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Earlier this month, we ran a feature showing you which parts to buy if you wanted to build an affordable-yet-kick-ass $1300 lean machine. This week, we’re moving up from budget PC recommendations to our power user picks. But with great power, comes great cost. Monetary costs, that is. Our Power User’s PC costs $2500 without a monitor of peripherals – the high end of what we’d expect a PC enthusiast to spend when pieceing together a new rig. We also want to clarify what we mean by Power User’s PC. We see the Power User as someone who maximizes his PC’s processing potential. This person encodes media files, burns high-definition discs, and manipulates image, audio and video files. Gaming is important to the Power User, but this isn’t someone who demands 120 frames per second in multiplayer shooters – he’d rather shave precious seconds off of his video encoding times while multitasking in Photoshop.
So without further ado, here’s how’d we’d configure a $2500 Power User’s PC (prices as listed on Newegg):
Videocard $285
Motherboard $180
CPU $1020
Memory $110
Case $110
Power Supply $160
OS $110
Hard Drive $175
Optical $260
Soundcard $80
CPU Cooler $50
Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/norman
[2] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/budget_badass_buyer%E2%80%99s_guide_updated_prices_and_parts_for_july_2008
[3] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/april_2008_build_your_own_nocompromises_1500_pc
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/behindthescenes_how_we_built_2008_dream_machine
[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/2500_pc
[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/buildapc
[7] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/components
[8] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/feature
[9] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/hardware
[10] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/parts_guide
[11] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/power_user
[12] http://www.maximumpc.com/tags/price_guide
[13] http://www.maximumpc.com/articles/features
[14] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/login?&commentfragment=comments_top_anchor