In terms of performance upgrades, the CPU side of the equation ranks the highest. Both the Intel and AMD systems were juiced up with the fastest processor available, or the Pentium 4-3.06GHz (533MHz) and the Athlon XP 3000+ (333MHz), respectively. Substantial price drops across the board afforded us the extra cash to make the CPU plunge, and we hope to see mainstream 800 MHz Pentium 4 processors, and 400 MHz Barton Athlon XP processors in the coming months. Intel has finally released their dual channel DDR400 chipset the 875P this month, and we'll likely be seeing a greater array of motherboards to choose from for the May High End Guide.
The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro cards have still not surfaced, so we were unable to include one as our video card choice, although we certainly had the available funds to do so. We have been hearing reports that they should be available in large quantities in the beginning of May, so we'll be counting our pennies in anticipation. This month we were able to make some significant processor upgrades and still arrive a bit under budget on both systems, which certainly adds to the overall system performance.
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. Also, throughout the compilation of this guide, we have made every attempt to ensure availability and realistic street pricing of the included components.
