October Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon 64 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $52
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Retail - $160
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FSR - $82
Memory: 512-MB Corsair Value PC3200 DDR - $82
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $63
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $170
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $49
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $35
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78

Total: $991

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $52
CPU: Pentium 4-3.0E GHz Prescott (800) Retail - $189
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI 865PE NEO2-PFS Platinum - $79
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC3200 DDR - $81
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital - $50
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $170
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $49
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $35
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78

Total: $1,003

Closing Remarks

In our last edition of the Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide, we were able to upgrade both the AMD and Intel machines quite significantly. This time out, we really don't have the same leeway, and are back to the usual moderate hardware shifts, and putting any extra cash to the best possible use. We did this by targeting the performance areas, and upgrading the graphics component to a GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB card, and the Pentium 4-3.0E GHz brought Intel even to the Athlon 64 3000+. In terms of performance upgrades, the buck stopped right there, and there was virtually no room in the budget to go any further. Our hand was forced on the monitor selection, and with the retirement of the Samsung 955DF, the ViewSonic E90FB and Samsung 997DF moved in to take its place.

These two systems are once again an attractive mix of mid-range and high-end hardware, and it can be quite surprising to see what kind of configuration you can put together for a cool $1K. Both PCs include high-performance CPUs, fast system platforms, 512-MB of PC3200 DDR, 7200 RPM hard drives, CDR/RW and DVD-ROM capabilities, and a powerful GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB video card. If overall value is your main goal, these value gaming systems certainly deliver, and offer a noticeable price-performance advantage over our higher-priced guide 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.