If you're building a new gaming PC, there's a good chance that you've heard this piece of advice.
Balance your build, which is an important rule to follow,
but balancing is kind of a vague term.
So we're gonna explain what balancing means and what it doesn't mean.
The basic idea behind it is to minimize the impact of bottlenecks.
A bottleneck occurs when a weaker component prevents a stronger one from performing its best,
lowering your overall system performance in the applications that you care about.
A common bottleneck is overspending on a top tier gaming CPU
and then underspending on your GPU. However, it's worth noting that this blade
can cut both ways and a weak CPU
can also result in lower than expected frame rates.
Making matters even trickier, the ideal CPU-GPU balance is going to differ
depending on what kinds of games you play.
Say for example, you're the competitive type and you play eSports titles
where you're chasing the highest possible frame rates
instead of maximum visual fidelity. Well, for you, balancing your build
would mean making sure that your CPU can pump out hundreds of frame rates per second,
reducing latency and giving you a competitive edge. And a good CPU might matter more than you think
if you play simulation-type games like Cities Skylines.
Large cities can drag the game's simulation speed
to a crawl, literally slowing the in-game clock.
But on the flip side, if you like to enjoy beautiful AAA single-player experiences
at the highest fidelity, you are almost certainly better off
allocating all of your character sheet points to your GPU
before you even begin to allocate anything elsewhere because modern techniques for rendering lighting and shadows
are almost entirely dependent on having a strong GPU.
So your best bet in any case is to figure out your budget,
then read independent reviews for the games
and the hardware that you're interested in to see how different CPU and GPU combinations
play with each other. Remember, the GPU is often the bottleneck
when trying to run at high resolutions and high quality settings,
but the CPU is often the bottleneck when trying to reach the highest possible frame rates.
As you go through this exercise though, remember that balancing your build
does not mean buying the highest end component
just because you splurged on a different component elsewhere in your system.
Don't be pressured into spending fistfuls of money on,
let's say a fancy liquid cooler if an inexpensive heatsink is good enough for your needs.
Another example is extra CPU cores. Well, those can be worth spending money on
if you're performing tasks that use them, like video encoding or 3D rendering.
But I pretty much guarantee you that most of the games you play
only use a handful of cores and a mid-range chip is gonna do just fine.
Another core component to balance is your RAM.
Avoiding critical bottlenecks typically means having enough RAM to run all of the programs
you need at once without running out. And in modern games, that can be a lot these days
with 32 gigabytes quickly becoming the recommended amount to reduce stutter
and even shorten loading times as you move to new areas of the map.
But that doesn't mean that you should go overboard
and over buy. In the old days, it could be worthwhile
to load your system up with as much RAM as you could afford
because newer programs might need more in the future
and if you filled it up by accident, it could result in a full system crash.
But modern systems will use their drive as an overflow
which will slow down performance but it won't lock up your system.
So you can just head to the store at your leisure for an upgrade.
And besides, if you have extra budget for your RAM today,
I'd consider putting it towards faster RAM rather than more of it.
Though there is a point of diminishing returns. So again, read reviews to figure out
what speed of RAM to buy for your needs so you aren't buying something
that's so fast you're wasting your money. Balance.
Outside of these core components, CPU, GPU and RAM,
there are some other considerations for balancing that may not affect your frame rates in your games
as directly but can still save you money. For example, there isn't much point
to getting some kind of gargantuan power supply that's rated far and excess
of what your system actually draws under load. A good guiding star is to look for a quality unit
with 100 to 200 watts of headroom for future upgrades.
Cybernetics certifications on the box, never a bad sign.
And I could actually say something similar about components like your motherboard and your case.
For example, getting the motherboard with the right chipset is important
so that your CPU will fit in it. And so you'll have enough PCI express lanes
and other key features you might want. Like fast networking or USB ports.
But is there really a point in getting a super high-end motherboard
with a ton of extra headers and overclocking tomfoolery
you're never gonna use? In a different vein, do you really need
a gigantic space hogging case if you're just rocking a mid-range graphics card
and a single M.2 storage drive? We can't talk through every scenario like that.
There's a lot to consider to have a well-balanced system. But the underlying concept is simple.
Figure out how you're going to be using your computer and buy the components
that fit your use case without overspending. And just because you spent a whole paycheck
on an RTX 4090, that doesn't mean you have to spend two more paychecks on a 64-core CPU.
You're not gonna hurt your graphics card's feelings. I promise.
Thanks for watching, guys. If you liked this video, check out our other video
on PC components that are surprisingly overrated.