The best gaming experience calls for the best gaming PC on the market, but do you know how deep your pocket has to be to get one? These are not for the every day user and I doubt most hardcore gamers want to play in highest resolution and using the most demanding anti-aliasing features enough to justify buying one.

A fairly cheap windows based PC with a decent processor and video card should be run any game available today on any resolution a fairly common 22″ monitor can handle. This usually means a resolution under 1680×1050 and that is rather easy for a computer built from components referenced to as “value”.

Such a value gaming pc would consist of an Ati 4850 vga, a quad-core AMD Phenom II, or a core 2 quad in the 2.6-2.8GHz range. This would give about any gamer a good overall performance in any game currently out or to come in the near future.

If you think you’re after something better than good enough, you will have to check how deep your pocket is. The best gaming pc can be quite expensive and adding a mere 20% computing power can easily double the amount you have to part with at checkout.

I used to like AMD processors, but when it comes to the fastest gaming performance they just can’t compete with the powerhouse Intel calls i7. Nehalem is about 30% faster at a given clock speed than the Core 2 Duo or Quad with the same amount of cores. This is good news because it adds power to your computer without seriously raising the power consumption.

While this is a great way of making sure the PC is unrivaled, only the most hardcore gamers need to have an i7. If you’re about to play in full high-definition or even higher resolution, go for an i7, you can’t have anything better than that.

Not all i7 processors are the same though, it makes sense to decide about the number of cores. Intel released its 6 core processors only a few weeks ago. Before this new monster the i7 975 extreme used to be the fastest desktop processor known to man. 4 physical cores, 8 threads for seamless multitasking and it is clocked at 3.33GHz.

The new guy around the block is the i7 980X extreme. Six cores and twelve threads make sure you don’t lose frame rate even while doing something seriously processor intensive activity in the background. In other words you can play, encode your latest frag movie and watch a full HD video on a separate monitor without ever noticing a frame loss.

Now I personally think this is a bit overkill, quad cores with a bit of common sense did the same thing, but fact is fact, 980x is the fastest and most powerful processor known to the human race. Intel hinted that they’re not planning on moving anything further than this 3.33GHz hex-core monster called “Gulftown”. I don’t see a good reason why they would, since AMD is not anywhere near to this performance yet and software is heavily lagging behind.

There is no gaming software currently that takes benefit of the six core main processor and for a little while we’re not about to see any either. Benchmarks are eating up all the cores and bathe in the brutal computing power but not many plays 3dMark full-time.

Intel has a fine taste for pricing, their bulk price for this processor is $999, which isn’t going to fall too much in the most immediate future. Or at least not likely to. They made the best processor yet and unless AMD makes something better they’re not really made to give it cheaper.

We’ve addressed the first thousand dollars and all we have is a piece of silicium in a metal casing. The best gamer pc needs some other quality parts to perform well and while I know you’re thinking about video card and memory, let me venture a little to the basics.

Intel i7 based motherboards are rather pricey for some unknown reason. They cost anything from $200 to $500. While the most expensive is not always the best, the best pc needs good quality components none the less. I’d go and buy a Gigabyte motherboard because they’ve been one of the best manufacturers making boards for the Intel platform.

Without giving too much thought to the type of the motherboard I’d either buy a GA-EX58-EXTREME from Gigabyte, or go for the safe choice and get an Asus X58. P6X58D Premium to be precise. The Asus board costs a stunning $300 while the Gigabyte can be had for less than $200. Some people buy a whole computer off that, but we’re after the fastest computer here, we need the best components.

Both motherboards take DDR3 memory and you don’t want to settle anything less than 3×2 Gigabytes of the fastest memory available. OCZ offers their 2000MHz kit for $225. I’m sure you can have better memory than that, but it just doesn’t make any difference after that. If you’re thinking about maxing it out, 3x4GB kits, 12GB total, can be had for $450. If you opt for the latter, we’re already at roughly $1800.

The video card is one of the most important components of the gaming pc, right before the processor. Since AMD bought Ati their business skyrocketed. They make as good video cards as Intel makes processors. Ati released a model called 5970. This in fact features two cores of the 5870 clocked at 5850 speeds for reasonable power consumption and really good performance.

One piece of these costs slightly over $600 or under $700, depending on your taste of brand. You can overclock one yourself, but getting one already overclocked will push the bar by $100. $2500 already just for the main components, and there are quite a few things to put into a computer to call it the best.

The most hardcore gamers know how important flawless and swift data storage is. The faster the drive is, the faster a game loads, the less times it drops in frame rate and generally, multitasking becomes faster. Fastest possible hard drive in fact is not even a hard drive in the original sense. It will take a little while SSDs lose the name of this old technology, but until that, we’re either referencing to them as SSD or simply storage drive.

OCZ doesn’t like to wait for the competitors to come up with the largest capacity and fastest SSD, they like to stay on top of their game. This is why they released Colossus SSD series starting with 128GB and finishing with a monstrous 1TB drive at the end of the line. While the 128GB model will make your purse $450 lighter, the 1TB version is bordering ridiculous with $3,300. I’d suggest using a 128GB model for the operating system, and most important programs, games.

Another fast Samsung 1.5TB 7200 RPM drive can be used as main storage for files where instant file load is not that important. This adds $450 + $120 to our $2500 putting it to $3070. We’re still missing the optical drive which is absolutely up to your personal taste. A blu-ray writer is still a bit spicy at the price, but a good DVD drive can be purchased for a reasonably low $25. A blu-ray 8X writer adds $200 to the end bill. If you need it add it to the price but for the sake of simplicity I’d go for the more common DVD writer here. $3100 subtotal.

If you’ve ever listened to anything through an integrated sound chip found on any motherboard you may be well aware of the fact that these chips sound terrible. There are better and worse solutions, but it’s really a hit and miss. You’re looking for the best computer, you can’t afford to miss. Creative has been on the market for quite a while, an X-Fi Titanium for $100 won’t let you down, I suggest calculating one into the price. $3200.

While the computer case is entirely up to your taste I recommend choosing one of the better quality models. Chieftec is a safe bet, put $250 aside and you can have any case you want without having to worry about low quality junk some manufacturers tend to call “pc tower”.

The power supply is not up for taste, get the best possible piece, because it is the part of the computer that runs the whole show. If something happens to the electrical network it takes the bullet instead of your multi-thousand dollar computer. Don’t save a few dollars because you’ll pay it later with harsh interest rates. Antec 1000W power supply, TruePower Quattro. It will make sure everything is going well and everything is getting stable currents. $3450.

If you thought this will be it and we’re nice and cozy under $4000 then I’ll have to disappoint you. There are a few peripherals missing and every gaming enthusiast will tell you that a good mouse is as important as a good video card.

All gamers like to try a mouse before they buy one. It is up to personal taste, but the price is fairly standard all over the board. If you want a proper mouse to go with the best pc for gaming save up a hundred dollars and you’ll be able to get any of them from Razer or Steelseries. Depending on what type of games you play you’ll either go for the programmable steelseries stuff, or Logitech for outstanding quality. FPS gamers and those who don’t care for dozens of buttons are probably going for Razer mice. $3550.

The keyboard may not be as important as the mouse is, but it still needs to be chosen. I’m coming from a background of World of Warcraft, so I’d say a programmable Logitech G15 is a good choices, but this is your job to decide. Try keyboards and choose one that works for you. A fairly common $50 puts our subtotal to $3600.

The best gaming pc in 2010 can’t be complete with the best possible monitor to suit your gaming itches. Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP is one of the monitors worth looking at. It’s a 30″ model with a relatively common 2560×1600 resolution in this size. If you want to play games in the native resolution, you will need all the computing power other components provide above. Dell makes really good monitors in this size category, but unfortunately not cheap by anyone’s scale. $1490 jumps on top of $3600 putting it slightly over $5000, $5090 to be precise.

Personally I’d say the price of the whole system never stops where you think it will, saving up another $200 for things like headset, mouse mat and cables, possibly optical media is a good idea. This results in a final bill of $5590.

Now if you think I can’t add $5090 and $200, you’re right, but this isn’t the reason for the $300 higher price tag. The best gamer pc isn’t something I’d cool with some stock heatsink and fans, it calls for the best possible solution available in stores. If you add $300 for a water cooler set you’ll probably be as close to reality as you can.

The best gaming PC by my calculation can be put together for a humble price of $5590. Oh yeah, and don’t forget to add the price of a Windows 7. I don’t know who you are but more than five grand for a computer is steep by anyones measures, so I’d still take the opportunity and conclude, that a reasonable pc with well chosen, proper components for $2500 will be just fine for everything you want to play for the next 2-3 years.

Other than that, if you don’t care for gaming, you can get a 27″ iMac with the same resolution and a quad core processor for a whisker under $2000. It’s all up to what you need, I’d probably save up for a Mac for work and get a PS3 to wind out.