March High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon 64 X2 System

Case: Cooler Master WaveMaster TAC-T01-E1C w/Antec 550W PSU - $230
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Retail - $458
Cooling: Thermalright XP-90C w/92mm Fan - $60
Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert - $185
Memory: 2x1GB OCZ EL PC3200 Titanium - $225
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB SATA - $130
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 7900GT 256MB CO Superclocked - $360
Monitor: Samsung 940b 19" LCD - $325
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $115
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $135
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 - $48
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 - $44
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $136
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,499

Intel Pentium D System

Case: Cooler Master WaveMaster TAC-T01-E1C w/Antec 550W PSU - $230
Processor: Intel Pentium D 940 (3.2GHz) Retail - $442
Cooling: Thermalright XP-90C w/92mm Fan - $60
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe - $199
Memory: 2x1-GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-750 - $232
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB SATA - $130
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 7900GT 256MB CO Superclocked - $360
Monitor: Samsung 940b 19" LCD - $325
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $115
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $135
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 - $48
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 - $44
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $136
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,504

Closing Remarks

This month we upgraded a few core components, with the most important being the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT 256MB CO Superclocked video card. This will provide a noticeable performance increase compared to a GeForce 7800 GT, and the overclocked EVGA card even spanks a high-end GeForce 7800 GTX. It also fits perfectly in our budget, while the remainder of the GeForce 7900 GTX and Radeon X1900 XT/XTX boards are still out of reach. Our Intel system received a few notable performance upgrades, including the move to a Pentium D 940 and 2GB of Kingston HyperX DDR2-750 memory. Both systems also received an updated Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB with 16MB of cache, and a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. Otherwise, the performance ingredients on the AMD side are fairly consistent, with an update to 2GB of PC3200 being the most obvious improvement.

ATI and NVIDIA have now fully released their current generation of graphics accelerators, and the next phase of the hardware performance race will be the upcoming processor war. Intel is readying their next-generation Conroe, while AMD is working to hit 65nm while adding in DDR2 memory and moving to higher clock speeds. This should be a lot of fun to watch, and any of the fallout will only help us design even faster gaming systems, and at better price levels than ever before. We also expect some change on the platform end, but we'll have to wait and see exactly how these new chipsets impact performance, and what kind of vendor selection is available.

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.