March 2004 Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Round Up

The Intel System

Case: Cooler Master TAC-T01 Wave Master- $133
PSU: Antec 480W TruePower - $78
CPU: Pentium 4-3.2 GHz Extreme Edition Processor OEM - $855
Cooling: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm FAN - $45
Motherboard: ABIT IC7-MAX3 - $179
Memory: Corsair XMS 1GB PC-3200 TwinX1024-3200LL PC3200 (2x512) - $253
Hard Drive: Two Western Digital 74GB SATA, 10000 RPM w/ 8-MB Cache - $446
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800XT 256-MB - $436
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP2070SB-BK 22" Diamondtron Monitor - $604
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro - $197
Speakers: Logitech Z-680 5.1 - $279
CD/DVD-RW: Pioneer 8X DVD+RW/-RW DVR-107D OEM - $116
NIC: Included - $0
Modem: US Robotics External v.92 USB Performance Pro Faxmodem - $37
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Optical Mouse - $49
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Natural Keyboard OEM - $20
Gamepad: Saitek P3000 Wireless Pad - $39
Operating System: Windows XP Pro w/s SP1 - $135
UPS: APC Back-UPS Pro 650VA- $60
Floppy: Generic Black Floppy Disk Drive - $8

Total: $3,969

The AMD System

Case: Cooler Master TAC-T01 Wave Master - $133
PSU: Antec 480W TruePower - $78
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 Retail - $732
Cooling: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm FAN - $45
Motherboard: ASUS SK8V Retail - $194
Memory: Kingston HyperX PC3200 DDR400 1G ECC Registered KRX3200K2/1G - $377
Hard Drive: Two Western Digital 74GB SATA, 10000 RPM w/ 8-MB Cache - $446
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800XT 256-MB - $436
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP2070SB-BK 22" Diamondtron Monitor - $604
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro - $197
Speakers: Logitech Z-680 5.1 - $279
CD/DVD-RW: NEC Pioneer 8X DVD+RW/-RW DVR-107D OEM - $116
NIC: Included - $0
Modem: US Robotics External v.92 USB Performance Pro Faxmodem - $37
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Optical Mouse - $49
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Natural Keyboard OEM - $20
Gamepad: Saitek P3000 Wireless Pad - $39
Operating System: Windows XP Pro w/s SP1 - $135
UPS: APC Back-UPS ES 500VA- $60
Floppy: Generic Black Floppy Disk Drive - $8

Total: $3,985

Closing Remarks

The Intel Pentium 4-3.4 GHz Extreme Edition and AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processors were both formally released this month, however availability of the processors is almost zero and street prices are tough to peg. Instead we stayed with the same processors we recommended in the last guide, and will have to wait until next month to see if the latest Pentium 4 EE and Athlon 64 FX chips become more widespread. We also chose to dump the retail AMD and Intel heatsinks in favor of a higher-end solution from Thermalright, as with a $4K budget, the systems deserved the upgrade. The SLK-948U comes with mounts for both AMD Athlon 64/FX and Intel Pentium 4 CPUs which, along with its high-end performance, certainly piqued our interest.

Next month will also bring about the formal announcement of NVIDIA's (and possibly ATI's) next-generation graphics chipset, with availability probably not until a few months later. On the DVD recorder front Sony is set to release a new dual-layer DVD burner which should effectively double current capacity from 4.7GB to 9.4GB of total storage space. Similar announcements should come from Pioneer and Plextor in the near future as they too will want to get on the dual-layer bandwagon. The only wildcard right now is future media prices as it looks like they will run upwards from about $3-$5 a shot.

* Please note that the prices in our guide do not include shipping costs or taxes. The final system price also reflects a "best case" scenario of finding an online vendor that stocks the majority of internal components, or having access to a number of local computer retailers for system quotes and comparison shopping.