December Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon XP System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $59
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton - $87
Cooling: Vantec AeroFlow VA4-C7040 - $23
Motherboard: MSI K7N2 Delta-L - $80
Memory: 512-MB (2x256-MB) Corsair PC3200 DDR - $98
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE - $70
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 9600XT - $160
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $60
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive - $46
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $84
Floppy: Panasonic, TEAC, etc. - $8

Total: $995

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $59
CPU: Pentium 4-2.66 GHz Retail - $160
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: ABIT IS7-E - $87
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC2700 DDR - $66
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE - $70
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 9600XT - $160
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $60
CD/DVD-ROM: LITE-ON 16X DVD Drive - $27
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $84
Floppy: Panasonic, TEAC, etc. - $8

Total: $1,001

Conclusion

Last month's edition was almost a non-event, as due to little change in overall prices and few new product announcements, there were few upgrades to be had. This month is better, and we were able to move to a higher speed Pentium 4-2.66 GHz processor on the Intel side, and nab a Radeon 9600 XT for both systems. The Aspire case is not really an upgrade in the true sense, but it will give our value gaming systems some extra visual appeal, and its lower price actually helped with the video card upgrade. This adds up to a pair of "value" gaming machines that really encroach onto the mid-range level in terms of features and performance.

The Intel and AMD configurations are now quite equal in terms of overall performance, and although the Pentium 4-2.66 GHz may have an initial edge, the Athlon XP 2500+ is the overclocking CPU of the season and can yield significant performance gains. The performance features of both systems are decidedly high-end, with dual-channel DDR motherboards, 512-MB of DDR, and a 7200 RPM, 8-MB cache hard drive. Once again, our value gaming systems incorporate a lot of hardware power for a $1K budget, and represent a price-performance advantage over higher-priced configurations.

* 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.