January Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide

Introduction

Another month, a new year, and we welcome back Sharky Extreme's Extreme Gaming Guide. We've once again been entrusted with $4000 of cold hard cash to piece together a gaming machine to satisfy the most demanding gamer. What does this New Year bring? Certainly there are new parts to pick and choose from; perhaps the elusive Serial ATA hard disk drives will make an appearance. Will dual channel DDR become a reality for the Pentium 4 system, or is there to be a changing of the guard concerning our multimedia peripherals? Read on and you shall see.

While $4000 is a significant amount of money for anyone to spend on a gaming system, bear in mind that there will be certain luxuries that will not make it into the guide. As much as we'd all love to have Sony's 24-inch Wide Screen FD Trinitron display in the guide, the heavy premium on one of those displays would hurt the balance of high end components in the computer. However, we're confident that this guide will include many, if not all, of the high end components that would make the most discerning gamer proud. Now without further ado, let's start our Extreme Gaming Guide off with the computer housing and power supply recommendations.

Extreme PC Budget: $4000

AMD and Intel Case: Coolermaster ATC-201B-SX2 Silver Case w/ 430W Antec "True Power" Supply

Current Cost of Case: $175
Current Cost of PSU: $78
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SX2 is an attractive aluminum case with lots of features and expandability, and will easily satisfy our needs in the Extreme guide. When one is seeking out a new case for their computer, its expandability, easy access, cooling capabilities, and good looks all come into play. We feel that the Cooler Master ATC-201B-SX2 satisfies all of those requirements and more.

The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SX2 goes beyond its good looks, although the sleek silver-colored aluminum case with a large side window is surely worthy of a second look by even the most casual of PC users. However, the case is not just a pretty object to show off, it is a superbly constructed computer case that allows for easy motherboard access by using a tool-less design, and a drawer style/slide-out motherboard tray. Of course since it is constructed of light-weight aluminum, this makes it easier to bring to LAN parties and show off to your friends.

Besides being an attractive, light-weight, and easy to access case, the Cooler Master ATC-201B-SX2 provides the end user with a lot of expansion options. There are four externally accessible 5.25 drive bays, two externally accessible 3.5 drive bays, and four internal 3.5 drive bays as well. On the front panel, Cooler Master includes two USB ports for easy access for peripherals such as game pads, or digital cameras.

The case ships with four standard 80mm fans to help keep the system cool. There are two blowing air in from the front of the case, one at the rear for exhaust, and one at the top to remove ambient heat that travels to the upper regions of the case. Despite all of the praise that we've given the Cooler Master ATC 201B-SX2, it does have one fault, it's shipped without a power supply (fairly common with high end computer cases).

Since the case lacks a power supply, we've decided to include the Antec 430 Watt TruePower ATX power supply. It definitely provides enough power for our Extreme Gaming machine, and is equipped with two fans to help with system cooling.