April 2004 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Lian Li PC-65 PC Case w/ 480W or higher name brand PSU - $185
Processor: Pentium 4-3.4C GHz (800 MHz) - $418
Cooling: Retail Heatsink/Fan - $0
Motherboard: ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe - $164
Memory: 2 X 512-MB Corsair TwinX XMS DDR400/PC3200LL - $253
Hard Drive: 2 X Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA 8MB Cache - $232
Video Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB OEM - $408
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP930SB-BK 19", NEC/Mitsubishi FE990-BK 19"- $302
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Retail - $164
Speakers: Creative Inspire T7700 7.1 Speakers - $106
DVD/CD ROM: Pioneer 16X DVD-120SZ - $33
CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52 CD-RW LTR-52327S - $34
Communications: None or (optional Intel Pro/1000 T or USR External v.92) - $0
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse - $49
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard - $20
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $125
Floppy: Generic - $8

Total: $2,501

AMD Athlon 64 System

Case: Lian Li PC-65 PC Case w/ 480W or higher name brand PSU - $185
Processor: Athlon 64 3400+ Retail - $399
Cooling: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm - $45
Motherboard: ASUS K8V Deluxe - $119
Memory: 2 X 512-MB Corsair TwinX XMS DDR400/PC3200LL - $253
Hard Drive: 2 X Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA 8MB Cache - $232
Video Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB OEM - $408
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi DP930SB-BK 19", NEC/Mitsubishi FE990-BK 19"- $302
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum 2 ZS Retail - $164
Speakers: Creative Inspire T7700 7.1 Speakers - $106
DVD/CD ROM: Pioneer 16X DVD-120SZ - $33
CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52 CD-RW LTR-52327S - $34
Communications: None or (optional Intel Pro/1000 T or USR External v.92) - $0
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse - $49
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard - $20
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $125
Floppy: Generic - $8

Total: $2,482

Closing Remarks

Aside from a whole slew of price reductions this month, there weren't a whole lot of new additions. Both processors are definite powerhouses, the motherboard and memory sides have definitely be taken care of, so the largest boost in performance will likely come from the dual Seagate 160GB SATA drives in RAID 0. We are sticking with the Pentium 4 3.4C (Northwood) for the time being as it is less expensive and runs a bit cooler than its big brother the 3.4E (Prescott). The AMD system also received a new heatsink, the Thermalright SLK-948U, which performs better than the Retail HSF that we were using in past guides. Overall, this guide included a number of minor tweaks and upgrades, which allowed us to make a better, and less expensive, computer on both sides of the fence.

Sometime this month, both ATI and NVIDIA will be making their next-generation video card announcements. Availability and pricing of their upcoming parts is likely to follow shortly thereafter. We're looking forward to a battle between the two video card giants in the coming months, and it doesn't look to be as lopsided as the Radeon 9700 Pro vs. GeForce FX 5800 bout was upon release. Now that Intel's Prescott core is fully in place, it's only a matter of time before they start really pushing that technology to the limits. From the looks of it the core may scale up to 3.8 GHz by the end of the second quarter, and AMD will need to work on getting their processor up to speed if they want to stave off another GHz war.

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.