November 2005 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

Intel Pentium D System

Case: Cooler Master WaveMaster TAC-T01-E1C w/Antec 550W PSU - $212
Processor: Intel Pentium D 840 (3.2GHz) LGA775 - $535
Cooling: Thermalright XP-90C w/92mm Fan - $63
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe - $210
Memory: 2x512-MB Corsair TWIN2X1024-4300C3 - $177
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 300GB SATA - $139
Video Card: GeForce 7800GT 256-MB PCI Express - $320
Monitor: Samsung 940b 19" LCD - $340
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $120
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Pioneer 16x DVD+RW/-RW DVR-110D OEM - $43
Communications: None or (optional Intel Pro/1000 T or USR External v.92) - $0
Mouse: Logitech G5 Laser Mouse - $53
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard - $14
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $138
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,503

AMD Athlon 64 X2 System

Case: Cooler Master WaveMaster TAC-T01-E1C w/Antec 550W PSU - $212
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Retail - $497
Cooling: Thermalright XP-90C w/92mm Fan - $63
Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert - $199
Memory: OCZ EL DDR PC-4800 Platinum Elite Edition (2x512MB) - $220
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 300GB SATA - $139
Video Card: GeForce 7800GT 256-MB PCI Express - $320
Monitor: Samsung 940b 19" LCD - $340
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $120
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Pioneer 16x DVD+RW/-RW DVR-110D OEM - $43
Communications: None or (optional Intel Pro/1000 T or USR External v.92) - $0
Mouse: Logitech G5 Laser Mouse - $53
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard - $14
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $138
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,497

Closing Remarks

This month our upgrades focused mainly on processors and motherboards. Both of our AMD and Intel systems now sport dual core processors, which provide exceptional multithreading performance and more than adequate gaming performance. We moved to faster, and more feature packed versions of the nForce4 SLI chipset on both the Intel and AMD side of the fence. We also decided to ditch our aging 480W power supply for a much beefier and more reliable 550W EPS12V model. We also abandoned our tiny 17" LCD for a much better 19" Samsung unit with a wicked 8ms response time. Overall, our high-end gaming systems were able to embrace a number of noticeable upgrades that proved to enhance the overall performance and feature set of our system.

ATI finally unveiled their long-awaited R520 chipset, and while impressive, it has not done much to steal the performance crown away from NVIDIA. The NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX performs slightly better than ATI's competing Radeon X1800, and is a few dollars cheaper too. Dual core processors have been the name of the game for these past few months, and while very few games currently take advantage of multithreading, this technology is certainly something that is here to stay and its only a matter of time before its use in games and drivers become widespread. ATI's Crossfire chipset has finally entered the market in quantities, so NVIDIA may finally have some competition for their much-touted nForce4 SLI chipset.

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.