Finally, a new gaming rig!

So I'm back, after a hiatus of over two months! Really crappy stuff were going on in my professional and personal life (some issues still remain), but I'm good enough to get back to gaming and writing this blog again!

A little 'accident' (if I might say that) resulted in me getting my hands on a spanking new gaming rig which made me poorer but happier. My naughty 5-year old nephew poured a jug of water into my PC cabinet, which rendered my processor, motherboard, graphics card and power supply (some of the most expensive components) useless. He dealt the same treatment to my keyboard and mouse as well. Surprisingly, my other components (hard disk, optical drive and RAM sticks) survived this brutal assault. I knew it was time to replace the blown components. Thinking in terms of gaming, my PC was due for an upgrade anyway.

Before I describe things further, let me get my new specs out of the way (which includes some older components that still worked):-

• AMD FX 8320 3.5 Ghz 8 core processor
• Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard
• Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 280x 3GB Dual X graphics card
• Corsair 800W Power Supply
• Corsair Spec-01 cabinet
• Transcend 8GB DDR 3 1333MHhz RAM
• Seagate 1 TB internal hard disk
• Asus DVD writer
• Logitech 5.1 surround speakers
• Western Digital 3TB external had disk
• Viewsonic 21.5 inch 1080p monitor
• Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse combo

The first components I bought, were of course the motherboard and processor. I went for a low end motherboard since I was on a somewhat tight budget. The stock heatsink of this processor was too noisy even under minimal load, and I was aware that it could only get worse (along with much higher temperatures too) once I started playing games. So I had to invest in a decent after-market cooler for the processor. I chose to go with a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO (the only one I could afford), and its doing a pretty decent job of keeping my processor cool without noise. I probably have to invest in a better cooler when I overclock my processor, but then again I'm not likely to overclock it in the near future.

Next, it was time to choose the most important component for a gamer - the graphics card. I did a lot of research, and finally settled for the card mentioned above (Sapphire R9 280x) because that's the only one which fit my budget and also provided splendid performance (actually it crossed by budget a wee bit). This card is pretty power hungry, and I didn't want to skimp on a power supply this time (as I had been doing all these years). So I went for a 800W power supply from Corsair which was an overkill, but definitely future-proof.

Finally, only the keyboard and mouse were left. I had always used standard keyboards and mice, which wouldn't last long. This time I wanted to go for a gaming keyboard and mouse, so that they would last a few years at least with heavy use. I settled for a Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse combo, which offered the best bang for the buck.

With this, I was all set to begin my next chapter in gaming, or rather continue from where I left off but with a ton of improvements. As of now, I'm thoroughly satisfied with my rig, as I'm able to run even the most resource-hungry games (such as Crysis 3 and Wolfenstein: the New Order) at 50+ frames per second on the highest possible settings (1920x1080 resolution). I'm also getting immense benefit due to the increased framerate while playing competitive multi-player games (such as Counter-Strike and Titanfall).

To sum it up, I'm a happy man now because my new monster of a PC is running circles around most games! Stay tuned for my next post, which (hopefully) won't take as long as this one!