A gaming PC at a reasonable price

Q. My wife and I want to buy our son a laptop for graduation. He's a gamer; he's stuck on World of Warcraft. I asked what he needed and he gave me computer lingo that confuses me. What does he need to have to play that game and others in the future? He's showing me $4,000 Alienware computers. I'm not cheap, but give me a break! What do you think?

A. Online games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest and City of Heroes are gaining popularity. Some PC makers have taken advantage of this growing market with systems that satisfy gamers' hunger for bleeding edge technology.

But specialty gaming systems can be expensive. You can keep the cost of a game-capable PC reasonable by knowing what to look for. You don't need bleeding edge technology and you don't have to spend a fortune.

Multiplayer online games tend to be relatively forgiving on minimum requirements. Many online games, including those that I've mentioned, will do with an 800 MHz processor such as Pentium 3, 512 megabytes of RAM and graphics cards that passed their prime four or five years ago.

There are a few reasons why you should aim to outdo these bare-minimum requirements. Unlike stand-alone games, online games continually change, improve or expand. That means that the requirements can become more demanding.

As your son probably knows, minimum requirements also mean doing without features like lighting effects and scenery details. They can also mean long loading times between different game levels or scenes. In short, this breaks the immersion that gamers seek.

Finally, consider the life of the computer. The closer you can get to top-of-the-line, the longer your son's computer will last against the demands of future software and technology. To get the most for your money, however, stay a notch under the top-of-the-line.

A strong gaming PC should have a microprocessor from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices. I would look for a microprocessor that is a few steps down from the top. The computer also needs 1 GB of RAM. Graphics cards (also called video cards) are harder to specify. In general, look for one that includes 256 MB of its own memory. The most popular graphics equipment is produced by NVIDIA and ATI.

Such a desktop system should cost between $1,000 and $1,500 from online retailers. For an equivalent laptop, expect prices just under $2,000.

One possible complication is the release of Vista, the newest version of Windows. Vista will eat up more of a computer's resources than XP. If your son plans to upgrade to Vista, consider an even more capable system.

You can read the details on Vista's requirements in my recent column. For games, XP should suffice for at least the next few years.

Another source of confusion may be the continuing trend toward multi-core processors. You can learn about that here.

And for more information, check out a Buying Guide on gaming computers.