How do I do that?

BUILDING A GAMING PC PART 3:

TODAY’S LEARNING TARGET

Got Fans?

It’s a RAID!

Adding Lights & Gauges

TODAY’S SPONGE

What is Overclocking your video card?

What does a good FPS do for your game?

GOTTA HAVE FANS AND HEATSINKS!

When your PC is built with the fastest components on the planet…

Your PC runs faster & hotter!

These are square boxes that look much like drive cages.

Typically with blades either 80 mm or 120 mm in diameter

YOUR CARD SHOULD PROVIDE AT LEAST 2 FAN CAGES

HOW DO I HOOK IT UP?

You’ll need standard PC power supply connectors

At least one free internal power cable (or y splitter-that turns owe power connector into 2)

USE BALL BEARINGS

The best fans use ball bearings-Run faster, moving more air through

your case-Typically more quiet than cheaper “free-spinning” units-Most fan specs. Include an airflow rating

in cubic feet per minute (cpm)

HOW MANY FANS DO I NEED?!

If your PC has a single, high-end 3-D video card & a gaming processor

Recommendation is 2 case fans

Use 3 fans if you are using 2 or 3 video cards in SLI mode.

YOU ALSO NEED A HEATSINK

A finned hunk of aluminum or copper that you can add under your fan (or in some cases, in place of a fan)

Recommend buying a combo unit that integrae both a heatsink and a fan.

The heatsink/fan combo is separated from the CPU itself by a special thermal compound

IT’S A RAID!

Stands for redundant array of independent disks Huh?

A RAID array is a series of hard drives that work together to provide either faster read/write performance or a “mirror” backup that produces two copies of the same data.

Gamers are far more interested in the faster read/write performance, but it is nice to back up their save game files.

HOW DO I CREATE A “RAID?”

You need at least two hard drives

Most PC owners choose two or more of the same model Consider 10,000 rpm SATA drives

Your MOBO’s BIOS settings must support RAID operations

HOW DO I CREATE A “RAID?”

After installing the drives, you must create the array from the mobo’s BIOS setup screen

Recommendation to install a fresh copy of Windows on a new RAID array

Allows the operating system to automatically recognize the RAID installation and configure itself accordingly.

Vista calls this a “clean install.”