October Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide

Introduction

After falling off the radar for a few months, we are back with a brand new edition of our Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide. Each month we are given $4000, and sent on a mission to assemble the best possible gaming machine that would satisfy even the most discriminating gamer. As with our other prices guides, we still keep an eye out for relative bargains, and weigh price-to-performance ratios heavily before making a decision on what components to include.

Even with a seemingly huge $4000 budget, there are still some very real limitations we need to keep in mind. You won't find any ridiculously expensive plasma TV/monitors, nor will you find any extravagant home theater-level sound system. Rather, we try to balance the equipment used in the computer so that we can include high-end components for every category of the system. Overall, we are very confident in our choices from month-to-month, as we really put the component list to the test, and feel that $4000 is too much money to spend without serious thought.

This month the guide has been almost completely overhauled to include a significant amount of new and improved hardware. The biggest event of the past month has been the introduction of the Athlon 64 series of chips which, with any luck, should accelerate the adaptation of 64-bit software. The AMD platform has been updated, and ATI has also released a new addition to their video card line with the Radeon 9800 XT series, along with NVIDIA's recent refresh of their high-end line featuring the GeForce FX 5950. The holiday season is when most companies release their latest and greatest hardware, and this guide makes full use of the top-end selection.

Extreme PC Budget: $4000

Case: Cooler Master ATC-201B-BXT Black (or 201C Silver) w/Antec 480W TruePower PSU

Current Cost of Case: $245
Months on List: New
Price Change: N/A

Choosing the right case can be one of the most important purchase decisions one can make when building a new computer. A case is essentially the body and soul of a computer and should not only look good, but have enough space for current needs, and also to accommodate potential upgrades in the future. Our favorite case manufacturers have proven to be CoolerMaster, Lian Li, and Antec as their products have all the necessary requirements, look great, and never seem to disappoint. Just be sure to choose a case that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also make sure that is easy to work with and easily-expandable in the future.

CoolerMaster is known for making some very nice high-end cases, which is why it should be no surprise that we've picked on for this month's guide. The ATC-201B-BXT is a sight to behold with a fully black air brushed aluminum alloy, body side window. Three included 80mm fans keep components inside cool, and four 5.25" external drive bays and four internal 3.5" bays should be enough room to expand with a number hard drives and optical/bay drives. CoolerMaster also includes a few externally accessible USB ports on the front of the case which can come in especially handy for connecting digital cameras and other external equipment.

Also keep in mind that although we're going with an ATC-201B-BXT system case, Cooler Master produces similar ones in a metallic silver finish. The Cooler Master 201C line is virtually an exact duplicate of the 201B model we recommend, but only with a lighter finish in case you need to do some mix and matching.

As this case does not ship with a power supply, it is important to pick up a name brand unit separately. For this month's guide we chose to upgrade the PSU with the 480W Antec TruePower. This is a serious amount of wattage, and will be more than enough to power both our Intel and AMD machines with ease.

When purchasing a power supply make sure to stick to name brand units (Antec, Enermax, Thermaltake etc.) and avoid any bargain bin units with lofty output claims.