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PC Building Simulator, a game that allows you to simulate building a new PC inside your current PC, is a real thing. It’s also an officially finished thing, available now on Steam.
Today’s full release comes with word that developers The Irregular Corporation have partnered with graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. This launch edition of PC Building Simulator therefore includes simulated versions of Nvidia’s popular GeForce GTX 1080 Ti as well as its brand new RTX 2080 Ti.
That inclusion alone transforms the goofy-sounding piece of software into a tremendously useful tool for planning your next real-life PC build. Other hardware partners announced today include Deepcool and Thermaltake.
PC Building Simulator launched into Steam’s Early Access program in March 2018. Since then, The Irregular Corporation has slowly built out the sim’s functionality to include an actual career mode, where players can try to make a living as independent system builder. The game also includes a simulated workshop where players can try their hand at diagnosing and repairing hardware for their virtual customers.
But the real benefit of this game is that it serves to demystify the act of building a PC from scratch. According to the Steam description, the entire system is aimed at novices. You can choose the parts you want, examine them in 3D, and then see how they fit together. More experienced builders can also spend time tinkering and tweaking their settings before testing things out with in-game benchmarking software.
The list of partners includes the following:
- 3D Mark
- AMD
- Antec
- Arctic
- Asus
- Cooler Master
- Cryorig
- Corsair
- Deepcool
- EKWB
- EVGA
- Fractal Design
- Futuremark
- Gamer Storm
- GSkill
- Gigabyte
- In Win
- Intel
- MSI
- Nvidia
- NZXT
- Patriot
- Raijintek
- Razer
- Republic of Gamers
- Team Group
- Thermaltake
- UL, formerly known as Underwriters Laboratories
- Viper Gaming
- XPG
- Silverstone
- Zotac
That’s a fairly exhaustive list and, according to Steam’s own hardware survey, accounts for pretty much all of the most popular bits on the market.
