(Information on Steam’s top games were gathered for this article from Steam Charts)

Back in January 2020, I crafted a neat little piece discussing the Logical Increments tier needed to enjoy each of the top games on Steam at the time. Fast forward to now, and oh, how the scene has shifted! Back around that period, we were seeing trade tariffs causing a good bump in prices for PC hardware​. As we ventured into late 2020, high demand meant the cost of PC parts kept climbing, and 2021 brought even higher prices—especially for graphics cards due to a cryptocurrency boom. Oh, and let’s not forget, the world was just getting acquainted with Covid-19, adding a whole new level of complexity to tech market dynamics through supply chain issues.

Now, at the tail end of 2023, with prices and availability having normalized in some (though not all) component categories, and just a week left until Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it’s about time we take a fresh look at what Logical Increments PC building tier you’d need to dive into the most popular Steam games today. Let’s see what changed in the last few years, and whether that ol’ system still has some life in it, or whether it might be worth a little upgrade. Stick around as we unpack the current gaming demands and discuss today’s tech landscape.
 

Criteria:

Logical Increments keeps its primary tier list consistently updated, showing you the cost of building systems geared towards particular performance milestones. From the humble ‘Destitute’ system to the jaw-dropping ‘Monstrous’ setup, it shows what is attainable at each price point, offers a roadmap for some upgrading, and generally makes it convenient to knit together a balanced system with top-notch parts.

With that list in hand, we can match each of the most popular games on Steam right now with a Logical Increments tier. In this piece, I cross-referenced the 8 most played Steam games with our tier list to see what is required to hit 60 frames per second at 1080p (referenced as 1080p60), 120 frames per second at 1440p (referenced as 1440p120), and 60 frames per second at 4K (referenced as 4k60).

Last time, I stuck to two non-negotiables for a system to land in a specific category. This time I made a few changes:

• The lion’s share of the time, we’re talking 99% or more, it had to cruise within 10% of the minimum frames per second or higher at the chosen resolution. So, I care more about the ‘minimum’ than the ‘average’ frames per second.
• It had to strut with at least very high graphical settings.

What should you do with this information? Find the games you play most often, or at least the games that interest you. Look at the resolution and frames per second you’re interested in, and (assuming you’re not bursting your budget), get the suggested tier for a satisfying, pleasant experience. You won’t have any regrets, as these systems have been vetted to ensure a proper balance of performance and price.

Now, let’s get on with what you came here for! On with the games!

Games:

Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2 is the freshest iteration in the cherished Counter-Strike series, known for its intense competitive gameplay that’s been honed by Valve (and then by millions of players worldwide over two decades). Built on the Source 2 engine, this game was released on September 27, 2023, 11 years after CS:GO. Interestingly, even though it had a massive graphical upgrade and several systems were overhauled (to the disappointment of some), the minimum specifications haven’t really changed that much. Really, any gaming computer built in the last 5 years would be able to run this at 1080p60 without any issues. But I digress. Here are my recommendations:

DotA 2

Another Source 2 engine game. Last time, I said that “the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) Dota 2 was officially released in 2013, and quickly rose in ranks to become one of the most popular games on Steam. Allowing for a range of different gameplay styles, such as strategical and tactical or more aggressive, you can play the game almost any way you want. It has a fairly steep learning curve, and can be an exercise in frustration for newcomers, but once you get the hang of the controls you’ll be greeted with fun, exciting gameplay.” Not much has changed on that front, so let’s see if the recommendations have changed:

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)

Released in late 2017, this battle royale game catapulted to the top of Steam’s most popular games, and it hasn’t really dropped from the list. Thankfully, it’s a lot more stable to run these days; in the early years, there were stability and optimisation problems, but hey, that’s now mostly a worry of the past.

Baldur’s Gate 3

A role-playing game released in early August, 2023. Baldur’s Gate 3 received high praise for its narrative, gameplay, and player choice. It has a fantastic amount of flexibility and replayability. You really can play this game any way you want. Its popularity has surprised its creators though, with a peak of around 800,000 players on release, and a current count still above 100,000 months later. The suggestions below include using upscaling technology in the game’s settings; if you don’t want to use it, I suggest going up a tier or two.

Apex Legends

Apex Legends is a battle royale game released in February 2019. Though it’s another game built on the Source engine, it isn’t similar to Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 because the engine of Apex Legends is a fork of the original Source engine from around the time Portal 2 came out. I’d argue that Apex Legends is really pushing the original Source engine to its limits, so I’m interested to see how well it performs on lower-tier systems. Without further ado, let’s check out the recommendations:

Team Fortress 2

Last time, I said that it’s “nearly impossible to get good data on how well current GPUs run this game.” And you know what? That still holds true today, thanks to the age of the game. Team Fortress 2 has been running for around 15 years, and still has popularity and longevity. Which makes perfect sense to me; it’s a great game! My only question is about how well-supported current-generation graphics cards are, comparatively. So, with some interpolation of available data, here are the choices I’ve made:

Call of Duty

So, this part encompasses Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Modern Warfare II, and Warzone. Having both solid single-player campaigns and a “multiplayer combat arena with battle royales, resurgence and DMZ” this game, whose earliest member came out in 2022, does require a powerful system to get the most out of it. I definitely recommend using upscaling tech like DLSS or FSR if the visual artifacts don’t bother you.

The Finals

A really recent entry, The Finals is a new shooter game that’s just been released. As in, I was typing this section the day The Finals was released (in open beta) so there’s not a huge amount of information available yet. To further exacerbate this situation, the system requirements on Steam all say TBD. Lovely. But that doesn’t mean there’s zero info, and we can extrapolate data from similar games and similar engines as well. Anyway, this game is much more arcade-like, and has some really solid destruction physics. Keep in mind though that at present this is in beta, so stability and optimisation isn’t the best yet (and may not be the devs’ current priority).

Conclusion:

Something that surprised me was that for the most part, 4k60 required the same tier as 1440p120, or sometimes even the tier below. Personally, I prefer 1440p120 over 4k60—but for slower, single-player games it’s worth knowing. Nonetheless, whether you are chasing the thrill of multiplayer games like The Finals or Apex Legends, or getting immersed in the narrative of Baldur’s Gate 3, getting the right hardware is instrumental to a good experience.

It’s not just enough to look at the average frame rates, but the minimum you’ll get as well. You want to ensure the experience stays smooth, which is what my analysis has done here. It is fantastic that most of these games don’t require powerful hardware. You can get a fully enjoyable experience at 1080p60 with a fairly budget-oriented system. So, even though games continue to evolve and push new heights with new releases and updated versions, you can still be assured that your old favourites will be hanging around for years to come, and that you’ll have the system to run them.

Sources

• Gamers Nexus – Coronavirus Hits PC Hardware Manufacturing Hard: Z490, AM4, & Computex
• HowManyFPS – FPS Calculator for Hardware, PCs, and Laptops
• PC Gamer – Larian’s boss worried Baldur’s Gate 3 had peaked in early access, so its massive 800K concurrent player launch was ‘way, way beyond’ expectations
• PCGamesN – The Finals system requirements
• RockPaperShotgun – Baldur’s Gate 3 system requirements, PC performance, and best settings to use
• Steam – Call of Duty Store Page
• SteamCharts – Top Games List
• TechPowerUp – Counter-Strike 2 Performance Benchmark Review – 40 GPUs Tested

The i9-12900KS is now among us, and it computes its way across the land like a fearsome giant. Until the next generation of chips releases in the (not-too-distant) future, this is the best CPU for gaming that is available.

It is also a CPU with a massive power draw and large thermal requirements . . . but fear not! If you are considering the route offered by this beefy component, you don’t have to walk the path alone. In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how to build an absurdly powerful top-tier gaming system with the 12900KS—all while maintaining system balance and even room for upgrades (many years down the line, when an “upgrade” might once again become possible for this system in a really noteworthy way).
 

CPU: i9-12900KS

The star of the show, the i9-12900KS manages to have the same 16 cores and 24 threads as its sibling the i9-12900K . . . while also providing a whopping 5.5 GHz native max speed. The high core count means this PC would be equally well-suited to workstation or battlestation tasks; but that insanely high top speed is what will make it an extremely capable companion for gaming.

The only concession here toward keeping temps and power bills under control is that half of the cores are Intel’s new variety of ‘efficient’ cores, with lower clock speeds and no multithreading. That should be no issue for this system whatsoever, though, as even the 8 performance cores (and their 16 threads) would be more than enough for any and all available games. With a 150 Watt TDP and a mountain of potential, now it’s just a matter of picking out parts that can support the 12900KS in all you might want to do with it.

GPU: EVGA RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming

If we’re putting together a system with the best currently available CPU for gaming, it goes without saying that we should pair it with the best currently available GPU for gaming. That’s exactly what the 3090 Ti is, and this big ol’ triple-fan configuration will do its best to keep the temperatures under control while pumping out the frames. A graphics card befitting of the right hand of the 12900KS.

Motherboard: MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk Wifi

Sporting native wifi compatibility and all the ports you’ll need, this board will be the canvas on which you’ll create this amazing machine. Technically, this mobo supports overclocking of the CPU . . . but with the out-of-the-box temperatures and power levels involved with using the i9-12900KS as a processor, that may be a slightly worrisome (and likely also unnecessary) prospect.

Note: this motherboard will require a relatively up-to-date BIOS version in order to be compatible with the 12900KS; if it doesn’t work out-of-the-box, contact the manufacturer and/or retailer for assistance.

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 X 16GB) DDR5-5600

As before, our decision has been guided primarily by what is going to give us the best possible performance for gaming. And when applying that logic to memory, 32GB of DDR5 in dual channel is a natural choice. Overkill? For now, maybe. But software also catches up to hardware before too long, and regardless: pairing faster memory with fast storage (as we’ll be doing below) should keep your loading times to an absolute minimum.

CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X73 360mm

Did I mention that the i9-12900KS can produce a lot of heat? I did? And frankly you’re getting tired of hearing about it? Well, I apologize for the bother; let this be the last time I mention it, as this enormous radiator swoops in to address that potential pitfall.

Power Supply: Corsair HX1000 Platinum

Did I, uh, did I mention how the i9-12900KS requires a lot of electricity? Okay, okay, well let’s dispense with that concern too. This 1000-Watt supply should not only be enough to handle the 12900KS and the 3090 Ti, it should have a bit of headroom left over for any small additions or upgrades you may want to make to the build in the future.

Storage 1: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB

A spacious pair of terabytes in an ultra-high-speed format should mean that your entire library of games can be housed entirely on this drive, even several years into the future. Samsung’s SSD’s are renowned for the quality, and this one should also be where your Operating System for the build lives.

Storage 2: Seagate IronWolf 4TB

For absolutely all other storage needs, including video files and recordings, music, documents, random programs, and any games that don’t fit on the main drive years and years down the line, here come the incomparable price per gigabyte of high-capacity HDD storage space.

Case: Corsair 7000D Airflow

The two main things to know about the 7000D is that it has a sleek look, and that it is enormous. Yes, yes, it also has a nicely designed mesh exterior to help with, as its name strongly hints, airflow. But its hugeness and its beauty are its more interesting details. This absolute unit of a case will comfortably house all the bulky top-tier parts in this list, while declaring its elegance and its power for all the world to see.

Total Cost: $3200

In conclusion, this premium i9-12900KS machine should be able to shrug off the workload of 4K gaming at a smooth frame rate, while also capturing footage and/or streaming, while also playing music or videos on a second display. Its fans may whir to a significant degree to keep everything operating safe and smooth, but that comes with the territory when taming a beast like this.

Yes, it is a machine with a high price tag, but purchasers can take some solace in the fact that building a PC even nearly this powerful about a year ago could have cost about twice as much. That said, it’s still not a PC build for the faint of heart (nor, naturally, for the lean of wallet) . . . but if that doesn’t describe you, and you simply must have the very best gaming rig right this very moment—here it is.

Daniel Podgorski
is the Managing Editor for Logical Increments. He is also the writer, graphic designer, and video/audio editor behind The Gemsbok blog website and The Gemsbok YouTube channel.

The prices for building a gaming desktop PC have improved over the past few months, but they might still be too high for you. In fact, they even be so high that you consider purchasing a gaming laptop instead. As the name suggests, a gaming laptop is a laptop made with gaming in mind; big companies like Razer, Dell, and MSI make lots of these nowadays. These laptops can be attractive options for more on-the-move, lower-budget, and/or younger players as they tend to be a little cheaper and a lot more portable than desktop alternatives.

In this article, I will explore if this is a viable alternative to building your own desktop. I’ll be covering a selection of important topics, starting with those that favor the laptops and transitioning toward those that favor the desktops.

This comparison will be mainly aimed at people wanting to play games on their system. You could also use this comparison for picking a system for similar workloads like video editing or 3D rendering, but the article is written with gaming in mind. Now, let’s get to it!

Cost of Laptops vs Desktops

The first topic is cost, and gaming laptops tend to be cheaper (especially after factoring in the computer itself, the operating system, and the monitor and keyboard).

Let’s compare the current ‘very good’ tier from our main chart against a laptop that is getting sold for the similar figure of 949 USD as a sample:

You can see from this test that laptops can sometimes be cheaper, despite not suffering too much in the performance department. The laptop has worse (but reasonably comparable) specs and a lower price tag. When you factor in that the ‘very good’ tier PC does not include an operating system, a screen, a keyboard, or a mouse/trackpad—the prices diverge considerably wider. Now, the laptop is only going to achieve its peak gaming performance when the system is plugged in, which hampers the portability I’ll be covering below, but for now we’ll set that aside.

This better bang-for-the-buck performance-wise is caused by multiple things. Obviously, there’s that list of bundled features. But within the device, the core components are usually soldered to the motherboard, which means that the motherboard doesn’t need to have unnecessary ports, slots, or devices. Laptop parts can also be built with one certain situation in mind, which gives companies room to strip down unused functions. Less features on each component often means that the production price is lower.

But it’s not all peaches and cream with the lower cost. Aside from the smaller storage, single-channel RAM, core spec differences, etc—there are a number of conventional compromises involved to achieve the lower price:

The operating system of a laptop is almost always cluttered with an array of bloatware programs that were pre-installed due to a marketing arrangement between the software publishers and the laptop manufacturers. Motherboards, RAM, and other unexciting components like the power supply tend to be not just lacking features but also of lesser quality in laptops (although directly comparing laptop and desktop motherboards and PSUs is slightly unfair, because of the different requirements for those parts). And you also have to keep in mind that the screen of a laptop is  physically smaller and often has a lower refresh rate than desktop monitors.

Portability of Laptops vs Desktops

Laptops are more portable than gaming desktops. Obviously. Moving your desktop setup from A to B is a bigger task than moving your laptop (and maybe a mouse) from A to B. This might actually be the main selling point of laptops for the vast majority of users.

You won’t have to carry these around! Well, at least not the keyboard…

This is a nice feature for people that are always on the move, for work or school for instance. You can also use this to take your gaming setup with you on holidays or long flights. Lastly, this means that you can utilize your system in casual spots like cafés, if you have the confidence. It gives you quite some freedom when you are able to play your favorite games wherever you want.

Prepare for more obviousness: the reasons laptops are more portable are because they are much thinner and lighter than desktops, have all functional peripheral needs integrated into them, and can run on battery power for a while. Unless you’re planning to drag a generator around in addition to your tower, you’re probably not going to be able to run a desktop with ease away from a wall outlet.

The only real complication for this otherwise oh-so-straightforward section is, as noted above, that gaming performance tends to suffer on battery (as system components are throttled to preserve power), and that gaming drains the battery at a considerably higher rate than other ways of using a computer.

Up-front Work of Laptops vs Desktops

The last primary advantage of buying a laptop instead of building your own PC is that your system is already built for you. Laptops don’t require any assembly, and most ones can be booted up out-of-the-box (when plugged in of course, since they tend to not be fully charged). The fact that they don’t require any assembly means that you will save time, and that you will be protected from making any system-breaking mistakes. And component compatibility is obviously not even the remotest concern for a laptop user.

There are even some minor additional virtues along these lines. For example, you don’t have to keep a lot of boxes around of all your components just in case you have to RMA a product (just a laptop box). And the operating system is pre-installed and pre-configured, making the system plug-and-play.

Now, I’ve already mentioned earlier that the pre-installed OS is a double-edged sword—as it usually comes crammed full of versions of Candy Crush, desktop applications for services that work fine as websites (like Twitter), redundant and bothersome virus protection software, and other junk. But that’s not the only caveat here. It’s also worth pointing out that some of the work being avoided, such as installing an OS, takes 20 minutes at most. And it being a small pre-assembled device also means upgrades and customization are harshly limited, moreso even than prebuilt desktop PCs… but that will be discussed more in a bit.

Still, though: not needing to build, however easy we believe building a PC to be, will be a strong enticement for many.

Heat and Noise of Laptops vs Desktops

The chance of this happening is somewhere around zero. But a hot, loud laptop is something that most laptop users are used to.

So, a laptop wins in all of the foregoing sections… but not here. One major downside of a laptop is the fact that a mobile device is far more likely to overheat. Not just sometimes—most of the time when it is under full load. Now, overheating won’t destroy your laptop unless something is seriously wrong with it (or the ambient temperature is extremely high). In fact, nowadays there are a lot of systems that will automatically shut down the laptop if temperatures reach a dangerous level, though that isn’t the best thing.

More commonly, if the temperatures are high, the laptop will simply switch priorities to cool itself off. The performance of the CPU, GPU, and/or other parts will be capped to below max, and the laptop fans will spin very fast (making a loud noise). This is something that most laptop users will just have to accept. Whenever you put it under full load, or boot it up, it will drop in gaming prowess and it will be really loud.

This can really be a downside if you want to play recent hard-to-run titles, or just want to game without headphones. Playing games mixed with loud fan noise isn’t a great experience, and no one likes their system to be regularly running below peak performance.

Of course, there are fixes, like buying a laptop cooler, or just preemptively limiting the hardware so that it never runs hot, but those ‘fixes’ may be worse for most users than the problems they’re intended to address. After all, a laptop cooler reduces portability, and hardware limiting directly lowers framerates (as well as being an arguable a waste of money, since you still paid for the components’ full abilities). In the end, playing on a laptop often means having a hot, loud gaming session.

Upgrades and Customization of Laptops vs Desktops

The second major disadvantage to a gaming laptop is upgradability. A laptop is barely upgradeable. When you want to get more performance, you often have to buy an entire new system. Laptops are not built to be upgraded. The GPU and CPU are soldered to the motherboard, and often there aren’t even any free RAM slots or space/ports for extra storage.

This chip has been soldered to the board.

This can be a big downside for many, since it is usually far more expensive to buy a new laptop than to just upgrade one, two, or three components. The impact of this disadvantage will differ from person to person. If you plan to play the same games for the foreseeable future, you won’t need better hardware next year or the year after that (unless those games become increasingly performance-heavy). If you plan to play the newest games every year, you will have to upgrade more often, and this downside of not being able to upgrade will hit you harder.

There are upgradeable laptops out there, but they tend to be extra-expensive, and your upgrade choices will still be very limited. And you can simply employ external hard drives for extra storage space, though that again counts as a limitation on the portability of a self-contained laptop system.

Screens of Laptops vs Desktops

Seeing detail on a small screen can be tough.

The last disadvantage of note is that the screen size of a laptop is… small. You will most surely get a bigger screen when you use a desktop and buy a stand-alone monitor. Laptop screens are often in the range of 14-17 inches (for 1080p screens, that is). 1080p desktop monitors tend to be within 21-27 inches. If you like to have a bigger screen to see everything better, laptops are not for you.

A smaller screen makes it more difficult to see certain details, so games where you need, for instance, to look for enemies in the distance—might be less fun on a laptop. And if you want to use your laptop for workstation tasks in addition to gaming (like 3D rendering, photo editing, or video editing), it may also be annoying to have to zoom in to see the details that you are working on.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, refresh rates tend to be lower on laptops than desktops; this has been less true in the last couple years than it was previously, but it’s still fairly conventional to see 60 Hz or 75 Hz monitors on gaming laptops. So, even in situations where the laptop is overcoming its potential specification and heat disadvantages to pump out high frame rates, the effort may be going largely wasted on a low-refresh-rate screen.

Conclusion

In conclusion, laptops can certainly be a viable alternative to a desktop system—even for gamers.

This, however, depends on what you need and what you want. You have to ask yourself a few questions to find out what best suits your needs: Is saving money high on your priority list? Does your system need to be portable? Do you want to build your own system? Are you okay with a loud system? Does your system need to be upgraded in the future? Would a small screen be a problem for you, or is that not particularly important?

I think that you can come a lot closer to knowing what the best option is for you by reflecting on and answering those questions. Gaming laptops can be a great option, but they do have drawbacks that interested gamers should bear in mind. I hope that this article cleared things up and helped you with the choice between a gaming laptop or building your own desktop. And feel free to share you thoughts in the comments below!