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

Price Round Up

The Intel System

Case: Cooler Master TAC-T01 Wave Master- $130
PSU: Antec 480W NeoPower Power Supply - $120
CPU: Pentium 4-3.4 GHz Extreme Edition Processor OEM - $989
Cooling: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm FAN - $38
Motherboard: ABIT IC7-MAX3 - $169
Memory: Corsair XMS 1GB PC-3200 TwinX1024-3200LL PC3200 (2x512) - $303
Hard Drive: Two Western Digital 74GB SATA, 10000 RPM w/ 8-MB Cache - $368
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 6800 GT 256-MB - $399
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP2070SB-BK 22" Diamondtron Monitor - $610
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro - $206
Speakers: Logitech Z-680 5.1 - $265
CD/DVD-RW: NEC 8X Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW ND-2510A - $79
NIC: Included - $0
Modem: US Robotics External v.92 USB Performance Pro Faxmodem - $45
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Optical Mouse - $46
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Natural Keyboard OEM - $15
Gamepad: Saitek P3000 Wireless Pad - $36
Operating System: Windows XP Pro w/s SP1 - $140
UPS: CyberPower OfficePower 825VA CPS825AVR - $78
Floppy: Generic Black Floppy Disk Drive - $8

Total: $4,046

The AMD System

Case: Cooler Master TAC-T01 Wave Master - $130
PSU: Antec 480W NeoPower Power Supply - $120
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 939 OEM - $799
Cooling: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm FAN - $38
Motherboard: ASUS A8V Deluxe WiFi Edition - $135
Memory: XMS 1GB PC-3200 TwinX1024-3200LL PC3200 (2x512) - $303
Hard Drive: Two Western Digital 74GB SATA, 10000 RPM w/ 8-MB Cache - $368
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 6800 GT 256-MB - $399
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP2070SB-BK 22" Diamondtron Monitor - $610
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro - $206
Speakers: Logitech Z-680 5.1 - $265
CD/DVD-RW: NEC 8X Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW ND-2510A - $79
NIC: Included - $0
Modem: US Robotics External v.92 USB Performance Pro Faxmodem - $45
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Optical Mouse - $46
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Natural Keyboard OEM - $15
Gamepad: Saitek P3000 Wireless Pad - $36
Operating System: Windows XP Pro w/s SP1 - $140
UPS: CyberPower OfficePower 825VA CPS825AVR - $78
Floppy: Generic Black Floppy Disk Drive - $8

Total: $3,820

Closing Remarks

We were able to include a number of high performance enhancements this month, starting with the next-generation GeForce 6800 GT graphics. The eVGA GeForce 6800 GT is a serious upgrade over the ATI Radeon 9800XT, especially considering it rings up at a few dollars less expensive than last month. As much as we would have liked to include a GeForce 6800 Ultra card, these cards have not his mass market levels, and can still be extremely tough to find. On the CPU front we are putting off moving to the Socket T platform for this month, as the 754-pin Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processors are still not readily available. However, we did transition the Athlon 64 FX system to the new Socket 939 platform, as it allowed us to ditch the expensive registered DDR memory in favor of faster, unbuffered dual-channel DDR.

By next month we hope to see the Radeon X800 XT PE and GeForce 6800 Ultra availability issues disappear, as it will have been three full months from their introduction date. While the GeForce 6800 GT is a stellar upgrade compared to the Radeon 9800 XT, the extra speed offered by the Ultra version adds an extra boost that really defines a $4000 computer. It will also be interesting to see if we can get our hands on a PCI Express-based DDR2 system next month, and the SLI-based (Scalable Link Interface) GeForce 6800 PCI Express cards look right up the Extreme Guide's alley. As always, we will continue to monitor the hardware scene as we put together the computer for next month's edition of this guide.

* 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.