By Matthew Kerridge

The next generation of console gaming is here, and it has brought a sort of next generation in PC gaming along with it. If you have not been diligently upgrading your gaming desktop, chances are running the newer games are merely pipe dreams at the moment. Computer hardware in general has seen such revolutionary innovations in the last four years, that merely being a year or two behind the curve means your computer will not be able to run the latest wave of games smoothly at all, and it may be time to think about upgrading or purchasing a new gaming machine altogether.

The first consideration in either upgrading or building a new gaming desktop is of course the motherboard. This governs which processors, video cards, and memory you can use and will be the deciding factor in the overall performance of your machine. You will certainly want to use a motherboard that supports dual core processors, high speed RAM, and PCI-Express video cards, all of which are the latest in high end home computing technology.

The newest games on the market are extremely memory intensive and can really cause your gaming desktop to struggle to run them with anything less than two gigabytes onboard. You should really consider triple channel RAM, and perhaps as much as four gigabytes or more to ensure optimal performance.

If you want to experience your games in the resplendent detail that the designers intended, then you will need a powerhouse of a video card to handle the lush character models and painstaking attention to detail in the scenery. An older AGP video card is simply not going to suffice. You will need to go with a PCI-Express model that takes advantage of the latest in graphics processing technology. They can run several times faster than AGP models, and have enough onboard memory to run any game out on the market.

Your processor controls how fast your computer can send and interpret information from one device to another, and is often the limiting factor in your computer's speed and performance. High prices on premium processors often scare gamers into choosing a less than stellar processor, but your computer can only run as fast as your processor will allow. So even if your video card is faster than greased lightning, it will still only be as fast as your processor can run it.

You also want a degree of customizability in your hardware, which comes in the form of a user friendly interface. The software that runs your motherboard often allows you to tweak a variety of settings that will help you get more out of your video card and your processor by running them faster than recommended. This is a cheap way to improve your hardware performance, but also carries the risk of burning out one of the components. If you are going to go the path of 'overclocking' your hardware, you should consider investing in a better-than-average cooling system, just in case.

High quality sound systems, keyboards, mice, joysticks and a wide variety of other peripherals are also integral in the most immersive game experience, but these are largely not limited by your other hardware. As long as you have a few spare USB ports and a sound card, most motherboards have a good built in sound card, you can really let your imagination run wild!

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