What are the things that should be present in “gaming” PCs?

Question

I was looking to purchase one of those so-called gaming PCs, and I am very confused to what I should look for. As far as i can understand, Gaming PCs have:

• A very fast processor
• Large amounts of fast ram (8-16 GB, ddr3)
• High-end cooling system

So, can I just go ahead and modify other kinds of PCs to get a gaming PC, or is there stuff under the hood that is not mentioned in specs?

Answer

There is no real difference between a gaming PC and a "normal" PC. Don't let yourself be confused by the marketing of some high-end gaming PCs, you don't need all that to play some games on your computer.

The only difference is the graphics card, if you want to play current games you need a reasonably powerful graphics card. You don't necessarily need a high-end card, you can play current games with any mid-range card, you might not be able to set the details to the absolute maximum. If you're not playing on a 30" monitor, you probably don't need a high-end card or multiple graphics cards. Take a look at my answer here for some more information about graphic cards.

For everything else you don't need anything special. More RAM is always nice, but you don't need that much for games. Take a look at the recommended RAM for the games you want to play, and take double that if it is cheap enough. Then you should be safe for a while.

You should get a reasonably fast CPU, it doesn't have to be the fastest available and you also don't have to overclock, if you don't want to. The GPU is usually more important for gaming than the CPU anyway.

If you want to overclock you should get a better air cooler, water-cooling is not necessary and more of a hassle. If you decide to overclock you need to pay much more attention to the parts in your computer. You need a mainboard that supports overclocking, for newer Intel processors you need the "K" version that is unlocked, you might need faster RAM and you need a better power supply.

If you're not building the computer yourself, buying some standard PC with integrated graphics and putting in a better graphics card is a valid strategy. You need to pay attention to the power supply in that case, high-end graphic cards use a lot of power and the built-in power supply may not be able to handle it.

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