December Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide

Introduction

In keeping with our renewed monthly tradition, we are proud to present our December Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide. As with our previous Extreme guides, where money was almost no object, we're once again flush with $4000 of cold hard cash to piece together an Extreme Gaming PC worthy of respect in even the most high-end gaming environments. As usual, expect to see the cream of the crop components, and what we feel are the best parts to satisfy the power hungry games being played right now, as well as providing a head start in preparing for upcoming games.

Although the $4000 limit is a dream for many, there still is a realistic limit within that dream. We're going to be held back a little, so we won't be having any extravagant items such as a 30inch wide screen LCD, nor will we have SCSI-RAID drives, spinning at 15,000 RPM. But fear not, the components that follow will not disappoint the Extreme gamer, and any person with wealthy relatives would have loved to have received either one of our Extreme Gaming Machines under their tree this year. Now without further ado we present you with the Extreme Gaming guide, for December 2002, to end the year off with a slight bang, rather than a whimper.

Extreme PC Budget: $4000

AMD and Intel Case: Kingwin Aluminum Case with Window Mods (KT436B-WM) w/ 430W Antec "True Power" Supply

Current Cost of Case: $165
Current Cost of PSU: $72
Months on List: 3
Price Change: $0

We're once again recommending the Kingwin KT-436B-WM, as it is a very attractive aluminum case with three blue tinted acrylic glass windows (both side panels, and the top) and it has a blue tinted acrylic front panel which makes for a very nice effect with the aluminum casing behind it. The balance of convenience, features, and attractiveness warrants a return for this particular in this month's Extreme guide.

This Kingwin case is more than just an attractive combination of aluminum and blue plastic, and inside is a slide out motherboard plate for easy access when installing new peripherals. Easy access for upgrades and the initial install is always a huge plus when considering the Extreme PC. Being constructed out of lightweight aluminum and acrylic allows the end user to have an attractive case, but also one light enough to take to LAN parties to show off to friends.

In terms of expansion, the KT-436B-WM has four 5.25" drive bays, three 3.5" drive bays, as well as six 3.5" drive bays that are mounted in a rack at the bottom of the case, in much the same format that Lian Li uses with their cases. The front panel has a host of features, including 4 USB ports, 1 Firewire port, 1 microphone jack, and 1 earphone jack.

The case comes with five ball bearing fans, so cooling will not be a problem, however it ships without a power supply, and for that duty we've gone back to the Antec 430W Truepower ATX power supply. This particular unit will be more than enough to power the Extreme PC and then some. The power-supply also helps with system cooling with its dual fan design to help remove ambient air inside the case.