Gaming Computer

A gaming computer, also known as a gaming PC, is a specialized personal computer designed for playing video games. Gaming PCs typically differ from mainstream personal computers by using high-performance video cards and high core-count central processing units with raw performance. Gaming PCs are also used for other demanding tasks such as video editing. Many gamers and computer enthusiasts choose to overclock their CPU(s) and GPU(s) in order to gain extra performance. The added power draw needed to overclock either processing unit often requires additional cooling, using upgraded air cooling or water cooling.

Hardware
The Commodore 64 was a powerful computer for 1982, with 64 kb of RAM on its MOS 6510 processor. It could display up to "40 columns and 25 lines of text" along with 16 colors on its 320x200 resolution screen. Over time, technology progressed to where this became outdated and computer hardware continued to push further what was possible before. Regular computers today, like a Lenovo Chromebook C340-11, have 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, a dedicated graphics card, Intel Celeron N4000, and have touch screen variants on its 1366x768 resolution screen.

Gaming computers take this to another level, like this Alienware Area-51M R2 Gaming Laptop, which features the latest Intel I9 with 10 core processors, a dedicated 8 GB graphics card, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of internal storage. Gaming laptops generally do not possess touch screens since they require a large portion of energy to run, which in turn can affect the speed and frame-rate of game-play.

Form Factors
According to Andrew Freedman, senior editor at Tom's Hardware for desktops and laptops, he says that "Gaming rigs aren't one-size fits all" and that there are certain instances where a gaming desktop will be more appropriate than a laptop and other circumstances where a laptop is more appropriate than a desktop. Each platform has its pros and cons which can change depending on a person's needs.

For example, someone looking for maximum portability may choose a laptop over a desktop since it is all self-contained in one unit, whereas a desktop setup is split up into multiple components: a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and the desktop itself. Freedman states that laptops are ideal candidates for LAN parties, especially ones equipped with "Nvidia's Max-Q GPUs" which "can easily fit into a backpack and don't pack outrageously large chargers".

Build Types
As was stated before, there are many options PC gamers take into account when deciding to build their own unit versus buying a pre-built one. There are not many options when it comes to the laptop configuration but they do exist. Jason Clarke, a contributor to Chillblast, points out that there are a number of builders that deal specifically with laptops with some adding configurable features that were not originally so, such as being able to change CPUs and GPUs.

It is important to note that these PC builders build from scratch and the possibility to change out CPUs and GPUs after they have been installed is unlikely. Clarke also advises that people should and cannot build their own laptops because of how complex and compact everything is.