How to build a gaming PC2013

Processor (CPU) For the brain of your computer there are really only two manufacturers in the running: Intel and AMD. "I would definitely recommend Intel," says James Hannett of Mode7, creators of awardwinning strategy game Frozen Synapse. "AMD processors currently use more power and are generally slower than the Intel equivalents. AMD's Bulldozer series was a disappointment for the desktop market. Bulldozer's successor Piledriver was a big improvement in some ways, but by then Intel had moved on as well. Now Steamroller's been delayed until next year, and what I hear isn't very encouraging".

If you go with intel, and can afford it, you'll be wanting one of the Ivy Bridge processors, which come in three increasingly powerful flavours: i3, i5 and i7. "If it's top-flight you're after, the Core i7-3770 line is where it's at," says Al Bickham at Total War developer, Creative Assembly.

"That's not just for games, but for other multithreading-heavy tasks, such as video encoding.

They tend to retail around £230 depending on the clock-speed – they go up to 3.6GHz out of the box. But you can still get fantastic performance – and arguably much better bang for your buck – from the i5 series. Ivy Bridge i5 CPUs come in dual or quad-core flavours, so if it's a quad-core you're after, something like an i5-3570K is a great choice, and around £170".

And here comes your first big construction dilemma: do you want to overclock your PC? Overclocking is when you tweak the settings of the CPU to run at a faster speed than the manufacturer guarantees it is stable at. It's something many experienced gamers do, and its fine if you have a well-built machine with lots of fans to keep things cool. If you head down this route, you'll want the i53570k and a Z77 motherboard; if that all sounds a bit scary (it does to me), stick with the cheaper combo of i5-3570 and H77 motherboard.

Some PC retailers are suggesting that the bottom of the range i3 is now too slow to handle modern games, but our panel refutes that. "The i3 3220 can certainly hold its own when paired with a decent graphics card," says Hannett. "However, as it's only a dual core processor you might find that games released in the next couple of years will cause it to struggle."

Ah, yes, cores. Currently, most PCs at the lower end of the market will offer dual-core CPUs, which as Hannett says is absolutely fine for most current game releases. However, as 2013 goes on, we're going to get lots more Triple A titles looking for quad-core power. If you're only running indie titles or older budget titles you've downloaded from steam, you should be fine on dual-core for a good while. But with PCs it always pays to think as far ahead as your wallet will allow.

At the ultra-budget end, you're going to be wanting at least two cores running at 3Ghz or more.

Hannett reckons AMD still does well with integrated CPUs and that the AMD A10-5800K will be fine. Bickham says, "if you're on the strictest of budgets, a dual-core i3 such as the 3.3GHz i32120 will still do the job at around £90. And it's a great overclocker if you fancy dabbling in the dark arts…"