January 2007 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 TP3 PSU - $239
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2.6 GHz) Retail - $289
Cooling: Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe - $210
Memory: 2x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) - $256
Hard Drive: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA - $194
Video Card: GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB - $399
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20" LCD - $345
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer - $80
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Samsung 18x DVD+RW/-RW SH-S182D - $29
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Logitech MX Revolution Laser Cordless Mouse - $75
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard - $68
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 with Vista Upgrade Coupon - $139
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,462

Intel Core 2 Duo System

Case: ThermalTake Armor VA8000BWS Full Tower w/Antec 550W TP3 PSU - $239
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz) Retail - $315
Cooling: Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium - $215
Memory: 2x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4) - $256
Hard Drive: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA - $194
Video Card: GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB - $399
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20" LCD - $345
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer - $80
Speakers: Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speakers - $134
DVD-/+RW: Samsung 18x DVD+RW/-RW SH-S182D - $29
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Logitech MX Revolution Laser Cordless Mouse - $75
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard - $68
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 with Vista Upgrade Coupon - $139
Floppy: Generic - $5

Total: $2,493

Closing Remarks

This has been a very good month for our high-end PC buyer's guide, and we managed to upgrade hardware in some key areas. The move to the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB is the most important, as the GeForce 8 Series not only provides top-end gaming performance, but is also DirectX 10 compliant and the most future-proof solution on the market. Whether you move to Windows Vista today, tomorrow or a few months from now, the GeForce 8800 GTS choice will pay off.

The Intel system saw a repeat performance on the CPU side, but our AMD configuration received a very nice Athlon 64 X2 5200+ speed infusion. This helps AMD make up some of the performance gap with the Intel Core 2 Duo, and it's a much more even fight this month. There were a few other upgrades and changes to the hardware list, but these didn't have the same kind of performance impact as a new CPU and video card. We're hoping by the next high-end guide, ATI will have their DirectX 10 hardware on the open market, and we'll see more competition in the CPU and graphics card markets.

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.