Processor
Arguably the most important part of your PC, the processor is essentially the brain of your creation. It will process all of the commands from the software you try to run. Because of this, the power of your processor and the one that you select will have a significant effect on how well your PC performs, its speed, and whether you can even play some games.
When looking into processors the things you’ll want to take note of are the number of cores, cache, clock speed and socket type of the processor. The number of cores is an easy way to determine exactly how good your PC will be with multitasking or handling some particularly demanding processes. The cache is an area of memory on the processor itself that is used to store and speed up particular operations. The more powerful your processor, normally the larger your cache will be allowing your processor to keep particular operations speedy.
Your clock speed is another way of gauging how powerful your processor is and whether it will be able to run certain games. Many games now are pushing into the Intel i5 processor range as a minimum recommendation, which have a clock speed of roughly 2.5-2.7 GHz. Depending on what you’re aiming to play on your gaming PC, you should ensure that your processor can run all of what you’re intending to play on at least the minimum specifications to ensure you’re not disappointed when it’s up and running. If we were to suggest a processor range for future-proofing, an Intel i7 with a clock speed in the upper ranges of the 3GHz’s should be more than enough.
Finally, you have the socket type. Processors aren’t all the same size and don’t work with every motherboard on the market. You’ve got to make sure that you’re matching up your processor to a compatible motherboard. Ensuring that your socket type is compatible with your motherboard is crucial; fail to do so and you’ll fall at the first hurdle of assembling your rig.
