My faithful PC lives right next to me, here on top of my desktop. It goes up and down with my sitting/standing desk, without me having to worry about whether the cables are going to stretch and pull the power at any time. And I can gaze lovingly at its carefully crafted insides, and the Lego D&D characters arrayed within. I can also access the front panel and the touchscreen built into my Hyte Y40 Touch chassis.
This is the way.
And yet, it is not the only way. It’s something which has been a source of heated discussion in the office chat, about just where our PCs sit and why that is obviously the ideal placement.
While we all have our own thoughts about things—and you can read where the PC Gamer writers stand on this topic below—we also want to know what you, the dear PC Gamer reader thinks is the correct, true position for your gaming PC.
You’ll hear a lot trash talk from my ‘valued’ colleagues about where a PC should be placed. They also have dubious opinions on how many monitors one should have and which finger one should use for scrolling on one’s mouse. I’d say it’s best not to listen to them. The only spot for a gaming PC, providing you don’t live in Austin Power’s penthouse with shag carpets abound, is the floor.
You don’t have to manage your cables much with your case kept away from prying eyes under a desk. Nor do you have to deal with the roar of your fans next to your ears during a 10-hour Deadlock sesh. And, sure, I will admit, my standing desk has caused some issues with my under-desk PC, but nothing that a long cable couldn’t fix. A long cable for my monitor’s hub. Another for my dock. An extra long DisplayPort… damn it, I just realised they might be onto something.
My cuboid case is simply too large and my desk space too valuable to change things now. I’ll simply deal with the inconvenience forever.
(Image credit: Future)
My PC is kept on my desktop, mostly because there’s no space for it on the floor as under my desk is also home to a very sleepy hedgehog. Plus, I like having everything in close proximity in case I need to change any cables or if I just want to look at the RGB lighting inside the case. I’d have too much empty space on my desk if it was on the floor. It’s part of the ship, part of the crew now.
(Image credit: Future)
My boyfriend and I live in a tiny flat, so space is at a premium. It’s for this reason I keep my PC under my desk. But I’m not a monster—it’s not just sat on carpet sucking up lint and slowly dying from asphyxiation. Luckily, my boyfriend’s step dad is a carpenter by trade and made the both of us a couple of great custom PC stands which means we can keep our PCs tucked out of the way without the fear that they’ll randomly catch on fire one day.
My PC lives on the floor, and I live in fear every day of the moment technology rises over us and, I don’t know, scolds me lightly for letting the dust get to it for so long. In fairness, I’m not trying to be cruel to my little technological companion. I’m simply lacking space, a little lazy, and not quite bothered to put in the mental effort to actually think about where it should go.
I know in my heart that a PC should probably be placed further away from fluff, dust, and the general detritus that gets cast around my in my one bed apartment, but can I be bothered to lift the thing up, find it a good home, and potentially buy a desk just to pop it on? The answer, at least for now, is no.
And don’t even get me started on my cable management. One day, I swear.
My PC lives on my desk. It is within my eyeline at all times, where I can keep a close watch over it. This is for two primary reasons. One, I like the way my PC looks, and enjoy staring through the window at it as I think, marvelling at all the gubbins inside.
Two, I want it to live in fear. My mother taught me long ago that a long, hard, Paddington-like stare is the secret to getting both objects and people to behave, and it’s a principle I carry with me to this day. My rig very rarely has issues. Make of that what you will.
(Image credit: Future)
Due to the rising cost of, well, everything, these days I actually use my Lenovo 9i as my main rig, not my PC that’s been gathering dust on my other desk. Naturally, switching to a gaming laptop as my base of operations required a bit of a change-up from my long-standing, traditional PC-on-the-desk-next-to-me setup—the correct way to position your desktop PC, after all.
These days, I use a dual-purpose Secretlab arm, with my main monitor straight ahead and my laptop mounted on the other arm to the side. It’s basically like a two-monitor setup, but the second monitor is a computer floating in the air.
The main advantage is that I have more desk space for junk and trinkets than you lot. But it’s very freeing to be able to take my rig on the go, sit somewhere else, or mount it to power up my full setup. So, even with a hybrid setup, the real answer to this conundrum is, of course, using your desk, not the floor.
I’ve always had my PC be a floor dweller. PC components aren’t for showing off, they’re for putting inside a windowed side-panel-less Fractal Design Define R4 and keeping away from prying eyes, leaving lots of extra desk room up top for empty Pepsi Max cans.
But I’ve recently got my hands on a PC with a windowed side panel, so I thought why not, eh? Let’s put it up top. Alas, I’m now discovering that I require an inhuman amount of desk space to be happy. That’s because I use giant mouse pads (usually 500 x 500 mm). Even with a 60% keyboard I’m having to put it half-on-desk, half-on-mat, which just feels wrong.
So, I think I’ll put my PC back where it belongs, thank you: on the floor.
On the bit of my desk near the floor specifically designed to hold a PC. Is this a trick question?
(Image credit: Future)
My PC is on my desk, in a test bench frame even though I haven’t swapped out any components in years. I just like to maximize dust collection and maintain an unobstructed view of my giant Noctua heatsinks, which I’d never conceal under my desk. That space is reserved for a great, slumbering evil: my printer.
