Tip of the week (SPG)  

June 29, 2008: When purchasing a monitor be careful that you do not choose one that is too large! Consider desk space as well as viewing distance from the monitor as your primary considerations. Secondary considerations would be other persons viewing at an angle, as well as additional port features as HDMI and card readers. Tertiary considerations may be height adjustment, pivot and swivel features. 22" monitors are the "sweet spot" for the average gaming consumer today. Higher the price will generally reflect a higher quality and feature-set.

June 23, 2008: Don't be fooled by how "large" something is. If you are shopping for a graphics card and notice it has 1GB instead of the average 512MB, it doesn't mean the card will run faster or support more games over a card that is newer. Some cards that have 256MB are faster at the majority of games than those with 1GB!

June 15, 2008: Not everyone needs a quad-core CPU right now, especially gamers! Looking for the most powerful system build to ensure WOW, or the new Age of Conan game runs smoothly? Don't consider the CPU at too high of a priority. As with most gaming rigs, the GPU is the most important factor. Dual-core CPUs, either AMD's Phenom's or Intel's Penryn C2Ds will do just fine. Quad-core's "may" be useful for MMO and other games in 2009 or beyond...

June 8, 2008: When selecting a computer case there are three primary things to consider:

1) How large and heavy do you want it to be? Select a full-tower for space, but select aluminum material if you don't want it to be too heavy!
2) Don't need a power supply? Some cases automatically come with them!
3) Enjoy peace and quiet? Purchase a case with as many 120mm fans as possible.

May 25, 2008: When purchasing several components for a new computer system ensure that each component is certified to work with the others. For example, certain motherboards are sensitive to the speed and configuration of inserted memory modules. Start with matching up the motherboard, memory, and CPU. The motherboard should also have a slot to accommodate your selected video card. After selecting your other components, choose an adequate sized case and a PSU powerful enough to power everything. Our recommendations here are in relative harmony for this.

May 18, 2008: Periodically check your hard drive space on all partitions to ensure there is at least a couple of gigabytes unused. This allows the drives to "breath" when performing swapping and defragging tasks. Ensure at least 15% of a drive's space is unused when defragging as well, otherwise defragging will take significantly longer to complete.