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Power User PC Buyer’s Guide – Updated Prices and Parts for July 2008
Created 07/22/2008 - 2:46pm

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Features

Power User PC Buyer’s Guide – Updated Prices and Parts for July 2008

Posted 07/22/08 at 05:46:46 PM  by Norman Chan

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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


VisionTek Radeon 4870 512MB
$285, www.visiontek.com

Motherboard

MSI P45 Platinum LGA 775
$180, www.msicomputer.com

CPU


Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0GHz
$1020, www.intel.com

 

Memory

Patriot 4GB DDR2/1066
$110 , www.patriotmem.com

Case

NZXT Tempest
$110, www.nzxt.com


 

Power Supply

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Watt
$160, www.pcpower.com

Operating System

Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium
$110 (OEM), www.microsoft.com

Hard Drive

Samsung F1 HD103UJ 1TB
$175, www.samsung.com

 

Optical Drive

LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Burner & HD DVD Drive
$260, www.lge.com

Sound Card

Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
$80, www.creative.com

CPU Cooler


Zalman CNPS-9300AT
$50, www.zalman.com


Price Breakdowns

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

Total:               $2540

COMMENTS:26
TAGS: power user, hardware, feature, build a pc, price guide, parts guide, components, $2500 pc
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Source URL: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/power_user_pc_buyer%E2%80%99s_guide_%E2%80%93_updated_prices_and_parts_july_2008

Links:
[1] http://www.maximumpc.com/user/norman
[2] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/budget_badass_buyer’s_guide_updated_prices_and_parts_for_july_2008
[3] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/april_2008_build_your_own_no_compromises_1500_pc
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/watch_how_we_built_2008_dream_machine