Introduction

There’s a method to my madness. Last year, I wrote about power supplies and in February, I wrote about building a high-end workstation with a focus on memory and graphics. While both of these articles are among our most popular, I received many questions about the relevance of workstation hardware article to a gaming audience. The answer is simple:

Anyone can build a gaming system by following a recipe and buying what everyone else is using. To be at the top-of-your-game at performance system building, you need to understand what you are doing and why. Almost no one has the budget to regularly buy exclusively flagship components but knowing how high-end workstations are designed will help you design a good gaming PC. You’ll be able to cut corners and redirect the money toward a graphics card or faster CPU depending on your goals. More importantly, if something goes wrong with your built system, you will have a good idea of where the weak-link in your system is, and what you need to upgrade.

In this second season of “system building” articles, I’ve gone for gold and will be building what I consider to be an ultimate system where there is no strict budget. I won’t be afraid to spend money on this system, but at the same time, I’m paying careful attention not to waste any money either. You’re not going to see me go with solid-state hard drives or $9000 monitors, but you will see a $99 Goldtouch keyboard and Matrix Orbital LCD. The end result is a system you cannot buy from a store.

“In the last episode…”

Last time, our goal was a scientific computing workhorse built on a very tight budget. I spent a lot of time talking about CPU and graphics card selection, but glossed over many of the other components. This time, we’re not going to leave any step of the process uncovered or any stone unturned. The other important change is that this time, the goal is to build a good workstation for me. Something that’ll let me get my work done during the week, while also letting me enjoy my games on the weekend.

As before, stability is paramount. However, as a personal system, having a practical PC was also critical. So let’s get started and see what I came up with!