD processors is fine for casual 2D games. But to really bring out the beast on 3D AAA titles, you need a discrete graphics card or cards, and these cards are what distinguish a gaming desktop. Whether you go with an AMD- or Nvidia-based card is based partly on price, partly on performance. Some games are optimized for one type of card or another, but for the most part, you should choose the card that best fits within your budget. If you're buying a complete gaming desktop, you of course don't have to pay for a card in isolation, but this should help you understand how the card factors into the total price. You also have to know what you're shopping for.

'Ampere' Is Here: The State of Graphics Cards

For some time now, Nvidia has been dominant at the high end of the GPU battlefield. From September 2018 through to September 2020, that dominance had been through the strength of its uber-high-endGeForce RTX 2080 Ti, as well as the still-priceyGeForce RTX 2080. Those two cards were followed by a step-downGeForce RTX 2070, still a powerful GPU in its own right, followed by theGeForce RTX 2060.

These, and the company's other GeForce RTX cards, were built on what Nvidia calls the "Turing" architecture, at that time supplanting the 10-Series "Pascal" cards as its latest top-end GPUs for gamers. The 20 Series GeForce RTX cards were the first to offer ray-tracing [putting the "RT" in "RTX"], a fancy real-time-lighting feature that only cards with the RTX moniker are capable of running. [See our primer on ray tracing and what it means for PC gaming.]

In 2020, though, Nvidia took the RTX advantage even further with its latest 30 Series GPUs. Based on the new "Ampere" architecture, the extreme GeForce RTX 3090 and the flagship GeForce RTX 3080 arrived in the fall. These not only offer better raw frame rate performance than the 20 Series GPUs, but much are much more efficient and effective at ray-tracing. Ray-tracing technology looks great, but is a straining technique that generally pulls down your frame rates, a fact that made smooth ray tracing daunting on even the RTX 2080. This undermined the appeal of the 20 Series, given that the signature feature was difficult to run smoothly, even with the highest-priced GPUs. The RTX 3070 and the RTX 3060 Ti arrived in October and December 2020, respectively, delivering on the same concept at lower price points than the two top-tier options.

The top-end cards are certainly pricey propositions, and too costly for many shoppers. The MSRP for the Founders Edition versions of the RTX 2080 and GTX 2080 Ti launched at $799 and $1,199, respectively [though somethird-party models are alittlemore affordable]. The RTX 30 Series GPUs are not only more powerful, but better values: The RTX 3080 Founders Edition launched at $699, undercutting its less powerful predecessor. That's much more bang for less buck, and the power-to-price ratio looks even better compared to the supremely pricey RTX 2080 Ti. Speaking of the top of the stack, the $1,499 GeForce RTX 3090 is a professional-grade replacement for the Titan RTX. You could use it for gaming, but it's not remotely twice as fast as a RTX 3080 for more than double the money. Buying these cards on the open market these days often means paying well more than MSRP [GPUs have been in short supply through 2021], and that is one reason why buying a prebuilt desktop these days makes a lot of sense: easier access to the parts you want.

One aspect not included in the 30 Series launch is the "Super" suffix that you may see on 20 Series GPUs while shopping. In the summer of 2019, Nvidia launched upgraded "Super" versions of the 20 Series RTX line, with the exception of the RTX 2080 Ti. TheRTX 2060 Super,the RTX 2070 Super, and the RTX 2080 Superare, as you may have guessed, souped-up versions of the initial releases, and came with a price cut to boot. The performance jump is greater with some Super GPUs than others, but these essentially replaced the original versions of each GPU.

If you're not going to buy in to the 30 Series [though we'd recommend it at this price tier], these are the next-most-recent high-end GPUs to go for. The RTX 2070 Super looks the best value of the bunch, offering near-RTX 2080 performance, while theRTX 2060 Super and the RTX2080 Super are worth a look.While they were more of a half-step up before the Ampere generation arrived, boosts to clock speeds [and in some cases the introduction of newer memory] mean these are all a tick more capable than the original models. If you can find a good deal on a PC with an RTX 20 Series Super GPU, it may be worthwhile, but not at full price: The RTX2080 Super has the same MSRP as the RTX 3080 for notably lesser performance. It remains to be seen if the 30 Series will be Super-ized in the future.

For users of the 10-Series "Pascal" cards, it was a tough call on whether to upgrade to the 20 Series. The raw performance gains were modest, and ray-tracing, while attractive, was a difficult proposition even on the best 20 Series GPUs. With the 30 Series impressing so much, we can much more fully recommend that enthusiasts who held on to their GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards upgrade to the RTX 3080 or RTX 3070. We can even more emphatically recommend the newest GPUs if you play [or plan on playing] on a 1440p or 4K monitor.

If you're already on a 20 Series GPU, it's still very tempting, but difficult to definitively recommend upgrading to Ampere when your GPU is still relatively new. The RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 remain more than good enough in many scenariosif you already have one, it might not be the best value to upgrade your system, but the appeal of higher-frame-rate ray-tracing and 4K gaming are tempting. If you are not that interested in ray-tracing, and generally play simpler games or competitive multiplayer titles where visual fidelity is second to high frame rates, the RTX premium is not necessarily worthwhile. For those who need to be on the cutting edge, or who are buying a desktop that will be an upgrade from the Pascal card generation or earlier, your best bet may be to go with the latest tech, especially as ray-tracing sees wider adoption in coming years.

Affordable Nvidia Alternatives...and Don't Forget AMD

With that in mind, there are also lower-end GTX cards built on Nvidia's Turing tech: the GeForce GTX 1650, the GeForce GTX 1660, and the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. These cards lack the specific cores needed for ray-tracing in order to cut the price. These budget GPUs bridge the gap between Pascal and the RTX Turing cards, falling roughlybetween the GTX 1060 and the RTX 2060. If you're shopping on a more limited budget, desktops with these cards are worth checking out. Also look for Super variants of the GTX 1650 and 1660.

While those top-tier GPUs do offer fantastic pure performance separate from ray-tracing, too, shoppers looking for an entry-level or midrange system have many options. On the lower end, those GTX Turing cards [as opposed to the RTX ones] are a decent value, while the RTX 2060 is a budget-friendly, but very capable, 1080p card. An RTX 2070 system will fit the bill for high-frame-rate 1080p or 1440p gaming, and you can try ray-tracing on a per-game basis or just turn it off to your preference.

Meanwhile, AMD competes mainly in the midrange and low end, with its Radeon RX cards, and its midrange offerings are looking better now than they have for alongtime. Right as Nvidia's Super cards hit the market in mid-2019, AMD launched its first"Navi" graphics cards, based on all-new architecture. TheRadeon RX 5700 andthe Radeon RX 5700 XTare legitimate contenders in the midrange space, delivering good bang for your buck. Unlike the Super cards, these are a wholly new generation of GPUs, and AMD is more competitive in this space than ever.

The more recent efforts in the high end, the Radeon RX 6800 and the Radeon RX 6800 XT released in late 2020, push closer to the Nvidia cards more than AMD has in many years. When they're at their best, they're about equal with Nvidia's 30 Series GPUs for a little less money, but it depends on the game in question.

AMD also pushed a lower-end Radeon RX 5600 XT that competes with both the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the GeForce RTX 2060. On the AMD side, check out the reviews and see which seems like the best fit for your needs and budget. But you'll definitely see more GeForce cards than Radeon ones in prebuilt desktops.

Prep for 4K Gaming and VR, or Keep It Real?

Equipping your system with any high-end GPU will boost your total PC bill by a few hundred dollars per card. Beyond adding extra power to your gaming experience, multiple graphics cards can also enable multiple-monitor setups so you can run up to six displays, but some single cards can power up to four, and few gamers go beyond three [and even that only rarely].

A better reason to opt for high-end graphics in the long run is to power 4K and virtual reality [VR] gaming. Monitors with 4K resolution [3,840 by 2,160 pixels] and the displays built into the latestVR headsetshave much higher pixel counts than a "simple" 1080p HD monitor. You'll need at least a single high-end graphics card to drive a 4K display at top quality settings, with similar requirements for smooth gameplay on VR headsets. [See the "Make VR a Reality" section below for more information.] If you mean to play games on a 4K panel with detail settings cranked up, you'll want to look at one of Nvidia's highest-endcards suited for 4K play, with the RTX 3080 easily the single best pick.

Selecting agraphics card for VRis a different set of considerations, and not quite as demanding as 4K play on recent AAA games. VR headsets have their own graphics requirements. But for the two big ones from HTC and Oculus, you'll want at least aGeForce GTX 1060or anAMD Radeon RX 480or Radeon RX 580. Those are older-generation cards, of course; check for specific support for a given Nvidia GeForce Turing/Ampere or AMD Radeon Navi card if that is what you will be getting. Generally a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or a Radeon RX 5600 XT/RX 6700 [or higher, in either case] should suffice.

Now, VR and 4K gaming are unquestionably high-end matters [the latter even more so than the former]. You can still get a rich gaming experience for thousands of bucks less by choosing a desktop with a single but robust middle-tier video card [an RTX 3060, 2060, or 2070, for example] andgaming at 1080por 1440p; 2,560 by 1,440 pixels is an increasingly popular native resolution for gaming monitors. If you're less concerned about VR or turning up all the eye candy found in gamesanti-aliasingand esoteric lighting effects, for examplethen today's less-powerful graphics cards and GPUs will still give you plenty of oomph for a lot less money.

Perfect Processor Power: Picking the CPU

The parallel heart in any gaming system to its GPU is its main processor chip, or CPU. While the GPU specializes in graphics quality and some physics calculations, the CPU takes care of everything else, and it also determines how able your PC will be for demanding tasks that require non-graphics calculations.

On the CPU front, AMD and Intel are in a race to see who can provide the most power to gamers. In 2017, AMD restarted the competition for the top spot anew with its Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, which feature up to 32 cores and the ability to process 64 threads simultaneously. [A good example is the recentRyzen Threadripper 3970X.] Intel countered with a new line ofCore X-Series processors, in which the top "Extreme Edition" model flaunts 18 cores and 36 threads. Prices for these processors are high, though the 10th Generation of Core X-Series chips, which hit in the second half of 2019, saw somemuchreduced pricing. The top-end chips that went for $2,000 in previous generations of Core X saw a fall to around $1,000 in the equivalentCore i9-10980XE Extreme Editionwe reviewed.

These CPU advancements are exciting, but it's not essential to invest in one of these elite-level Threadripper or Core X-Series processors to enjoy excellent PC gaming. To that point, Intel also launched mainstream Core i9 chips outside of the Extreme Edition platforms in late 2018, bringing increased speed to the main consumer line. TheCore i9-9900K was the first flagship option in that regard, with the more recent Core i9-10900K taking up the mantle for Intel's new "Comet Lake-S" desktop chips and the "Rocket Lake-S" Core i9-11900K the very latest standard-bearer. For years, Intel held the edge in gaming performance. A 12th Generation family, dubbed "Alder Lake" and headed by the Core i9-12900K, is imminent.

The latest from AMD at this power tier is theRyzen 9 5900X, which finally rivals Intel's Core i9 superiority in gaming. It's not as much of a bargain as some AMD chips are when compared to Intel, but perhaps more important, it is the better performer. AMD is really making a case for its chips in all scenarios, and gaming was the final frontier. [The new Ryzen 7 5800X is also an able Intel rival, taking on the latest Core i7s.]

Below this are models up and down the pricing scale, from $99 to $499. The 12-coreRyzen 9 3900X is a step below the 5900X, and a particularly excellent competitor for the Core i9-9900K and Core i9-10900K given its value. Lesser, but still high-powered, CPUs, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 lines, as well as locked and unlocked six- and eight-core Intel Core i7 processors, provide the computing muscle needed for a satisfying gaming experience. These, really, are the sweet spot for most gamers. Budget gamers should look to lower-priced [but still speedy] quad-core and six-core processors, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 or the Intel Core i5, which will knock hundreds of dollars off the bottom line. The baseline has come a long way, so even these less expensive chips are well suited to gaming. Even AMD's latest Ryzen 3 processors can get the job done if you're shopping on a budget.

If your choice comes down to paying for a higher-level GPU or a higher-level CPU, and gaming is the primary use you will have for the system, favor the graphics, in most cases. A system with a higher-power Nvidia GeForce GPU and a Core i5 processor is generally a better choice for 3D-intense FPS gaming than one with a low-end card and a zippy Core i7 or i9 CPU. But you may want to choose the latter if you're into games that involve a lot of background math calculations, such as strategy titles [like those in the Civilization series], or if you also mean to use the system for CPU-intensive tasks like converting or editing video, or editing photos.

Assessing Main Memory and Storage

One thing that's often overlooked on gaming systems is RAM; it can be severely taxed by modern games. Outfit your PC with a bare minimum of 8GB of RAM, and budget for 16GB if you're serious about freeing up this potential performance bottleneck. The most powerful machines out there will pack 32GB, though there are diminishing returns for gaming beyond 16GB. [See lots more about how to choose RAM in our memory primer.]

Solid-state drives [SSDs], meanwhile, have become more popular since prices began dropping dramatically a few years ago, and the price drops have accelerated especially over the last year, unlike most PC components. They speed up boot time, wake-from-sleep time, and the time it takes to launch a game and load a new level.

Although you can get an SSD of any size up to around 4TB [with the larger 8TB capacity still being relatively rare and very expensive], the pairing of a small one [a capacity of 500GB is a good minimum floor to set] with a large-capacity spinning hard drive [4TB or more] is a good, affordable setup for gamers who also download lots of games and the occasional video from the internet. You can keep a subset of your favorite games and applications on the smaller SSD, where they'll benefit from quicker loading, and install the bulk of your library on the hard drive.

Favor, where you can,PCI Express SSDsover SATA ones. [The former are the performance darlings of the moment, and are becoming the norm in desktop gaming systems.] Almost all of these drives come on gumstick-size modules ina format called M.2.

Make VR a Reality

With the release of theHTC Viveand theOculus Riftheadsets and their subsequent revisions, real VR gaming is possible in the home for the first time. If you want to be able to use one of these to its fullest, your PC will need to meet the headset's system requirements.

As we discussed up top, the most important aspect is the video cardon the original headsets, you are pushing a 1,080-by-1,200 display to each eye, after allso go with the most powerful card you can afford from either the current or previous generation. For the Vive, thebare minimumis an AMD Radeon RX 480/580 or an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060. For Oculus headsets, a processing technique calledasynchronous spacewarppromises full performance with slightly lower-end video cards, but we still suggest opting for at least the minimums posited by the Vive, and ideally something a step or three higher up the GPU pecking order.Even in 2021, the headset makers still outline their VR hardware minimums in terms of older-generation cards. [Valve's Index is rated for at least a GeForce GTX 970 or 980, three generations old now.] So with current-gen cards, we'd suggest looking at nothing less than a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti on the Nvidia side, or a Radeon RX 6600 or RX 6600 XT on the AMD.

You'll also want a newer AMD or Intel CPU with aminimumof four processing cores. As a baseline, both HTC and Oculus recommend a Core i5-4590 or its equivalent; translate that to current-generation CPUs, and we'd recommend an AMD Ryzen 5, 7, or 9 [second-generation or later], or an Intel Core i5, i7, or i9 from the last few years. [Any of AMD's Ryzen Threadrippers or Intel's Core X-Series chips will do, too.] And while the 8GB of RAM we recommended should be enough to ensure the fluid gameplay you want, 16GB is again a better bet.

The Perfect Accessories

Don't stop at internal components. Once you have your ideal gaming desktop, a couple of extras can really enhance your gaming experience. We recommend that you trick out your machine with a top-notchgaming monitorwith a fast response rate, as well as a solidgaming headsetso you can trash-talk your opponents. A high-refresh-rate monitor can absorb the excess frame rates that a robust video card puts out, for smoother gameplay. In-monitor support for Nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync, matched to your brand of video card, can also eliminate artifacts that result from varying frame rates.

A comfortablegaming keyboard,gaming mouse, or specialized controller can round out your options at checkout, but know that oftentimes you're better off selecting these items separately, rather than limiting your selection to what's offered by the system seller.

So, Which Gaming Desktop Should I Buy?

Below are the best gaming desktops we've tested of late. Some are configured-to-order PCs from boutique manufacturers, but some come from bigger brands normally associated with consumer-grade desktops. Note that many of the same manufacturers also makegaming laptops, if you're weighing between the two.