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

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon 64 X2 System

Case: ThermalTake Armor VA8000BWS Full Tower w/Antec 550W PSU - $237
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AM2 Retail - $247
Cooling: Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - $212
Memory: 2x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) - $316
Hard Drive: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA - $208
Video Card: PNY GeForce 7950GT 512MB - $300
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20" LCD - $350
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $117
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Samsung 18x DVD+RW/-RW SH-S182D - $32
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse - $67
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard - $68
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $138
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,431

Intel Pentium D System

Case: ThermalTake Armor VA8000BWS Full Tower w/Antec 550W PSU - $237
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz) Retail - $327
Cooling: Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe - $202
Memory: 2x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) - $316
Hard Drive: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA - $208
Video Card: PNY GeForce 7950GT 512MB - $300
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20" LCD - $350
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $117
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Samsung 18x DVD+RW/-RW SH-S182D - $32
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse - $67
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard - $68
Operating System: Windows XP Pro - $138
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,501

Closing Remarks

Overall, it was another good month for our high-end PC buyer's guide, and we managed to slide in a few nice upgrades. The Core 2 Duo was the most prominent of these, as Intel has a real winner here, and current system buyers receive an incredible bang for the buck with this processor line. AMD should also have received an impressive CPU upgrade, but the problem is that no one sent the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ an invitation to the party. Without this 2.6 GHz powerhouse available, the AMD system suffered a bit compared to Intel.

The move to the higher-end GeForce 7950 GT 512MB also raises gaming performance and gives us a very powerful SLI option down the road. Equally impressive were the ATI price drops to the Radeon X1900 XT 512MB, which when combined with the new GeForce 7900 GS and 7950 GT, made high-end video cards a real buyer's market. There were a few other system improvements, such as a spacious full tower case, an updated DVD writer and gaming keyboard, but it's always nice when you can upgrade the two core performance components.

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.