A Gaming PC for Your Family

Do you or several of your family members enjoy gaming?  Did you know that women aged 18+ are nearly twice as likely to be gamers than boys under the age of 18?  Surprising, isn’t?  In fact, the average frequent age of woman gamers is 43 years old.

So just how are people playing games?  According to a study conducted by ESA, of the 1.8 billion gamers in the world, 1.2 billion are playing on a PC, that’s 62% on a PC.  Facebook games for women, is a large contributor to online PC games.  

As you can see from this chart, 62% of the ESA Study respondents use the PC and 66% use a smartphone or wireless device.  

Gaming isn’t the only game in town.  Digital video is growing at a rapid pace.  You can see how digital video (through the Internet) is taking a bigger chunk out of TV hours watched.

Digital video is consumed first and foremost on the PC, other devices are growing as well.  

So whether you use your PC for gaming or for watching videos and movies…or both, selecting the right PC is important to ensure your video games and videos are not choppy.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 PC

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 PC is considered a gaming PC because of its high-powered processor and NVIDIA delivered graphics.  It has a Solid State 256 GB drive for faster loading and smooth transitions. 

Beautiful, isn’t?  There’s a window on the side of the computer so you can see the GeForce insignia on the graphics card, all lit up.

Not only can it produce amazing graphics, but the NVIDIA GeForce graphics card is the ultimate card in rendering heavy utilization resources technologies such as…

1.  Virtual Reality – which takes up 7 times the graphics processing power of 3 D apps and games
2.   3D renderings
3.   Playing video games, located on the hard drive
4.   Streaming online games
5.   Streaming movies

But there’s more to the Y900 than what’s inside.  The outside of the computer is great too.  From the cool Power button to the handy USB, headphone port, and SD card port…on top of the computer, helpful if you keep your computer on the floor.

And look at all the ports in the back – 6 more USB ports, 2 HDMI ports, a DVI port, VGA port, etc.  It’s very easy to take off the outside panel to install additional components. 

This PC is a powerhouse.  Our family has been using the IdeaCentre Y900 for the past couple of months; it’s so fast and efficient, it’s been tough fighting off the kids who want to make this family PC their own personal computer.

Steam Gaming

You may have heard of Steam before,  It’s a website and platform for digital distribution of multiplayer games, video streaming, and software.  Steam also provides community features such as groups, friends lists, in-game chat and voice, and friends lists.

Steam content was originally created for Microsoft Windows operating systems, but now OS X and Linux games are available, as well as for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

Started in 2004 with 7 games, Steam now has over 11,800 games.  Screen Digest estimates that the Steam platform commands 75% of the digital distribution of PC gaming in 2013 and represented 15% of the total global PC Game sales in 2015 (as projected by Steam Spy).

There are over 125 million registered accounts on Steam and I am one of them.  Most of the games on Steam are sold for a price, but there are still a number of free games to download and try.  

To use Steam, you download the Steam platform and then download the game you’re interested in.  Depending upon the type of game, you often need to download a particular software company’s platform as well, which supports all of their games.

Be aware that the bigger games take a LOT of space on your hard drive, so ensure you have space for it.  

My son playing War and Thunder downloaded for free from Steam.

My 11 year-old-son and I have had a blast playing the different games on Steam.  Some are free, some are demos, others that need to be purchased.  

We love console games (see our fave family games on Xbox One and PlayStation), but gaming on a PC is sometimes easier and allows us to be together in one room while one is gaming on the Y900 PC and another is working on the PC.

War and Thunder is an interesting game found on Steam.  You are either a tank or a plane and you seek out the enemy (also in tanks and planes) in villages.  

Every vehicle in this war is another online player.  Some are on your team and some are the enemy.  Each vehicle is named with the online player controlling it.  It’s a heavy graphics intensive game and we can maneuver the vehicles effortlessly, without delay.

When you first go onto Steam, it can be a bit overwhelming.  See this page for  New to Steam game suggestions.  

Steam Fun Family Friendly Games Include:

• Snuggle Truck
• The Wonderful End Of The World
• World Of Goo
• Crayon Physics Deluxe
• Toki Tori
• Peggle
• Plants Vs. Zombies
• LEGOs games

My daughter playing the World of Goo on Steam.

Streaming videos from YouTube on the IdeaCentre Y900 are seamless as well as some of the virtual reality videos we watched.

Features:

• A 4GHz Intel Core i7-6700K CPU (quad-core)
• Windows 10 Home 
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 8GB 
• RAM: 16GB DDR4 RAM
• 1 TB Hard Drive Storage
• 7.1 Surround Sound with Dolby® Home Theater
• DVD Recordable Optical Drive
• WiFi 802.11 a/c
• Bluetooth® 4.0
• Back of Computer Ports – 2 x USB 2.0 and 4 x USB 3.0
• Front ports with 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 2 audio/microphone jack, and 7-in-1 Card Reader
• 1 Giga LAN
• 1 HDMI / 1 VGA / 1 DVI ports
• Comes with Steam Game Portal, Lenovo Rescue System, SHAREit, and Solution Centre
• Window on the side of the chassis to see the components working inside
• Buiilt-in Handle for carrying
• Removable dust filters in the front and beneath the power supply
• 4 hard drive bay slots to store up to 2 TB each
• RAM is upgradeable to 64 GB of memory
• As the action intensifies on screen, the IdeaCentre Y900’s internal and external LED lights emit a soft burning glow

Pros:

• Has a great gaming look to it with cool lighting
• A big fan on top of the processor to cool down the components, and it runs quietly
• The chassis is well ventilated
• Easy to upgrade with a lot of options – future ready
• Runs well, even at the highest game settings
• Looks really easy to snap in new hardware components
   like RAM, hard drives, etc.
• The dust filters are removable, making them easier to clean
• The case is easy to open, just slide the rear lock and press a button to pop out one of the side panels
• Many 3.0 USB ports – the fastest USB ports available
• Easy access to USB ports and audio for headphones
• Very fast processor

Cons:

• The included mouse and keyboard are not solid and heavy enough for gaming devices
• The PC is not customizable on the website (you need to add more hard drive space or RAM after purchase)
• Pricer than other PC’s (since it’s a gaming PC with higher processing power and RAM)

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 gaming PC is available in four versions, dependent upon the speed of the Intel processor, graphics card, RAM, and hard disk space you need.  Prices start at $1399.99 and go up to $2049.99 and are available directly from the Lenovo website.

A Mom’s Perspective

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 is an awesome gaming PC for the family.  It packs a lot of processing power and the graphics display is fantastic.  We have had no issues streaming games and movies on this PC.

I really love the look of this PC…it’s cool and hip with it’s lighted Y and GeForce logo shining through the side of the PC case.  They IdeaCentre Y900 is more of a showpiece rather than a PC you put under your desk.

If you have a techie or gamer in your house, the Lenovo IdeaCentre gaming PC is definitely the one to buy.  It will last many years due to its advanced technology and will be a work of art to display proudly for your husband, son, daughter, or even yourself.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 is a PC that can grow with your family.  There are plenty of slots to add more hard drives and Random Access Memory (RAM) as the need arrives.  And because the processor is so powerful, you will have this PC for many years to come.  Just upgrade as you need it.

And if you do decide to upgrade, Lenovo made it very easy to pop in new memory or hard drive components, it’s one of the easier installs I’ve seen.  In the past, I have favored PC’s that I custom built, so they would be more future-proof.  But with the Y900, I get the benefit of a powerful PC with an easy way to customize it in the future.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Y900 is great for work and play, one every member of the family can use.  Games, videos, and virtual reality never looked (or played) so good.  

*I was given a Lenovo Y900 IdeaCentre gaming PC in exchange for my thoughts and opinions.  All comments are my own.