[Skybird]

I must chip in here.

ET2SN is right in that "gaming" often is used as an advertising stunt to justify higher prices of a given hardware. He correctly said that all technology in a PC must comply with certain standards, and since every item must meet these standards, it does not matter whether it is labelled as "for gaming" or not.

But that is about one quality only: compatability.

There is another one: durability. That can be affected by single 5-cent-components on a PC card, by a single switch, by the material that is used for building a piece of something. Durablity also refers to the effects that can influence the longevity of the system, namely what increases or decreases heat levels. Finally: product design (chip architecture for example) , and production quality both affect durability.

These factors, which come in a multiude of variations, should be taken into account. And learning about the features of a given piece of hardware the cusotmer eyes, is what makes putting together your next system a bit time-consuming, because you need to do some research. Some mainboards can have flaws right out of the factory. Or they comply with the standards demanded, and still suffer from bad firmwares in the first months, triggering instable systems. That the first generation of a new mainboard standard is messy, is quite common now, it seems to me. The cooling system: which noise level, which efficiency, and what fits into what tower size? Is the airflow still good enough, or will you end up having ten degrees more on average than was necessary, which will put a dent into longevity of the overall system? The graphics board, different companies build different cards with one and the same basic chipset - and he card of the one supplier perfomrs slightly better and still stays a bit cooler, than that of the other. Or a slightly improved version of the card: The asus 1080 TI OC with 13 GB for exmaple is known to perfomr better than the normal 1080TI non-OC - and stays a cooler nevertheless.

So, compatability is to be taken for granted, i agree. But still there is different levels of quality to be found. These do not automatically come with the label of "for gaming", however.

One word of advise: check the RAM bars you end up with, run full (=time-consuming) RAM tests with them, individually. i know its a pain in the azz, but the ammount of erratic RAM leaving the factory, no matter the brand, is hilarious. In my current system, replacing and also increaisng my RAM had me going through 10 bars - 5 of which showed to be broken while being new. My then new system was already delivered with broken RAM, I later found out. In winter 2017, when I bought my system, the status was that experts estimated 35-45% of the produced RAM Bars and chips of any kind (SD cards, USB sticks) being erratic and technically flawed. The producers definitely do not have full control over their quality assurance there. I would also test any SSD throughly. RAM bars are an item to buy that is very high-ranking of my risks-list.



I recall times when it was exciting and fun to buy a new system. To me at least that is no more. Its a burden. My last system before the current one lasted for almost 7 years, and I still would use it if it would not have become techncially unreliable (breaking apart): not for VR, but else: the performance was enizgh for my gaming needs. My current one now is 2 years 2 months old. I hope and expect and demand it to last as long, with the excpetion of the graphcis card, maybe, or the HD/SSD. Dont they know we live in times of progress? Progress it is not if stuff you produce lasts shorter and shorter.