January Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 2

Intel CPU: Pentium 4-3.2 GHz Extreme Edition Retail

Current Cost: $921
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz has surfaced at a number of retailers across the web, albeit at a very lofty price. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is currently Intel's best weapon against AMD's impressive Athlon 64 FX series, and until we see Prescott it will most likely remain at the top of Intel's food chain. The Pentium 4 3.2 GHz Extreme Edition maintains all of the great features of current Pentium 4 Northwood processors, including a top-end 3.2 GHz clock speed, an 800MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache, and Hyper-Threading technology, but has added a whopping 2-MB of L3 cache, while maintaining compatibility with current Pentium 4 platforms.

AMD CPU: Athlon 64 FX-51 Retail

Current Cost: $748
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

The introduction of AMD's top of the line 64-bit processor, brought with it a whole new type of naming convention. Gone are the sometimes-controversial PR ratings, and instead AMD named their high end processor series FX, and started with the model number 51. One the surface, the Athlon 64 and Athlon FX appear very similar, as both have 1MB of L2 cache, an integrated Northbridge, and support for advanced instructions sets such as 3DNow! Professional and SSE2. However, the Athlon FX 51 has a 128-bit (64-bit dual channel) onboard memory controller, while the standard Athlon 64 is single-channel only. Athlon 64 FX-51 is clocked at 2.2GHz (equal to the Athlon 64 3400+), allowing it to perform on par with the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, and in a number of cases surpass it.

One of the most important, and certainly most talked about, feature of the Athlon 64 FX-51 is its support for both 32-bit and 64-bit instructions. Full 64-bit support may not seem all that important right now, but there are a number of 64-bit programs on the horizon (64-bit Windows XP, Unreal Tournament 2004) in which the Athlon 64 will be able to really strut its stuff. In the meantime, the 32-bit support of the Athlon 64 FX-51 is exceptional, and is more than enough to equal or surpass competitive Pentium 4 scores.

Intel Heatsink-Fan: Retail

Current Cost: $0
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

With the latest Pentium 4 models, Intel has been including some very nice coolers, so nice that we have no problem recommending them to hardcore enthusiasts. The heatsink included with the higher-end Pentium 4 retail models includes a copper core, and is more than adequate at dissipating the heat that the 3.2GHz Pentium 4 can dish out. We've tested out some of these upgraded HSF models, and even at overclocked speeds, it can more than hold its own. And best of all, we save a few bucks, which is a huge consideration when laying down the cash for the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition.

AMD Heatsink-Fan: Retail

Current Cost: $0
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

With the Athlon 64 FX series, AMD has chosen to use the same 940-pin package that we first saw with the Opteron. However, the market for third-party heatsinks remains thin as the FX series still needs to become more widely accepted by the enthusiast market. We chose to go with AMD's supplied heatsink this time around, as it is more than adequate for keeping the Athlon 64 FX cool. This model has performed well in our testing, and will more than foot the bill until we can get a handle on the upcoming, 3rd-party, enthusiast-based coolers.