The Extreme Gamer's PC: A Gamer's Guide To Ultimate PC Performance

Rating:
Summary: Vapid, disappointing inept instruction from a complete l4m3r
Review: I read this book ... for a couple of good hours, hoping to see if I could find some interesting operating system tweaks to speed up my system performance, but the good stuff I read about was painfully obvious to me anyway (like VCACHE and video card tweaks). The hardware section is a complete joke, who refers to serial ports as "game" ports?? Only a complete l4m3r! Serial ports have 9 pins, REAL game ports are 15 pins! A lot of hardware terminology is hit and miss, and if you're a certified A+ tech, this book really states a lot of obvious stuff you'd already know.

As it stands, I can only recommend this book to gamers who want to make a nice PC for gaming and tweak their OS for optimal speed if they don't know how to do so, but for true PC enthusiasts and power users, a subscription to Maximum PC or forking out some extra money for "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" 14th Edition by Scott Mueller is a much better investment (U&RPCs has ALL the info this book has, and much much much more).

Rating:
Summary: Vapid, disappointing inept instruction from a complete l4m3r
Review: I read this book ... for a couple of good hours, hoping to see if I could find some interesting operating system tweaks to speed up my system performance, but the good stuff I read about was painfully obvious to me anyway (like VCACHE and video card tweaks). The hardware section is a complete joke, who refers to serial ports as "game" ports?? Only a complete l4m3r! Serial ports have 9 pins, REAL game ports are 15 pins! A lot of hardware terminology is hit and miss, and if you're a certified A+ tech, this book really states a lot of obvious stuff you'd already know.

As it stands, I can only recommend this book to gamers who want to make a nice PC for gaming and tweak their OS for optimal speed if they don't know how to do so, but for true PC enthusiasts and power users, a subscription to Maximum PC or forking out some extra money for "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" 14th Edition by Scott Mueller is a much better investment (U&RPCs has ALL the info this book has, and much much much more).

Rating:
Summary: Great book for the PC gamer
Review: I think Mr.Jugo is bit off the mark with his review and here's why. I'm your average computer game enthusiast and have been playing games since the invention of the Atari 2600 game system. I have been playing games that are on the cutting edge of current PC gaming but on a system that is a little behind the curve. When I built my first system using Loyd's first book, "Building the Ultimate Game PC " I had one heck of a system. Now with Loyd's second book, I can assure you that I not only didn't have to build a new system, I was able to do several "tweaks" and squeeze out an extra 200 pts, with respect to my benchmarks. So in a nutshell, this book helped me to understand the new 3d graphics cards, and how they do the magic that they do, and keep my present machine running at optimum levels. Thanks Loyd.

Rating:
Summary: The title says it all
Review: Too bad Mr. Jugo is so enamored with his A+ certification, and so ready to call people names, that he couldn't read the title of the book. It is obviously a book for gamers, directed toward those who have not paid money to be trained in the tips laid out in this book.

This is a very clearly-written book that clearly explains the process of assembling a PC that will serve gamers well. Mr. Case does not talk down to his readers; it's as if he's there right next to you, handing you the screwdriver as you work.