Jack asks, "I'm a college student and pretty low on cash. How do I go about building the best gaming computer possible for not a lot of money? I know it's difficult, but I really only play a few select games, but I'd really like to be able to play them in my new dorm!"

Building a gaming computer can be an expensive proposition, but if you know exactly what games you want to play, then chances are you'll be able to build a gaming computer relatively cheap.

First, determine how much performance you'll need out of your computer. If you play games that are a few years old - like World of Warcraft - then you're not going to need to build a top of the line computer. On the other hand, if you play only the latest and greatest games, then you'll need a large chunk of change just for the graphics card.

If you build down to the performance needs of your games, then you'll be able to buy cheaper components; for example, instead of picking up two nVidia GFX 290 cards to power your uber high-resolution display, you could pick up one GeForce 9200 card, which is significantly cheaper (about $100 versus $400).

You'll also need to focus on the processor, but if you stick with a relatively modern processor with more than one core (dual core or quad core is recommended), then you'll be fine. While the clock speed of the processor does matter for single-threaded applications, more often than not you'll find that even the slower processors tend to offer more than enough performance for your needs.

Finally, for disk space, you can always get one large hard drive, instead of worrying about multiple hard drives for optimized performance. While I'm sure you'd like to have nothing but solid state disks in your computer, you probably can't afford them. By sticking with one large hard drive you're sacrificing performance for price. with a 1TB or 2TB hard drive, you'll have more than enough space for your operating system, games, music, and movies, but the system will take a while to start up and games will take some time to load. Other than that, it's a pretty good trade off.

For other things, like monitors, keyboards, and mice, your best bet is to stay cheap. A 22" monitor would be nice, but a 19" or 17" will still function for your needs (and cost a lot less).

If you have a question, send it my way: lordkat@gmail.com

Be safe,
Jason