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Sharky Extreme : Monthly High-end Gaming System Buyer's Guide |
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Monthly High-end Gaming System Buyer's Guide |
September High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 5By Ryan "Speedy" Wissman September 30, 2004
Current Cost: $379 Since ATI and NVIDIA's next-generation parts are finally showing up in volume to mass market retailers, and the price gouging period has passed, we felt it was time to move to the best video card our budget can handle. In the last edition of this guide we went with the ATI Radeon X800 PRO because it was the only high end part available at the time for a reasonable price. However, now that we have our pick of the litter between the ATI Radeon X800 series and NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 series, we found that the best overall choice for this guide was the GeForce 6800 GT. Priced comparably, the GeForce 6800 GT performs on par or better than the Radeon X800 Pro in a number of games and has a significant lead in many upcoming and next-generation games such as DOOM3. In addition, the GeForce 6800 GT has full support for SM 3.0 making it more future proof than the Radeon X800 Pro. After sifting through a smorgasbord of vendors we decided to go with the eVGA GeForce 6800 GT due to its widespread availability, and software bundle. The card can be found online for about $379, and comes bundled with either FarCry or DOOM3, either of which can show off the card's gaming features and power.
Despite the somewhat poor performance of NVIDIA's last generation GeForce FX-based cards, the NV40 core is light-years ahead of what the company had at this time last year. The GeForce Series 6 core (featured on the GeForce 6800 GT and Ultra) has been designed from the ground up to feature sixteen pixel processors with six vertex units, or more than double what NVIDIA's previous generation was capable of. It also has a number of advanced features including 64-Bit texture filtering and blending, Ultra Shadow II technology, CineFX 3.0, and Intellisample 3.0 technology which are featured across all of the GeForce 6800 cards. The eVGA GeForce 6800 GT is clocked at 350MHz for the core and 1000MHz for the 256MB of DDR3 memory. For those of you who like to overclock, eVGA is now offering a copper heatsink upgrade for a small price that performs better than the standard aluminum heatsink that comes with the card.
Cost: $284
As companies move toward larger 21" CRT and high-end LCD units, our choices for a 19" monitor becomes increasingly narrow. Nevertheless, there still are a number of quality 19" monitors on the market, and the NEC/Mitsubishi DP930SB-BK 19" model is currently one of the best in its price range. It features a 0.24mm grille pitch, totally flat aperture grille CRT, 1920 x 1440 at 73 Hz maximum resolution, and three year warranty. As prices of LCD monitors have been decreasing, and size increasing, it is only a matter of picking the right time to include on in this guide, but for now this CRT monitor is our top pick. For those of you who refuse to use aperture grill monitors we recommend the NEC/Mitsubishi FE990-BK ClearFlat Shadow Mask CRT. The FE990-BK features a maximum resolution of 1792 X 1344 at 68 Hz, and a 0.20-0.24mm horizontal pitch, all without those two annoying stabilization wires found in Aperture grill monitors. This monitor can be found for a few dollars cheaper than the DP930SB-BK at various retailers and comes with a 3 year warranty. This monitor can be found online for about $219, considerably less than the aperture grill monitor that is our main recommendation. 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.
Cost: $159
The Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS may only be a slight improvement over the original Audigy 2, but it still includes a number of features that make it a worthwhile upgrade. The card has a slightly-improved 108 signal-to-noise ratio, full 7.1 channel surround sound, DTS ES and Dolby Digital decoding, and updated EAX 4.0 support. For the audiophiles out there, the Audigy 2 ZS has 24-bit, 192 kHz audio support for things such as DVD-Audio, just like the Audigy 2 before it. We like to recommend the Platinum version of this card as a high-end system option, because it offers the perfect blend of features and price. The big draw of the Platinum retail model is that it comes with a 5 1/4" bay drive that has a number of additional inputs and outputs as well as a handy remote control.
On the software side, the Audigy 2 Platinum includes a number of worthwhile programs. For the gamer it comes with 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. With a high end soundcard, a good set of surround sound speakers is a great way to immerse yourself in games, movies and music. Choosing the right speakers is an important investment, as they will likely stay with you as long as your case or monitor.
Cost: $80
With competition from the likes of Logitech and Klipsch, Creative has significantly stepped up the quality of their branded speakers to a point where they are worthy of inclusion in this guide. While their basic speaker lineup certainly cannot compete with higher-end models, the lower price and overall value more than makes up for the difference. For the past six editions of this guide we have been recommending the Creative Inspire T7700 set of 7.1 speakers due to their excellent price, and quality. Delivering a total of 92 watts RMS power and 125 watts of total system power the set is a bit more powerful than the Creative 6.1 set, and other low cost configurations. The speakers can be found for approximately $80 at various online retailers, which means they fit perfectly into the budget of this guide.
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