 |
Sharky Extreme : Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
|
 |
 - Most Active Threads - Technical Support - CPUs & Overclocking  RSS feed Sitemap |
 |
Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
March Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 5By Bao Ly March 20, 2003
Cost: $385 Since the Radeon 9800 Pro is due sometime in mid-April, the Radeon 9700 Pro is still ATi's highest-end 3D graphics card, and is one very powerful gaming card. Since we're in a transition month, the impressive All in Wonder Radeon 9700 fell within our budget limits, which is attractive since the two card perform at the same level, though the AiW includes a host of extra multimedia options. The AiW Radeon 9700 Pro is loaded with the same 128-MB of 256-bit DDR, running at an effective 620 MHz clock speed, coupled with a VPU (Visual Processing Unit) clocked at 325 MHz. It's truly a Radeon 9700 Pro for performance, and all the extra TV and video bells and whistles. The rendering capability of this video card is untouchable by any other product currently available on the consumer product, and will in fact let you run today's games at the absolute highest level of performance. Playing at super high resolutions (1600X1200) in current games upcoming games is another plus. The AiW Radeon 9700 Pro also lets you run games a smooth frame rate with 8X/16X anisotropic filtering and 4XAA enabled. ATi's patented Smartshader 2.0, Smoothvision 2.0, and Videoshader technologies are integrated into the Radeon 9700, to help bring out higher quality images.
The All in Wonder Radeon 9700 also features an integrated stereo TV-tuner, video-in/out, and a Radeon 200 Theatre chip for analog video decoding and stereo audio processing. Included in the package is a nifty remote control, along with lots of multimedia (Matchware Mediator 7 & Pinnacle Studio 8) and game software (Morrowind). Along with its high-end 3D and video-editing prowess, the AiW Radeon 9700 Pro still retains ATi's signature trait, superb 2D quality and smooth DVD performance. With the NVIDIA GeForce FX reviews out, it seems as if ATI is still in the clear, and the only real competition to the AiW or standard Radeon 9700 Pro's R300 core, is ATI's own upcoming Radeon 9800 Pro. We may be going with the All in Wonder variant on a one-month only basis, as the budget allowed the extra multimedia features. But we feel that gaming speed is of paramount importance, and will continue to choose the best fit for ultra high-end 3D gaming performance.
Cost: $725
Finding a good monitor is a strange thing, once you've found a great one, there's hardly any reason to try to ever replace it. Unfortunately, sometimes manufacturers/distributors force your hand a little bit. To make a long story short, the Mitsubishi 2060U, has been effectively discontinued. However we've been able to quickly replace it with the Mitsubishi 2070-BK model, which is an improved version of the 2060U, with a black casing as well to fit perfectly with this month's updated theme/style. The Mitsubishi 2070SB-BK is an impressive 22" monitor, utilizing a Diamondtron aperture grille tube, with a viewable area of 20", a maximum resolution of 2048 X 1536 at 85 Hz, with a tight aperture grille pitch of .24mm, and includes NaViSet software that enables the user to adjust screen settings via the mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately, the Diamondtron technology still suffers the same design as the Sony Trinitron, and there are two somewhat-noticeable grey lines running horizontally across the screen. However these lines are not as intrusive in multimedia/gaming applications as they are in productivity applications like Word/Excel. Remember, the Extreme Gaming machine is for games, and multimedia, not knocking out reports!
Cost of Sound Card: $167
The Audigy2 Platinum has all of the connectivity, features, and sound quality that the Extreme Gamer demands. It supports 6.1 Audio (6.1 Speakers to follow within the next few months), has 24-bit internal processing, and 24-bit DACs (digital to analogue converter). The overall sound quality has also been improved over the previous Audigy card. The Audigy2 is also THX certified, this label for consumer products simply means that the product has met a set standard for high quality audio input and output. The Audigy2 also has support for pre-encoded Dolby Digital EX (6.1) content. This will be more of a factor once 6.1 speakers are made available for the PC. We're aware of the Inspire 6.1 set, but its low output power, and low quality disqualifies it from placement in the Extreme Gaming guide. Let's not forget that the Audigy2 sound chip is also great for games, EAX HD enabled games such as Warcraft3, and Soldier of Fortune2 seemingly come to life with this amazing soundcard.
Of course, as with all of Creative's previous "Platinum" products, the Audigy2 Platinum also comes with a 5.25" drive bay rack, and to continue on with the black and silver color scheme, we've replaced the beige Audigy2 face plate with a black one.
In terms of functionality, the Audigy2 Drive includes the following connections: Headphone jack with volume control, Line In (shared with Mic in), Midi in/out, Optical SPDIF in/out, RCA SPDIF in/out, SB 1394 Port, Infra-red Receiver. For additional convenience, the soundcard also comes with a remote. The back of the card has line outs for front, rear, center, subwoofer, and center rear. Additionally there's a line-in port, microphone-in port, and a SB1394 FireWire port.
Cost: $279
With no high-end 6.1 multimedia speakers currently available, we've once again included the Creative MegaWorks THX 5.1 550 speakers. These speakers are very nice, with a signal to noise ratio of 99 dB, a frequency response of 20Hz to 25Khz, with a combined 500 Watts RMS of power, and THX certification. This speaker set includes 5 satellites (70 Watts RMS each), a huge 150-Watt subwoofer with an 8" down firing driver, all the necessary cables, and a palm sized wired remote that controls: master volume, balance, treble, bass, mute, center and rear speaker balance. Creative was smart enough to include a headphone jack for general users, though we've got the choice between it and the head phone jack on our external Audigy2 bay.
With the combination of clarity, and power, the Creative MegaWorks THX 5.1 550 speakers, used in conjunction with the Audigy2 Platinum, and the Mitsubishi 2070SB-BK monitor, will surely entice the end user to listen to music, play games, and watch movies on their Extreme Gaming PC.
|
Comment and Contribute
