This category seems to be made for this bad mutha of a CPU. At stock speeds, the Core i7 makes all other CPUs seem like pitiful little toys. And when it’s overclocked, the Core i7-975 Extreme Edition is untouchable. With its integrated memory controller, tri-channel DDR3 and capability to run SLI and CrossFire X, performance addicts need to look nowhere else.

If you use the Goldilocks formula, this new quad-core, Hyper-Threaded CPU is “just right.” It’s just the right blend of performance to price. The 860 is generally faster by five percent thanks to its 5 percent clock advantage. That’s pretty much what we saw in our tests, too.

Of the troika of new chips, Intel’s Core i5-750 is likely to be the big hit. With wholesale prices of $200, the average joe or jane can now build a Nehalem-based system for almost as much as a Core 2 or Phenom II box. In the final analysis, the Core i5 falls right where Intel’s bewildering branding scheme puts it: faster than Core 2 and Phenom II but slower than i7 and really damned cheap to boot too.

The MSI Eclipse SLI features support for dual and tri-SLI cards, CrossFire X and a built-in X-Fi chip so there’s no need to authenticate your drivers. And unlike Intel’s DX58SO, MSI stacks the main SATA ports so you can actually use the ports when huge graphics cards are installed.

The Striker II Extreme is packed with features such as a pre-plumbed water block for the chipset, audio riser board and great overclocking capability. We also dig the I/O shield which does away with those fingers that dig into the ports during installation.

Based on the ATI 790FX chipset, you can be assured that the K9A2 is compatible with all of AMD’s CPU offerings. The board itself is actually of the AM2+ variety which means that it uses a split power plane that will theoretically lead to potential power savings.

If you thought Intel’s new budget Nehalem meant rock-bottom, feature-stripped motherboards to match it, think again. Gigabyte’s GA-P55-UD6 jams just about every feature you could think of into the new LGA1156 platform. We used the GA-P55-UD6 for the majority of our Lynnfield testing and didn’t experience any issues, and performance was quite good when compared to X58 and i920.

The short, short verdict is that ATI's Radeon 4870 delivers stunning performance at an extremely compelling price point (under $200), especially if you're gaming on a 22" monitor. If you've been waiting to upgrade to a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card, now is the time.

Nvidia’s mid-range GPU includes 896MB of GDDR3 running on a 448-bit bus at 1134MHz.The GeForce GTX 275 isn’t far off from the GTX 285—it’s just a couple of notches shy from the full 512-bit interface. This card supports PhysX, CUDA, and GeForce 3D Vision and delivers great performance at an affordable price.

With 2.15 billion transistors and 1600 stream processors, the Radeon HD 5870 sports more than twice as much power as ATI’s last-generation card, while actually drawing significantly less idle power than the HD 4890. Topping off this boost in raw horsepower is full hardware support for DirectX 11, including Shader Model 5.0 and hardware tessellation.