November 2004 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 3200+ Retail - $188
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FSR - $79
Memory: 512-MB Corsair Value PC3200 DDR - $78
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $60
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $166
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $45
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: $1,001

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $52
CPU: Pentium 4-3.0E GHz Prescott (800) Retail - $188
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI 865PE NEO2-PFS Platinum - $80
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC3200 DDR - $76
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $60
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $166
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $45
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: $1,000

Closing Remarks

In our previous two editions of the Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide, we were able to significantly upgrade both the AMD and Intel systems, including new processors and video cards. This time out, we are more limited, and can really only slide a few dollars towards the AMD configuration and nab the Athlon 64 3200+. There is also the small change of upgrading the Intel side from the WD standard hard drive to the Special Edition model with 8-MB cache, but that's definitely an incremental gain. Otherwise, it was a pretty sedate month for value buyers, but we're still looking at a couple of killer gaming systems on a budget.

These two computers continue to offer a very attractive mix of mid-range and high-end hardware, and it can be surprising to see what kind of system you can put together for a cool $1K. Both systems 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 PCs 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.