Microsoft Steps Into PC Gaming Advice
Microsoft has quietly released a new guide aimed at helping beginners optimize their gaming PC setup. On the surface it is a simple introduction to hardware like CPUs, GPUs, monitors, and storage. For someone totally new to PC gaming, it is not a bad starting point, but it also leaves out some key details and sneaks in a bit of marketing that gamers should treat with caution.
The guide breaks down recommended components for different levels of gaming performance, explains basic display tech, and touches on important topics like cooling and storage. However, it glosses over the huge variety of hardware options available today and completely ignores some of the most important performance technologies modern gamers rely on.
What Microsoft Gets Right About Gaming Hardware
The strongest part of the guide is its simple breakdown of hardware tiers. Microsoft groups gaming PCs into three broad categories based on resolution and graphics settings, then suggests example CPUs and GPUs for each.
For entry level gaming at 1080p with medium settings, the guide suggests:
- CPU: A modern quad core like AMD Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel Core i5 12400
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 1660 Super or AMD Radeon RX 6600
For mid range gaming at 1440p with high settings, it recommends:
- CPU: A 6 core chip such as AMD Ryzen 5 7600 or Intel Core i5 13600K
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti or 4060 Ti, or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
For high end and 4K gaming, the guide moves up to:
- CPU: 8 core or better, like AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D or Intel Core i7 13700K
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
As a rough snapshot, these groupings are reasonable. They give newcomers a basic sense of what class of hardware they should be looking at for a given resolution and visual quality. Of course, the real market is much broader, and important cards like Nvidia’s RTX 5070 are not even mentioned, but as a very high level overview it is not totally off base.
The guide also mentions a crucial concept: matching your GPU to your monitor. Microsoft notes that if your display tops out at 144 hertz, buying a graphics card that can push 240 frames per second in your games will not actually make your experience smoother. In that situation your money might be better spent on faster storage or improved cooling.
For brand new PC gamers, there are also helpful bite size explanations of:
- Typical target refresh rates for gaming monitors
- The differences between IPS, VA, and OLED display technologies
- Basic motherboard and storage concepts
These sections are not super detailed, but they can give a first timer enough context to start understanding spec sheets and product pages.
Where The Guide Falls Short For Real PC Gamers
Once you look a little deeper, the weaknesses of the guide become clear. The biggest issue is that it raises useful ideas but does not show readers how to actually act on them. Saying you should not overspec your GPU for your monitor is fine, but there is no discussion of real frame rate expectations in popular games, how different CPUs bottleneck performance, or how to balance a build around a budget.
The guide also covers only a tiny slice of the real CPU and GPU landscape. PC gamers today can choose from multiple generations of Ryzen and Core chips, and a huge range of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards at many different price points. A modern card like the RTX 5070 is left floating with no guidance on where it fits, and there is no mention of value picks or older but still capable hardware.
Another major omission is upscaling technology. Modern gaming performance on PC is not just about raw GPU power any more. Tools like Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR are now central to how many players hit smooth frame rates at high resolutions. By completely skipping upscaling, the guide ignores one of the biggest reasons a mid range card can comfortably handle demanding games at 1440p and beyond.
Then there is the marketing spin. Early on, Microsoft suggests that if you want to avoid the hassle of picking parts, you can simply buy a Copilot plus PC. According to the guide, these systems come preconfigured with the latest CPUs, GPUs, and thermal designs tuned for gaming so you can dive straight into the action.
That is where things cross the line from oversimplified to misleading. The real requirement for a Copilot plus PC is a hardware NPU, which is an AI accelerator. There is no strict requirement for a strong gaming GPU or a high performance gaming CPU, and plenty of Copilot plus laptops and desktops ship with hardware that is poorly suited to serious gaming. In other words, the Copilot plus label tells you almost nothing about gaming capability, and treating it as a gaming standard is inaccurate.
For someone trying to buy a good gaming PC, relying on that branding could easily lead to disappointment. A system might be an excellent AI or productivity machine yet struggle to run modern games smoothly.
Despite these flaws, the guide is still better than some might expect from such a large company. As a very first touch point for someone who has never thought about PC hardware before, it offers enough structure to start learning. But any gamer who is serious about building or buying a capable machine will quickly need more detailed resources.
For that deeper dive, you are better off looking at complete build recommendations that break hardware into budget, mid range and high end configurations, include real world pricing, and explain why specific parts were chosen. Those kinds of guides will help you match your CPU and GPU to your resolution, understand when to spend extra on cooling or storage, and decide whether a feature like DLSS or FSR is important for the games you actually play.
In short, Microsoft’s guide is a serviceable on ramp for absolute beginners, but it is not the final word on gaming PC hardware. Treat it as a gentle introduction, then graduate to more detailed and gamer focused resources before you spend your hard earned cash.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/microsofts-new-guide-to-pc-gaming-hardware-is-very-slightly-more-useful-than-you-might-expect-but-oddly-has-never-heard-of-upscaling/
