Each week on Show Us Your Rig, we feature PC gaming's best and brightest as they show us the systems they use to work and play.
Paul Boyer is the Lead Designer on Galactic Civilizations 3, which comes out of Early Access this Thursday, at Stardock. He's got a powerful PC to show off, but it's only one of three that he has linked together to form a Voltron-esque workstation—without the battling giant monsters part, of course. Paul was nice enough to take the time and show off his setup, tell us what he's playing right now, and talk about his favorite games not in the 4X genre.
What's in your PC?
- CPU: 8-core Intel Core i7-5960x @ 3GHz
- Motherboard: Asus
- GPU: AMD Radeon R9 290x
- Ram: 32GB
- Storage: 500GB SSD
- Display: Dell 28” Ultra HD 4k, 30” Ultra Sharp, and one old-school dell 19” Ultra Sharp.
- Windows 7 (64-bit)
- Wacom Cintiq 12WX
- Standard Dell keyboard and mouse
I actually have three PCs that I use daily: A Yoga 2 Pro that I use as my primary laptop and for testing GC3’s usability with touch interface, an older Core i7 that I use primarily for communication, and monster with a Haswell-E 5960x that I was able to score recently. They are all connected together with Multiplicity, so to me they are just one big beast that I control with a single keyboard/mouse.
What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup?
I have a first-gen 4K monitor that works great for testing large UI and mostly lets me play the game in its prettiest form, but perhaps my favorite part is my six-year-old Dell UHD 30” monitor. It’s getting old, but it still feels perfect for everyday use.
What's always within arm's reach on your desk?
Mostly more computers and binders of design notes, as well as quite a few dog treats—my dog is a bit of a begger.
What are you playing right now? What's your favorite game and why?
I love 4X games in general. At the moment my world is Galactic Civilizations III, but I have been playing with Jon Shafer’s At the Gates, which I helped Kickstart. In other genres I’m a big RPG fan and I loved Bioshock Infinite, but my all-time favorite would probably be Skyrim, which I sunk 400+ hours before I had to go back to work.
