October 2003 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 2

Intel CPU: Pentium 4-3.0 GHz (800 MHz) Retail

Current Cost: $388
Months on list: 5
Price Change: -$3

While the Pentium 4 3.2GHz (800MHz FSB) and newly released Pentium 4 EE (Extreme Edition) are both faster than the Pentium 4-3.0, both are considerably more expensive and did not meet our budget requirements (not to mention the P4 EE is currently not available in the mass market). Regardless, the P4-3.0 is still an excellent performer for the price, and with increased pressure from AMD's new chips, Intel is likely to drastically lower prices in the near future. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is not likely to make its way into this guide in the next month or so, as it carries a very hefty price tag, and was only designed to combat AMD's Athlon 64 FX series until Prescott can be readied.

AMD CPU: Athlon 64 3200+ Retail

Current Cost: $431
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

After what seemed like never-ending wait, AMD has officially released the desktop version of their hotrod Opteron processor. Internally the chip runs at 2.0GHz, it sports a large 1MB L2 cache, and uses a single 64-bit on die memory controller. The chip also has native support for 32-bit and 64-bit software, which can come in very handy when developers decide to start implementing 64-bit instructions into their code, and Win XP 64-bit becomes a reality. The chip is able to earn its rating of 3200+ with ease consistently outclassing the Pentium 4 3.2GHz in many tests, something the Barton-based Athlon XP 3200+ struggled to do.

Pentium 4 Heatsink-Fan: Retail

Current Cost: $0
Months on list: 3
Price Change: N/A

Intel now includes some very impressive heatsinks with their retail chips. As a result, we can't justify buying a separate heatsink as the one included is more than enough even if overclocking your processor. Their new model is a very nice copper-based unit, and can keep pace with many third-party units.

AMD Heatsink-Fan: Retail

Current Cost: $0
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

The Athlon 64 series of chips sports an all-new pin configuration, as well as heatsink mounting mechanism, which means that most AMD 3rd-party heatsinks cannot be used. Also, the relatively new design of the chip has not allowed sufficient time for third party heatsink manufacturers to step in and create their own ultra high performance cooling hardware in mass quantities. As a result, we chose to stick with the AMD retail heatsink fan included with the package.