Selecting The Right Components

OK, so by now you hopefully know what system is right for you. The only thing left to do is to add the final tweaks by selecting the right components. When selecting components for your computer, it is best to take each component individually while being mindful of the requirements of those components. We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the components that can be selected for each system are compatible with the rest of the system. However, there are certain things you should be weary of before making your final decision. Never fear! This section is here to help! Here is what you should consider for each component going down the list.

SPECIAL PROMOTION: These are special deals we have managed to secure with various companies that basically allow us to offer free accessories and/or parts to our customers. There is no risk associated with any of these offers, so go ahead and choose whichever one you think you would prefer. If you can't decide, it's usually good to go with the most expensive option.

PROCESSOR: You don't have to worry about compatibility with any of the processor selections we have provided on our systems. A general rule to follow is that the more expensive processors get, the better they perform. We don't necessarily recommend buying the most expensive processor, as price increases often offer only incremental performance increases. If you want the absolute best performance, then by all means go for the most expensive. If you want high performance without paying an arm and a leg, then opt for either the stock processor configuration or take a few steps up. Some terms you will want to familiarize yourself with are dual-core, FSB, and Cache. Generally speaking, the higher numbers you see the better. With dual core processors, you can get insane multi-tasking performance. FSB, or Front Side Bus, is the term given to the communication between your processor and your memory through your motherboard. FSB on AMD systems is actually called HTT, and you will notice that it is higher than on Intel systems. FSB between Intel and AMD are not really comparable because they work under different concepts. However, the higher the number, the faster your processor communicates with the rest of your system, the better. Cache is a term given to the ultra-high speed, low latency memory banks that are on the processor die. Your processor stores information in the Cache that it can access instantly. The more cache the better, but you will notice that price increases with cache size because cache is expensive due to the premium on die space. With these things in mind, you should be able to choose the processor that is right for you. We recommend the Core 2 Duo series from Intel for desktops or notebooks, and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 or FX for desktops and AMD Turion 64 X2 for laptops. For the ultimate in multi-tasking performance, Intel Core 2 Quad and AMD Quad FX systems are the only way to go.

RIG: To be honest, anything listed in our "RIG" section is good. We only use the highest quality cases, and any selection you can make will be worthwhile. Not only will your computer look fantastic, it will offer industry leading ventilation to keep your components cool and operating at the highest level.

RIG COLOR: We can't really advise you here; you know what color you like. Out paint jobs are high quality and long lasting.

RIG STYLE: We offer several basic choices on some of our rigs that dictate external features. Typical options are windowed or not windowed. If you want to show off the inside of your Vigor Gaming computer, typically lit with brilliant blue LED fans, go for the window. If you want a more professional-type look, go windowless.

RIG COOLING: If we give you the option to get the Vigor Monsoon II TEC Active CPU Cooling Air Conditioning System, you should definitely get it. The Monsoon II has won countless awards on enthusiast websites for its enhanced cooling abilities. With the Monsoon II, not only will your components keep extra cool, your overclocking headroom goes through the roof. While the Monsoon II is recommended, all of our cooling solutions are superior.

RIG POWER: This is one of the most crucial options on the list. While having a stronger power supply is not really going to get you more frames per second in games, it is going to increase the stability and capacity of your system. If you choose to upgrade your video card to a one of the new power hungry NVIDIA 8800GTX or ATI X2800 series, you are definitely going to want to beef up your power supply. If you are selecting lots of options like multiple hard drives in RAID arrays, the Monsoon II TEC cooler, and the top of the line quad core processors, you should consider upgrading the power supply as well. Of course we recommend the TG1100-U96 1100W Power Supply from Tagan, as it is one of the very best units on the market today.

MB CORE LOGIC: The motherboard in your system will play a large roll in dictating what features you have available. The better the motherboard you have, the better the processor, RAM, and video cards you can add to your system. Systems equipped with different chipsets offering similar features might perform slightly differently due to having different chipsets. All of the motherboards we offer have industry leading performance in one realm or another, whether it is overclocking, features, or stability. We also try to choose boards that offer a good combination of the three so that all Vigor Gaming computers are reliable and high performance. A good rule of thumb is that any motherboard that has "SLI" in the name is usually equipped with a lot of really nice features. The same thing applies for "CrossFire", "975X", and "680i". When in doubt, don't be afraid to spend a seemingly disproportionate amount of money on your motherboard, as it will play a disproportionately large part in defining the overall performance of your computer.

MEMORY: Memory is probably the hardest part to choose when constructing a new system. There are dozens of manufacturers that produce lots of good parts and lots of different parts. All of the options and the different numbers can be extremely confusion. Luckily for you, Vigor Gaming takes the guess work out by hand picking the very best products on the market. Memory that makes our short-list must first go through rigorous testing and meet the requirements that we have upheld since our foundation. Just to give you a quick rundown on the numbers for memory, refer to this article.

HARD DRIVE: Hard Drives are an integral part of your computer because they store all of your data. Your operating system loads from them, and your documents are kept on them. There are many different things to look at when buying a hard drive, including RPM, Cache, capacity, and type. All of the hard drives we have selected in our list offer tremendous performance across the board, so the main thing you should concern yourself with is capacity. All you do is play games and surf the web? A smaller, less expensive hard drive might be right down your alley. Do you partake in content creation and production as well as play games? Larger hard drives are for you. We like to recommend the highest performance parts, and right now those parts are the 150GB Western Digital Raptor drives. These drives operate at 10,000 RPM and have 16MB of cache for extremely quick seek and write times. Put two of them in a RAID 0 array, and it will seem like your computer opens programs before you even click on them.

VIDEO CARDS: If you are a gamer, the video card is probably the most crucial part of your computer. Unfortunately, video cards are also typically the most expensive. With SLI and CrossFire technologies from NVIDIA and ATI, it is not uncommon to find two high-end video cards in a gaming system. We recommend taking advantage of the massive graphics capability of SLI technology and the new 8800GTX from NVIDIA. The 8800GTS from NVIDIA is also an amazing performer and probably offers the best price/performance ratio on the market today. If you don't want to hurt your pocketbook too bad, you can opt for a single graphics card as well. A word of caution: If you end up going for the extremely high-end graphics subsystems noted above, you are going to want to make sure your power supply is up to the task. While doing so is taboo, we recommend a power supply with at least 700W. If you are going with AMD's Quad FX and NVIDIA's SLI in the same rig, the Tagan 1100W power supply is the only one of our arsenal that we recommend.

OPTICAL DRIVES: "Optical Drives" is just a fancy way of saying CD and DVD players. Every computer should have one of these guys, as they read and write data to diskettes and most programs are distributed through this media. When looking at the numbers on Optical Drives, the higher numbers mean that it can read and write faster. If you want the best, get the highest numbers. All of the options we have selected are reliable, high performance parts so you don't have to worry about making a bad decision. Luckily most optical drives are relatively inexpensive, so its hard to go wrong. Blu-ray drives are very expensive drives that can read Blu-ray discs, which are basically DVDs on steroids that sport HD capabilities. Having two optical drives will let you copy media from one disc to a blank one with much less hassle. The option for two drives is left entirely to your personal preference.

RECORDING SOFTWARE: DVD/CD recording software will let you burn DVDs with little effort. You can add tracks to a music CD in Roxio or Nero and have a playable disc for you car or portable CD player in relatively no time at all. Both programs are very well known and both offer similar features. Nero is a bit more of a simple yet capable program, while Roxio has a more complex interface.

SOUND: If you are a gamer or an audiophile, you probably have learned over the years that onboard sound is not that great. There are exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, even a low-end discrete sound card will produce a better quality audio experience than the audio chipset on your motherboard. Because of this, Vigor recommends that all serious gamers upgrade to an X-Fi series from Creative. The X-Fi series offer tremendous positional audio and 3D-sound capabilities not found on any other cards on the market. The audio processing capabilities of the X-Fi series is said to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 times that of its predecessors. This is advantageous because the discrete X-Fi audio card will offload audio calculations from your computer's CPU, allowing it do more important things like giving you more FPS.

NETWORK PORT: In this day and age, all motherboards come equipped with network ports for your Ethernet connections. Many motherboards will offer gigabit LAN capabilities, which offers insane throughput over the network as well as unrestricted flow of your download and upload bandwidth from your ISP. Your motherboard selection should specify if it has this feature. If you want even more network capabilities, we can install a dedicated gigabit network card to increase the potential applications of your computer.

WIRELESS NETWORK PORT: Over the past couple of years we have seen wireless internet use growing by leaps and bounds. More and more customers have been requesting that wireless cards be installed in their computers. There is little variation between wireless network cards these days, and we offer very competitive pricing. Look ma! No Wires! Please keep in mind you will need to have a wireless router installed somewhere in your home if you wish to enjoy wireless internet, it doesn't just come from nowhere!

I/O PORTS: The Input/Output ports on your computer are found on your motherboard at the rear and on the front panel of your case. These ports control how many devices you can have connected to your computer at a given time, including speakers, headphones, mice, and keyboards. USB devices are a good way to expand the features of your computer, and all Vigor rigs come with an insane amount of USB ports. With the top model Vigor computer, you can potentially add about 160GB of storage capability to your computer through flash drives alone!

MONITOR: We offer a wide range of LCD monitors with our computers. We have selected these particular monitors because they have a reputation for being good for gamers. The numbers that are relevant for gamers when selecting monitors are the contrast ratio and response time. You want to try to get the highest contrast ratio with the lowest response time, as this will offer a good blend of picture clarity and video response. While LCD critics say that gaming on an LCD is terrible because of ghosting, we beg to differ. LCD technology has improved significantly over the years and new LCDs with <8ms response time do away with ghosting (ghosting is where you see trails on fast moving images). LCD prices are also rapidly dropping, which allows us to offer our monitors at competitive prices.

SPEAKERS: Speakers are looking cooler and sounding better than ever before. While we still think a good set of headphones is a better gaming decision, lots of customers opt for the immersive surround-sound experience that can only be provided through speakers. Luckily speakers are not too expensive. A good 5.1 or 7.1 system from Creative or Logitech will get the job done just fine.

KEYBOARD: For most people, keyboards are but a simple part of the computer. For gamers, a good keyboard can mean the difference between getting frag or getting fragged. A good keyboard is one you are comfortable with and responds well. Our keyboards are handpicked by gamers and offer superior performance. With the Logitech G15, you get unparalleled features with an ultra-aggressive look. We also have several wireless keyboards that you can choose from. A year ago we would never recommend a wireless desktop setup to a gamer. With great new developments from Logitech and Microsoft, we can do so with confidence. Choose the keyboard that best suits you.

MOUSE: The most crucial peripheral for any gamer is the mouse. Gaming mice have been offered from various companies for many years now and they are only getting better. Not only are the specs of gaming mice superior to normal ones, their designs and drivers are often supped-up to allow gamers the customization they need. We offer high-end gaming mice like the G5 from Logitech as well as some legendary gaming mice like the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0.

FLOPPY DRIVE: You either want one or you don't! There are still several reasons for floppy drives, and we recommend you get one just in case.

OPERATING SYSTEM: The new OS (operating system) on the block is Windows Vista. It offers cool graphical effects and some greatly improved features of Windows XP, but for now it is inferior to XP in gaming performance. This is mainly the result of poor graphics driver support from NVIDIA and ATI, and will certainly get better over time. If you want to be on the cutting edge and have your compatibility for all the programs and games being released in the foreseeable future, go with Vista. If you want the old standard in operating systems for gaming and productivity, go with XP. We have a suspicion that Microsoft is actively trying to get everyone to switch to Vista and as such, all of our rigs can run Vista just fine. Make sure you have at least 1GB of RAM with your Vista system, as it is a considerably more demanding operating system than XP.

SERVICE: We offer our standard 3-year parts and labor warranty on all of our systems. You can read more about our warranty policy here.

STORAGE MEDIA: Save yourself the hassle of making a trip down to the store and have us send you a spindle of blank CD or DVD discs. Make a backup of your data or copy your favorite album all from your computer.

SOFTWARE BUNDLE: Boost your productivity with a software bundle from Vigor Gaming. We offer the industry standards in word processing and productivity at competitive prices. If you don't have these programs already, what are you waiting for?