March Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide

Introduction

We're back with another edition of Sharky Extreme's Extreme Gaming Guide, armed with $4000 of cold hard cash to piece together a gaming machine to satisfy the most demanding gamer. This month we're going to add a little bit of style on top of the usual cream of the crop, cutting-edge components. We've had to drop and replace some components because of market conditions, but don't worry too much, as you'll find the replacements quite suitable, and still worthy of placement in the Extreme Guide.

While $4000 is a significant amount of money for anyone to spend on a gaming system, there are still real-world limitations inherent with the $4000 boundary. As much as we'd love to include an extravagant display such as the 24 Inch, widescreen Samsung 240T TFT, 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 top 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 which will serve as a warm up for the additions in this month's Special Edition of the Extreme Guide, which is definitely a black tie affair.

Extreme PC Budget: $4000

AMD and Intel Case: Coolermaster ATC-201B-SXT Black with Silver Face Plate Case w/ 430W Antec "True Power" Supply

Current Cost of Case: $169
Current Cost of PSU: $78
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT is an attractive aluminum case, which is identical to last month's SX2 model, with the only noticeable difference in the color scheme. The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT is black with a silver face plate. With the updated good looks, there are also plenty of features and expandability that are carried over from the previous, all silver model. The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT 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, and the Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT satisfies all of those requirements and more.

The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT goes beyond its good looks, although the sleek black-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 show piece, it is also a superbly constructed computer case that allows for easy motherboard access through a tool-less design, and a drawer style/slide-out motherboard tray. Of course the case itself is made entirely of light weight aluminum which makes it easier to bring to LAN parties and show off to your friends.

The Cooler Master ATC-201B-SXT 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 PSU, 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.