October 2003 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 5

Video Accelerator: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

Current Cost: $360
Months on list: 5
Price Change: $0

The ATI Radeon 9800 Pro series of cards have been available for quite some time, and has been able to hold up very well against the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, outpacing it in many tests. At a retail price lower than the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, it's no wonder that the ATI powerhouse is included again this month, as we await the next-generation products from ATI and NVIDIA. The Radeon 9800 Pro is clocked at 380MHz core, and 680MHz memory, which considerably faster than the Radeon 9700 Pro. A 256-MB version of the card is also available, but there is little performance to be gained with current titles, making it not worth the extra $100 premium over the 128MB model. The hotrod Radeon 9800 XT also made its presence felt, but the retail price is a bit out of our league at the present time.

In addition to the clock speed increases, the Radeon 9800Pro includes a number of updated features. SmartShader has been updated to version 2.1 adding an F-Buffer which implements fragment shading. SmoothVision 2.1 offers high resolutions than the previous versions, and HyperZ III+ offers greater memory bandwidth than before.

Monitor: Sony CPD-E440 19" CRT Monitor

Cost: $325
Months on list: 3
Price Change: $0

Sony is known for making some of the best CRT monitors on the market. We love the picture that a quality Trinitron tube can produce, so the Sony CPD-E440 19" monitor was the natural choice. The monitor features a .24mm (min) flat Aperture grill tube, a maximum resolution of 1600x1200, high refresh rates, and a viewable area of 18.0 inches.

Due to some people's aversion to Aperture grill monitors we will recommend the LG 915FT Plus as a secondary choice. The LG features a nice Flatron tube that is devoid of Aperture grill's two horizontal stabilization wires. The monitor also features resolution and refresh rates that are not normally supported by shadow mask monitors that can be had in this price range.

Please keep in mind that when buying any type or brand of monitor, there is always the chance of receiving a defective unit, so be certain to purchase only from a vendor that offers liberal return and replacement options.

Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Retail

Cost: $179
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

This past month, Creative introduced their latest gaming audio card, the Audigy 2 ZS series. The new cards offer only a mild evolutionary step above the Audigy 2, but can be found for a few dollars less than the Audigy 2. Among the improvements is an increased 108dB signal-to-noise ratio on all channels, updated EAX 4.0 and 7.1 channel support, and DTS ES decoding. The card still supports all the 24-bit, 192kHz features of the original Audigy 2, and the Platinum model offers a number of additional connectors for input and output of sound, in addition to a very nice remote control and a nice software bundle.

We recommend going with the retail version of the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, since in addition to the usual warranty, manual and drives, you also receive a great game and application bundle. On the gaming side, you get full retail copies of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, and Rainbow Six: Raven Shield. For the audio aficionado, Steinberg Cubasis VST 4.0 Creative Edition and Wavelab Lite 2.0, and Image Line FL Studio 4 Creative Edition, can certainly handle the audio creation and editing duties.

Speakers:

What better way to compliment your new soundcard than with some high-end speakers. Your speaker purchase can be as important as that of your monitor, as you are unlikely to upgrade either one for quite awhile. This makes your initial speaker choice crucial to the enjoyment of your new gaming PC, and an important investment.

System Speakers: Creative Inspire 6600 6.1 Speakers

Cost: $75
Months on list: 7
Price Change: $0

There are still very few 6.1 channel speaker systems available, and let's not even get into the difficulty of finding a 7.1 speaker set that fits our high-end features, budget and performance requirements. As a result, we kept with our previous recommendation of the Creative Inspire 6600 system. There are more powerful, and more expensive, speaker systems on the market from Creative, Logitech and Klipsch, but the hit to the budget would take away a ton of power from our killer CPU-motherboard-video card combination. The Inspire 6600 set are quite competent and can handle 6.1 support, along with total power specs of 120W (8 Watts RMS per satellite/20 Watts RMS front center satellite/ 22 Watts RMS subwoofer).