Current Cost: $82 x 4 = $328
Months on list: New
Our selection of 4x256-MB of RDRAM is predicated on two things. First, the i850 requires dual RDRAM installation, and the 512-MB size is still extremely pricey. Second, although 512-MB is right about where a performance gaming system should be, hitting the 1 GB level ensures we'll definitely give you some elbow room for Windows 2000 Pro. Even though we're filling all four RIMM sockets up right off the bat, you can rest easy knowing that jacking your case open to add more memory won't be required for a long time.
Current Cost: = $70 x 2 = $140
Months on list: New
Although we have 4 DIMMs with the ABIT board, why waste them needlessly? The price of a single 512-MB DDR DIMM has also come down in recent weeks, and can be had for a slight premium over 2x256-MB. Adding 2x512-MB DIMMs leaves a lot of room for future expansion, as well as supplying more than ample memory for high-end, Win 2000 Pro gaming use.
The 1 GB memory level may seem a bit outlandish to some, but we recently made use of low memory prices and upgraded a few high-end PCs to this exact memory level. Although overall 3D gaming performance was not affected, we did notice much faster loading times for many games and levels (such as noticeable improvements with Unreal Tournament) and smoother multi-tasking in Windows 2000 Pro.
Please note that although Win 98SE does support large physical quantities of system memory, certain system configurations with more than 512-MB of system memory may experience some issues. Here is the official Microsoft link to the various solutions should your particular system configuration experience problems. We've run both 1 GB and 768-MB systems under Windows 98SE with no problems, but the above link is provided just in case.
Intel Current Cost: $150 x 2 = $300
AMD Current Cost: $150 x 4 = $600
Months on list: New
When compiling a list of performance hard drives, the name IBM is always right at the top. The IBM 60GXP 60GB is an excellent unit, with an 8.5ms seek time and a 2MB cache, and combines superb performance with long-term reliability. There are some larger hard drives on the market (including the IBM 75GXP 75GB) but until we see some firm evidence of similar, long-term reliability, we'll stick with the tried and true choice.
As for specific configurations, we're going a bit overboard this month. You see, hard drive performance is actually quite slow compared to other system components and any potential improvement in drive read or write transactions can really boost your overall performance rating. For the Intel box, we were able to slide in dual IBM 60GXP 60 GB hard drives, which can easily be used for a basic IDE RAID setup or just loaded up standard. For the AMD system, we have a bit of extra cash left over, so we're going full bore and nabbing a quad disk array. The beauty of this configuration is that you can run RAID 0+1, which requires a minimum of 4 drives and offers the highest combination of blazing IDE performance and data integrity.