I’ve decided to take my blog a more technical direction concerning hardware and daily operations. And the first thing I would like to discuss is your hardware. We’ll start with the Gaming PC in this particular post.
When I first began my journey into starting a lan center I believed that I had to have bleeding edge technology, the largest monitors, and the best games. Well I got 1 out of 3 right. Your typical customer doesn’t even have a decent gaming computer and if they do well I assure you it is heavy as hell and very difficult for them to carry to every lan party he can possibly set up.
I’ll start with the basics. Your case, it is one of the most attractive things about your Gaming Computers. In fact hardware wise your gaming computers could be total pieces of crap but if the case looks good and has great lighting people will automatically assume it is the most bad ass thing they’ve ever seen. When I first started I had NZXT Cases that had ample blue lighting in them and a clear side window. I then mounted the cases on the wall above the where the gamer sat and it was probably one of my best advertising setups. The computers sold themselves. So for your case you want something that is Cheap, Sturdy and Flashy. NZXT cases come very close to this. I advise not to get any cases that have hinged doors on the front because no matter where you put the case they WILL get broken off and it does not look very attractive.
Next will be your power supply. 450 watt power supplies are what you should be getting. Your gaming computers will only have 1 graphic card anyways (I’ll explain later why only one). Diablotek made some great modular power supplies that I still use today and I buy them in bulk and get them for around 20 bucks a pop. Out of the 85 I’ve owned or installed I have only had 2 go bad.
Edit: Don’t go with DiabloTek I kept roughly 10 of these computers after getting out of the business and sold 8 and kept 2. Out of the 10 only 2 have not had power supply failures. (The Two I Kept) These things don’t do well with heat at all in my game centers they were always well ventilated and did fine but once they went into consumer homes that shoved them in a corner. They proved to be utter crap. Again, don’t buy diablotek spend a little extra and get something corsair or thermaltake
Now we get to the processor. AMD is your only option here. When your building 25 – 40 computers the little extra you pay for an intel that is only slightly better then its AMD counterpart (And that’s only in certain situations) it will add up very quickly. I also suggest at the moment the AMD Phenom 2 X4s. I recently ordered 20 Phenom 2 940s at $120 a piece. These things can also be easily overclocked with minimum heat increase (I personally don’t suggest overclocking, it lowers the life of the processor and you want maximum up time with you rig).
Now your motherboard it should have audio on board, GIGABIT LAN on board and only one PCI-E 2.0 slot. Honestly 2 graphics cards aren’t worth the investment, the headache to get them working properly, or the increased hardware failure probability. I’ve always done well with gigabit boards.
Next is your memory. You want high performance dual channel ram. No less then 4 gigs. Most will tell you can make it by with 2 gigs and this is true. But current games coming out are requiring more and more memory.
Your hard drive is going to need to be at least 500 gigs. Sorry guys World of Warcraft run best and not over the network and it can take up huge amounts of space. In fact most MMOs are this way. And my opinion the more space on your hard drives the more games it can hold and the more games that will be available to your customers.
Video Card you are going to want to go with Nvidia. Why do I choose in nvidia over ATI even when ATI is cheaper? Drivers, support, and if you buy EVGA a lifetime warranty. I had 10 computers running ATI at one point and I noticed that the drivers were updated at a slower cycle then Nvidia and I had more over all compatibility issues with certain games with them. In the end they were a headache I was glad to get rid of.
You can buy dvd roms with your rigs if you like but currently most of mine now have no dvd/cd-roms
Well that generally covers everything in the following few posts we’ll look more in depth on some of the equipment posts. Also feel free to comment and ask questions and even request Topics for my next posts.
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