John asks, "I know you deal exclusively with gaming computers, but I was wondering if you could answer this: how would you build a car computer?"

It's an interesting question, and it's not as difficult as you might think! Of course, things are little different for a car computer than they are for a gaming computer.

There is one thing you need to remember with a car computer that seems counter-intuitive: speed isn't everything.

With a car computer you're not going to have the need for the highest end components on the market. In fact, a fairly low end computer (sub-$500) can act as the perfect car computer for several reasons:

• Slower computers tend to draw less power, putting less of a strain on the cars battery and alternator.
• Computer monitors in cars tend to be smaller with a lower resolution. 800x600 is pretty high resolution when it comes to a 7" monitor (the maximum size that will cleanly fit in a double-DIN dash opening).
• Slower computers generate less heat than their high end brothers.

When you're building a car computer there is one thing you really need to keep in mind: how much power you're drawing. For a gaming computer it's not too much of a big deal (just buy a new power supply), but in a car computer, if you're drawing too much power you're not going to be able to use your system. If you can keep the system power usage under 250W then you should be fine.

Another thing to keep in mind is how you're actually going to power the system. You can use an AC-DC inverter (they're not cheap), a DC-DC regulator (cheap, but drains the battery if you forget to turn off the computer), or you can use a "Smart ATX" power supply (sends a "hibernate" signal to the computer so it will shut off when the engine shuts off).

Finally, you want to keep the car cabin aesthetics in mind when you're building this machine. You're more than likely going to have to modify your dashboard in some way, and build a custom computer case for your machine (if you want it to look like it belongs in the car, that is). So getting to know a good fabricator in your area might be essential (unless you're willing to pay shipping and insurance charges to get someone else to do the work for you).

Overall, a car computer is all about how efficient and how aesthetically pleasing your computer can be. It's actually almost the exact opposite of building a gaming computer - lean and mean, versus a power hitter.

Do you have a question you need answered? E-mail me! lordkat@gmail.com

Click here to check out How to Build a Gaming Computer for Under $1000.

Be safe,

Jason