Even if you grew up playing some old computer games, things have changed a lot over the years. The abundance of choice today can be overwhelming and paralyzing, as dozens of advertisements pull us this way and that. To avoid the mistakes that we’ve recently made, we’ve narrowed down a few key points that newcomers to the market need to know before jumping in.

Try to Figure Out What You Want to Play First

The first step to ensuring that you don’t waste your money on unnecessary purchases is to consider carefully the types of games you’re looking to play. As an example, if you’re the only person looking to play on the computer, and you’re interested in online no deposit casino gaming like with Casino Alpha, then you don’t need to worry about anything expensive. These websites like Madslots and Luck are developed to work perfectly on smartphones and tablets, so the power of an average computer won’t face any issues with how they operate.

On the other hand, we have more demanding types of entertainment for the whole family, like cutting-edge games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Counter-Strike 2, or Cyberpunk 2077. These are much more demanding, so they’ll require more powerful hardware. To help you along, services like PC Game Benchmark offer detailed information on how different setups will run different games and the performance they’ll provide. As a general rule, aiming for average frame rates over an 80 FPS average while on high settings without ray-tracing enabled will ensure a fantastic experience.

PC is the Undisputed King

If you’re looking to play website games like those on online casinos, Apple machines can do just fine. For serious video gaming, however, PC will be your platform of choice. Apple’s platforms are fantastic and sometimes superior in some regards, but they’re not built with gaming in mind. These don’t offer anywhere near the range of games that PCs do, and while they have massively improved, they tend to feature inferior performance, as reported at Toms Guide.

On a similar note, be aware that gaming laptops tend to be more expensive than desktops for the same or inferior performance. This is a result of needing to attain a smaller form factor with less cooling. Even the parts in a laptop won’t be the same as their desktop counterparts, with a GeForce 3050 mobile graphics card being appreciably slower than a GeForce 3050 desktop graphics card, for example.

Speed, Gear, and Gimmicks

Our final advice is to look to mass user reviews before buying displays and peripherals. Expensive doesn’t always mean better here, and in some cases more expensive can even offer a worse experience. On the not-too-bad side, a monitor capable of 240hz output isn’t going to be useful at all on a computer that can’t hit 240 FPS in gaming. On the more frustrating end, a mouse with a huge number of buttons and obnoxious RGB lighting can lead to accidentally pressing the wrong thing, costing you victory.


“XTRFY Gaming Mouse” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by TheBetterDay

Don’t rush into your purchase, and if you’re building it yourself, remember that services like PC Parts Picker can help ensure all the different pieces fit. Once you’re all ready to, we look forward to seeing you out on the digital battlefield, as one of many mom gamers kicking butt and taking names.