Is a gaming computer important for playing games?

Question

If one wished to play video games on PC, would they require a gaming PC or a typical PC will do?

Answer 1

Theoretically, a gaming PC is just a moniker. It has no established description. Also, you don't necessarily need a "gaming PC" to play video games. Depending on multiple factors, your PC might or might not be a good system.

• For online competitive games, you need a fast internet. If you don't have one, the most expensive of gaming computers won't be able to give you a good experience.
• A lot of AAA titles include a high level of lifelike effects and are built to mirror realism. These effects need a lot of GPU power. As a result, any PC with an older GPU cannot run newer AAA titles smoothly.
• A minimum amount of RAM is required for a game to function well. The RAM size dictates how much volatile information can be stored to be passed to the GPU's VRAM while a game is running. Even if your PC has the best GPU and CPU but a low RAM size that is less than what a game requires (or the combination of all apps require including system functions and any streaming or typical apps that are also running), then the game will be exceptionally slow.

In fact, a lot of components are specific to a type of game or genre of game. For some games, the CPU is a better priority while for others, it can be the GPU, and for most recent AAA titles, it's both. Read more about CPU vs. GPU vs. RAM here.

Answer 2

It really depends on what kind of games you want to play and what you mean by "gaming PC" and "typical PC". I will therefore have to make some assumptions.

A gaming PC tends to refer to a PC which has sufficient power to run graphically-demanding games. These tend to be FPS games but they can be other titles too. A gaming PC will normally have a dedicated graphics card, a PSU which has sufficient power to run said card with the rest of the system at least at 90% load, and a processor with multiple cores [four absolute minimum] and a decent amount of RAM - minimum 8GB. It should also, ideally, have a dedicated sound card. A gaming PC is generally a lot more expensive to purchase components for. Gaming PCs tend to be built manually by gamers, though custom or pre-built gaming PCs do exist too.

Business desktop PCs - or a "typical PC", one would imagine - can run simple graphical games, but even games which appear graphically simple can be deceptively demanding on a system e.g. Minecraft. There are also many games, e.g. Witcher 3, Skyrim Special Edition, Shadow of the Tomb Raider etc which one would need to run on a high-powered gaming PC and which would definitely not run on a desktop PC with onboard graphics. Consider running Cyberpunk 2077 on a standard desktop "typical PC" - it would be impossible.

Therefore it really depends on what games you want to play. If you are casually playing simple puzzle games or games released over fifteen years ago, a modern desktop PC could probably handle most of them. Probably all of them if they are 20 years old. However, if you are planning to play up-to-date or graphically-demanding games, you would definitely need a "gaming PC".

PS: I personally have a "gaming PC" but it is really on the edge of what one could consider a gaming PC these days. Its CPU is ten years ago and its GPU is 12 years old. It can play almost anything released in the 2000s and most games released in the 2010s. However, if I ran it as is for another ten years I would be hard pressed to call it a gaming PC any longer. I would just call it a "typical" PC.

TLDR; If you want to play video games on a PC then yes, you would need a "gaming PC" since it's fair to assume you would want to play modern games without limitation, which a "typical PC" will not be able to handle.