gaming pc

Geekbox Ego Maniacal Review

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 19:13:01 +0000

A matte-black benchmark bruiser

Geekbox’s Ego Maniacal system pays homage to Maximum PC’s Dream Machine—but probably not the one you’re thinking of.

Sure, last year’s Dream Machine featured the same Silverstone TJ11 chassis as the Geekbox Ego Maniacal, but we’re told that the actual inspiration for this custom-built box was 2002’s Dream Machine, which was painted to match a classic BMW 2002 Turbo. Except Geekbox has updated its tribute to the car by nodding its head to the more current special edition BMW M3 in “frozen black.”

The Ego might owe its inspiration to that Dream Machine of old, but its internals are a closer match with 2012’s DM. Full details of the Ego’s specs are down below, but the highlights include Intel’s new king, the 3.5GHz Core i7-3970X, a pair of liquid-cooled GeForce GTX 690 cards, two 240GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSDs, 32GB of Corsair DDR3/1866, and a 1,200W Corsair AX1200i PSU. The most impressive part of the Ego may be its liquid cooling, which uses both a quad-rad and dual-rad to keep the parts cool—that includes the voltage regulation modules on the Asus Republic of Gamer board.

That’s probably a good idea, too, because the Ego pushes the new 3.5GHz Core i7-3970X to a very stable 4.8GHz. That’s about 1GHz further than our zero-point’s overclocked six-core, and with its 25 percent higher clocks, the Ego offers that much more of a performance edge. In fact, the six-core Ego gave our zero-point—which is certainly no slouch in specs—a pretty good pummeling in every single benchmark. What about something a bit beefier, such as DM2012?

Geekbox individually sizes and sleeves the cables for each PC it builds.

Between the two, it was a classic battle of cores vs. frequency, with DM2012 sporting eight cores at 3.1GHz vs. the Ego’s six cores at 4.8GHz. In the apps that can’t exploit all the cores of the DM2012 (or even the Ego, for that matter), clock speeds won out, with the Ego pulling up a score 27 percent faster in Stitch.Efx 2.0 and 30 percent faster in ProShow Producer 5.0. When you get into the heavily multithreaded tasks, however, the cores-vs.-frequency argument gets interesting. The Ego was faster than the DM2012 in Premiere Pro CS 5.0 by about 4 percent and about 1 percent faster in the x264 HD 5.0 benchmark. That’s a victory for frequency, but at the same time, we’re talking about a 1.7GHz difference between the six-core and eight-core chips, so the core crowd can claim a moral victory. We also have to acknowledge that the Ego set benchmark records in all six official benchmarks we run. Although not everything was by a large margin, it’s still one hell of an accomplishment for one single system to sweep all six.

The real magic of the Ego is in the phenomenal amount of detail paid to its construction. Geekbox says it spends no less than 40 hours to build its high-end custom machines and it shows, from the washers on the case-door screws that prevent scratches to the paint, to the custom-length cables that are each sleeved and heat-shrunk by hand (nary a zip tie is present). There are other loving details about the case that we just don’t have the space for here, but we must admit we were a bit let down by the decals. Rather than covering them with a clear coat, Geekbox just stuck them atop the matte-black paint job, which is decidedly less impressive—you can feel the decals’ edges when you slide your hand over them.

It’s also odd for the company not to include mass storage, but Geekbox says that’s more of lifestyle statement. In your garage, you’ll have your M3 for weekends and your minivan for weekdays, so why clutter the M3 with baby seats? We understand that rational but we don’t buy it, because while this machine is fast, it’s also expensive at $7,995. Yeah, that’s a deal next to DM2012’s $11,055 but one HDD couldn’t hurt.

Despite the interesting storage configuration and heart-stopping price, we can’t argue with the raw performance and attention to detail that might take custom rigs to the next level.

$7,995, www.geekbox.com

Set Up the Ultimate Steam Box

Josh Norem — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:17:52 +0000

Build your own small Steam Box PC using Valve's Big Picture Mode

As PC gamers, we’re big fans of Valve Software’s Steam service and can’t imagine life without it. We’ve got a huge library of installed games, all of our friends are on it, and almost every AAA title is released on Steam, making it indispensable. The only “problem” with Steam has been that its interface was designed for sitting 24 inches away, at a monitor, making it incompatible with couch-bound gaming. Valve has rectified this dilemma with its recently launched Big Picture Mode, which slaps a 10-foot interface on top of Steam and makes it easy to control with a gamepad. Since distance and connection issues can get in the way of running your desktop PC on your HDTV screen, we’re going to walk you through a more workable solution. First, we will advise you on selecting a small-but-powerful PC that’s suitable for a living room, then we’ll walk you through selecting appropriate peripherals, and finally we’ll show you how to get it all up and running, ready for Big Picture Mode deployment.

1. Get Yourself a Living Room PC

If you’re like us, you already have a desktop gaming PC that lives in a separate room, semi-far away from your television. Here in San Francisco, we reside in homes so cavernous that oftentimes our living room and bedroom or office are roughly 20 feet apart from each other, and don’t even get us started on our spacious bathrooms and ample parking options (this is sarcasm). Seriously though, space constraints aside, we like to keep our PC out of the living room since it’s big, somewhat noisy (despite our best efforts), and resides under a desk large enough to qualify as a studio apartment in the Bay Area. The living room is reserved for TV watching and Netflixing, and the only gaming it ever sees is on a board, typically. However, now that Steam offers a Big Picture Mode interface that can be controlled from across the room, we’d like a dedicated Steam box chillaxing in our living room so we can play some PC games from our couch.

Falcon Northwest Tiki gaming PC

To accomplish this feat, we had two options—buy or build. Anyone who reads this magazine knows the route we took, but there are also a couple of worthwhile rigs for folks who don't want to get their hands dirty. For the more budget-conscious, Alienware’s X-51 has an elegant and amazingly thin chassis that can be had for as little as $800 (it received a 9 verdict when we reviewed it in our May 2012 issue). If you're willing to part with a bit more cash, Falcon Northwest has a new slimline rig called the Tiki that’s just 4 inches wide (pictured above). The baseline Core i5/GTX 650 combo will set you back $1,600, but Core i7 and GeForce GTX 680 are also options, if you can afford it (see our review in the September 2012 issue). Though both of these machines would look great in a living room, we chose to build a system because that's what we do here, and because we have a perfect template for this task: the "How to Build a Small Gaming PC" story.

Click the next page to see how to prepare your rig.

2. Prepare Your Rig

The rig we built for this job splits the difference between a full-powered gaming machine and a small form factor PC. We know—technically, it’s a small form factor PC since it has a tiny Mini-ITX motherboard, but that board houses some kick-ass components, including a water-cooled Intel Core i5-3570K processor, a 240GB SSD and 3TB HDD, and an overclocked GeForce GTX 670 from MSI. In our benchmarks, this little rig cranked out 76fps in Batman: Arkham City at 2560x1600, which is more than enough muscle for gaming on our TV. That’s one hell of a PC, and the fact that it’s not any taller or wider than a roided-out Chihuahua is icing on the cake.

Our Steam box

3. Choose the Peripherals

As desktop commandos, we know exactly which mouse and keyboard combo we usually prefer, but that all changes when you move to a softer, more comfy location like the couch. We needed a keyboard that was light and wireless, and we decided against a mouse simply because neither our legs nor our couch is flat enough to provide an accurate mousing surface. We also needed to select a gamepad that works well on a PC, and it's slim pickings these days as most gamers just use a mouse and keyboard.

Keyboard

To satisfy both our mouse and keyboard needs we went with the sublime Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard (below)—
not to be confused with its predecessor from the 1980s, the Invisible Touch. The K400 is incredibly light but provides comfortable keys and a surprisingly accurate touchpad with vertical scrolling support that makes browsing the web and navigating Steam's interface a cinch. The keyboard's 30-foot wireless range is more than sufficient, and its slim profile comes in handy when we need to stow it inside our entertainment center. We also like the fact that the included AA batteries will last up to a year; we just have to remember to turn off the keyboard when not using it.

Game Controller

We debated for quite a while over which game controller to choose before settling on an old standby, the Xbox wireless controller for PC. We like that it's comfortable, easy to set up, and it works perfectly. We could have saved some money by going with something from Saitek but we like the build quality and heft of the Microsoft controller. Say what you will about Microsoft’s ability to craft a touch-based OS, but the company knows how to build a peripheral, that's for sure. The wireless dongle is also easy to tuck away in our rat's nest of cables.

Click the next page to see how you should enable Big Picture and connect to the network.

4. Connect to the Network

Powerline networking has overcome most of its initial teething issues and has turned into a reliable and fast alternative to wireless. Obviously, running a gigabit hardline would be the best option, but that’s not always an option. And while wireless is the easiest option, it’s also prone to problems if you live in a dense area where several routers are stomping on each other. Thus, we opted for powerline networking. We can plug our router into a power outlet in our office, then connect the Steam box to a power outlet in our living room and be done with it.

The kit we chose was the winner of our powerline-networking roundup in the December issue of the magazine, the TP-Link AV500. This $95 kit was the fastest kit we tested, with 66Mb/s average read speeds, and the least expensive, so that’s a win-win in our book. We also like how the LEDs on the front of the units show us how fast our connection speed is.

Setting it up was as simple as plugging one unit into a wall socket, then connecting the cable to the LAN port on our router, and pressing a button on the adapter to begin the syncing process. We then connected the second adapter to a power outlet behind our entertainment system, and ran CAT5 cable from the adapter to our Steam box. After we pressed the sync button on the second adapter, we had a signal in about 45 seconds and were able to get online.

5. Enter Big Picture Mode

With our rig connected to our HDTV, all of our peripherals functioning, and our Internet connection humming along, we installed our OS (Windows 8 Pro), went directly to www.steampowered.com, and installed the Steam client. Big Picture Mode is not enabled by default, so we followed a few steps to enable it, which involves opting in to the Steam Beta program. Once we restarted Steam, we found a Big Picture button in the upper right-hand corner, so we clicked it to activate Big Picture Mode.

The interface is extremely easy to navigate, with everything nicely organized into big boxes that are easy to see, even from the couch. We attempted to navigate the UI with our Xbox controller but found we prefer using the Logitech keyboard/touchpad just because it was easier to move our finger on the touchpad and it's what we're used to. The main screen lets you choose between the Store, Library, and Friends list; we dove right into our Library. Games are organized just like in regular Steam, so we could see installed games, games we played recently, and even games that support a controller—a very nice touch, and an indication that Steam took the implementation of Big Picture Mode seriously as opposed to just overlaying a bigger skin on top of Steam. BPM also includes a web browser as well as a home page portal that includes Facebook, Twitter, Google, and our other "favorites," which are easily customizable. Is it possible that someday we'll boot into a Steam OS with all our games, our favorite web browser, and our files hosted in the cloud? We shall see.

Click the next page to see what PC games work well from your couch.

Let off Some Steam

Four games that play great from the couch

We’ll be the first to admit that we’re not the most avid living room gamers, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. We’re typically found at our desks playing Borderlands 2, BF3, or DayZ, so playing with an Xbox controller is sort of akin to a dog walking in sandals. We did, however, find some games that are awesome with a controller, and we highly recommend you check them out.

Portal 2

We loved Portal 2 on the PC, and though the placing of portals and dropping of the companion cube took a bit of practice with the controller, we eventually figured it out and had a blast playing this game from our couch. Since you rarely have to use twitch movements to accurately aim yourself when being flung through the testing facility, a controller works just fine.

Dirt 3

We've always been a fan of racing games on the PC, and as much as it pains us to say it, they are even better with a gamepad. We were able to sit back and comfortably shred the snow-capped courses of Dirt 3 while drifting to our heart's content.

Psychonauts

Psychonauts is an oldie but a very, very goodie and it plays extremely well on a huge TV and with a gamepad. The Xbox controller is especially useful for all the jumping puzzles the game throws at you, even the horrific ones contained in the Meat Circus.

MotoGP 08

MotoGP 08 was designed for gamepad use and it’s bloody awesome. Controlling the bikes is almost as easy as actually riding a MotoGP bike in real life—or so we imagine. The main advantage is being able to hold a lean angle through the corners, with a smidge of pressure on the controller stick, which is much easier to pull off with a controller than trying to half-press a keyboard key.

The good old days of MotoGP—Stoner on the Ducati and Rossi on the Yamaha

Puzzle Quest

To be honest, we never got that into this game’s sequel, and prefer the original. We just appreciate the simplicity of the game mechanics, and love going up against an ogre or orc and unleashing a deadly chain of attacks. Having the huge display with much larger blocks than we’re accustomed to made it easier to evaluate our options before making a move, and it also made navigating the world map a bit easier, as well.

Note: This article appeared in the Holiday 2012 issue of the magazine.

Stealth Machines Espionage Review

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 18:26:08 +0000

A machine that will still have support in 2022?

You may not have heard about PC builder Stealth Machines, but apparently that’s the way the company likes it. In fact, the company’s web page proclaims that it’s the “underground computer company of the hardcore gamer.” We’d guess that’s the “stealth” part of the name.

So color us surprised when the Stealth Machines Espionage arrived and it wasn’t matte black and sporting that new ECS Stealth motherboard.

The Espionage isn’t extreme, but it’s nicely outfitted. Built around an EVGA Z77 FTW board, it packs a 3.4GHz Core i7-3770K overclocked to 4.68GHz. All four DIMM slots are packed with Mushkin DDR3/2133. For a gamer, the most important component is the graphics card. In this case, it’s the graphics cards—plural. Stealth Machines held out until the last minute to score a pair of EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti cards.

We’re not fans of the LED strips on the power cables, but you might like the colorful addition.

Would it make more sense to run a single GeForce GTX 680 instead? We think there’s no easy answer to that question. Our general philosophy is to run the single fastest GPU you can afford, since it will give you performance in every game from day one rather than having to wait for SLI or CrossFireX profiles. We think the 660 Ti might be an exception to that rule. Basically, the 660 Ti duo will smoke a single GTX 680 card in most games and came surprisingly close to the performance of our zero-point rig’s GTX 690. Part of that is the result of the Stealth’s overclocked Ivy Bridge CPU, but it’s a shocker to see this PC just 16 percent slower than our zero-point in Batman: Arkham City and 11 percent slower in 3DMark 11.

Lest you cheapskates scoff at the GeForce GTX 690, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that our zero-point hammers out 55.5fps in the tessellation-heavy Heaven 3.0 benchmark while the Stealth is way back at 38.3fps. That’s almost a 30 percent difference—so there is a point to the heavy metal sometimes.

Elsewhere, the Espionage aces the zero-point in Stitch.FX 2.0 and ProShow Producer 5.0. Neither benchmark exploits the six cores in our zero-point, but the ZP gets payback in Premiere Pro CS6 and x264 5.0, which can eat all the cores you throw at ’em.

In the end, the Espionage is a pretty nice gaming rig and has plenty of power for content creation, too. But we can’t publish this review without some criticism. First, we’d probably opt for a pair of 8GB DIMMs rather than four 4GB sticks, to allow for future upgrades. We also had a small snag in the overclock, as one core failed during a Prime95 test. Stealth had us add voltage to the core and all was well. Our final criticism, though, is the price. The machine, while fast for its class, is also awfully expensive for its class. As a comparison, our Ultra rig is just $140 more expensive with a hexa-core CPU, GTX 690, 3TB drive, Cosmos II case, and an LGA2011 board.

Stealth argues that much of its value comes from the warranty it’s willing to put on the line: 10 years. That’s indeed one of the longer warranties available on a modern PC, but we’re not sure we’re really going to care about any PC we buy in 2012 in 2022. Still, we can’t argue with the performance; it just doesn’t offer the price-to-performance ratio we expected.

How to Build a Small Gaming PC

Nathan Edwards — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:30:24 +0000

This small gaming PC isn't as wee as our Wee Ass-Kicking Machine, but it kicks more ass

Way back in December 2010, we built an awesome Mini-ITX gaming PC dubbed the Wee Ass-Kicking Machine. It featured a Core i7-870 CPU, a GeForce GTX 460 GPU, 4GB of DDR3, a 1TB hard drive, and a 120GB SSD—all crammed into a Silverstone SG07 chassis not much larger than a shoebox. The total cost? Around $1,600 (at the time).

It’s, uh, been a while since then, though, and I thought it was high time we built another Mini-ITX gaming PC. This one’s not quite as small, but it’s got a lot more oomph. We’re using the BitFenix Prodigy, which has room for a full-size ATX PSU, scads of hard drives, and even a 240mm radiator (if you swing that way), while still being small enough to be lugged around by its convenient carrying handles.

Let’s See What Fits

Just because this is a Mini-ITX build doesn’t mean we’re messing around with integrated graphics. Pah. Pshaw. And other expressions of contempt. Nope, when we build a gaming rig, we use a real discrete graphics card. This time we’re going with an MSI GTX 670 Power Edition, which is factory overclocked but still sips power like the rest of the Kepler lineup. We’ll use our sweet-spot Ivy Bridge CPU, the 3.4GHz Core i5-3570K, on a Zotac Z77 WiFi Mini-ITX board. The board has one full-size x16 PCIe 3.0 slot, two DIMM slots, USB 3.0, and 6Gb/s SATA. We’ll fill those DIMM slots with two 4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3/1600 DIMMs, and use a 240GB Corsair Force GS SSD and a 3TB HGST Deskstar for mass storage.

The most important part of the build is the case. The BitFenix Prodigy is large for a Mini-ITX chassis, but that just means there’s room for more stuff. It can accommodate a full-size PSU (although 140mm is really the maximum depth), up to six hard drives and six SSDs, a long videocard, and, thanks to its big main compartment, a full-size air cooler or even a liquid cooler.

Because most of our favorite air coolers would interfere with the PCIe slot, and we didn’t want to give up the lone 5.25-inch bay just so we could install a 240mm radiator, we opted for an all-in-one liquid‑cooling loop: Thermaltake’s Water 2.0 Performer. This will give us plenty of headroom for overclocking the 3570K to a steady 4.4GHz.

Ingredients

Building It

The Prodigy is roomy for a Mini-ITX case, but that still means it’s a bit of a complicated build. Here’s what I had to do.

1. Prep the Case

Remove the four thumbscrews holding the side panels in place and remove the panels. Pop the four clips holding the front panel in place, and remove that too. Grip the top hard drive cage by its top and bottom clips and slide it out of the case. Turn the case on its side and remove the six screws holding the lower cage to the chassis and remove that cage (image A).

Image A

2. Add the SSD

Attach the SSD to one of the case’s six mounting points—either at the bottom of the case, the inside of the left side panel, or the side of the PSU compartment (image B). It doesn’t really matter which of the many SSD mount points you use. You could just mount the SSD into one of the hard drive trays, but it’d be nice to leave those free for additional hard drives later on. Replace the hard drive cage. Stand the case upright.

Image B

3. Opening the Case

Flip over the front panel and remove the two screws holding the optical drive bezel in place (image C). On the front of the chassis, pry off the metal bezel in front of the optical drive tray. Replace the front panel and slide the optical drive into the bay, stopping when it’s flush. Secure with the same M3 screws you used for the SSD.

Image C

4. Add the PSU

Unscrew the four thumbscrews securing the PSU backplate. You’ll want as short a PSU as you can get for this: anything longer than 140mm and you’ll have a hard time routing the cables. As tempting as it is to go modular, a nonmodular PSU will be easier to deal with here. Attach the backplate to the PSU and install into the chassis, but don’t put all four thumbscrews back in, as you may want to be able to slide the PSU out later for ease of wiring (image D).

Image D

5. CPU and Cooling

Remove the CPU socket protector and install the CPU. Lower the gate arm to secure it (image E). Add the RAM. Although the Prodigy has room for the large skyscraper-style air coolers we like in our builds, those coolers don’t play nice with our solitary PCIe slot, so we’re going with a water cooler.

Thermaltake’s Water 2.0 Performer (catchy!) is an Asetek-built dual-fan 120mm all-in-one cooler that should keep our CPU nice and chilly. But first we have to install the backplate. Find the Intel backplate and assemble it for Socket 1155 per Thermaltake’s instructions. Attach it to the rear of the motherboard. Assemble the retaining clips and screws in the socket ring.

Take the motherboard I/O shield, pop off the tabs covering the Wi-Fi antenna ports, and install it into the case back. Unscrew the case’s 12cm exhaust fan and set it aside. Install the motherboard into the case using four screws (image F).

Image E

Image F

6. Add the Cooler

Take the all-in-one cooler and one of the 12cm fans, as well as four of the mounting screws and four washers. Run the screws through the washers, through the mounting holes at the back of the case, through the fan (making sure it’s oriented to exhaust out of the case), and into the mounting holes on the radiator. Attach the pump unit to the CPU with the socket ring. Turn to tighten, alternating in an X pattern.

Take the other fan, positioned to blow air through the radiator out of the case just like the first, and install it on the side of the radiator. Plug the fans into the included Y cable and into the CPU_FAN header, and plug the pump unit into the SYS_FAN header near the SATA ports (image G).

Image G

7. Route the Power

Now is a good time to route some power‑supply cables. Bring the 8-pin and 24-pin ATX power cables and one PCIe cable around the front of the PSU to the right side of the case. Route a SATA power cable along the left side to the hard drive bays, connect one port to the hard drive, then terminate it at the SSD, leaving the middle port for a future second drive (image H). Route the other SATA power cable along the bottom of the case, up the front panel, and into the routing hole just above the optical drive. Pop the top fan filter off and route the cable above the optical drive and plug it in (image I). Route SATA data cables from the blue 6Gb/s SATA ports to the SSD and HDD, and route one from a red 3Gb/s port to the optical drive.

Image H

Image I

8. More Routing

Disconnect the HD_Audio cable from the side panel and connect the motherboard end to the mobo, as the port will be impossible to access once the GPU is in place. Run the 24-pin motherboard power cable through the front of the PSU casing and into the port on the motherboard. Run the 8-pin through the cutout toward the rear of the casing (image J) and plug it in. At this point you can reattach the top hard drive cage if you want; I’ve left it out to improve airflow.

Image J

9. Attach Front-Panel Connectors

Plug the USB 3.0 header into its place below the radiator (image K). Connect the front 12cm fan to a 3-pin-to-Molex adapter and connect that to one of the Molex adapters. Re‑attach the other end of the HD_audio cable to the left side cover (image L) and put the cover back on the side, pulling the front-panel headers through toward the GPU slot and plugging them in.

Image K

Image L

10. Install the GPU

Unscrew the expansion‑slot cover plate and the expansion‑ slot covers, and remove them. Install the GPU, making sure the 8-pin ATX power cable can still reach its plug. Replace the cover plate and secure both it and the GPU with the three thumbscrews (image M). Run the PCIe power cable through the same hole as the ATX power cable and plug both 6-pin plugs into the GPU. Secure the PSU plate to the chassis with its four thumbscrews, double-check your wiring, and close the case back up. Screw the Wi-Fi antennae into their posts on the I/O ports.

Image M

Firing it up

The first thing I did with the mini machine was boot into the BIOS and do a simple multiplier overclock on the CPU. I left the stock voltages and bclock the same but cranked up the turbo multipliers on all the cores to 44 for a single core, 43 for two cores, and 42 for more. This gave me a nice, stable conservative overclock of up to 4.4GHz for single-threaded tasks. The MSI GTX 670 is factory‑overclocked, so I resisted further overclocking in an attempt to keep the noise from its fans down.

Against our zero-point, the mini-rig loses in every benchmark save ProShow Producer, where its high clock speeds are more important than the zero-point’s 12 threads. But our zero-point has a hexa-core CPU , a dual GPU, and costs a lot more money—and it’s not nearly as portable. For the price, we get a hell of a lot of rig in a small footprint, and we even get carrying handles. Besides, the fast CPU and GPU on this baby mean that it’s still blisteringly good.

The downside of Mini-ITX is that you only get one PCIe slot and two RAM slots, so you’ve got to be judicious with your build. The good news is that this machine still has room for all the essentials and no wasted space, while still being upgradeable. We’d gladly build into the Prodigy again, and we’re pleased we can build a kick-ass (and luggable) rig in such a small package.

Alien Autopsy: We Look Inside the Alienware X51

Gordon Mah Ung — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:07:49 +0000

Deep inside the smallest, most powerful gaming rig…ever?

Besides chocolate and coconut, oil and water, gaming and small form factor usually don’t mix. That’s something Alienware is hoping to fix with its new incredibly small X51 box.

Maximum PC got to dig around inside an X51 unit to see how the company managed to get desktop parts into such a miniature machine and even check out the Nvidia’s top secret Optimus technology too.

Alienware had two targets in designing the new X51 desktop: make it small and make it powerful. The Alienware box is slightly bigger than a generation 1 Xbox 360 console and it’s very reminiscent of business-class small form factor machines. There’s a big difference with the X51 though: It has some juice.

Alienware designers told us with this size of desktop, mobile parts are often used to keep the thermals and size down but because most gamers like to upgrade, the company said it based the X51 on desktop components. Inside is a Mini-ITX motherboard using the H61 chipset and a standard LGA1155 socket with the most powerful being an Intel Core i7-2600. Why no K chip? Alienware said the H61 makes overclocking out of the question so there’s no need to pay for an unlocked processor. The board features two standard DDR3 DIMM slots in dual-channel mode and a Mini PCI Express Card slot. The Mini PCI Express Card slot will be outfitted with an 802.11n chip but since it’s a standard slot, will take any card. The motherboard itself is an industry standard MiniITX size and could theoretically be upgraded but the I/O shield of the machine is built into the rear plane of the machine so swapping out a motherboard would seem to require Dremelling out the I/O shield area to fit any new board.

To get more hardware inside the box, Alienware had to move from the typical small, loud and hot internal PSU to an external brick. Two options will be available: A 240 Watt brick or a 340 Watt brick. The brick plugs into the rear of the box and AC/DC conversion is done inside the machine on a board in front of the motherboard.

For storage, the X51 will mount a full size 3.5-inch desktop drive, and a slot-fed DVD burner or optional Blu-ray combo drive. There’s no mount for a 2.5-inch SSD or mobile drive but Alienware designers said they expect those interested in SSDs to remove the 3.5-inch drive and use a bracket to mount up to 2.5-inch SSDs. Knowing this would be an option, Alienware said they intentionally put three SATA ports on the motherboard. The real magic though is the GPU support. Two configurations will be available at launch: A GeForce GTX 555 or a GeForce GTX 545. These are not specially designed cards with custom coolers either—these are off the shelf cards. Alienware said gamers universally want the option to upgrade cards down the road so it made sure the unit could function with off the shelf cards.

The company said it believes it’s possible to run up to a GeForce GTX 580 based on the power and thermal capabilities but it has not qualified the box for it. We only saw two standard six-pin power plugs so don’t pin your hopes on anything that requires insane amount of power. Realistically, Alienware said it expects GeForce GTX 560 Ti-level of graphics as a near term upgrade. Keep in mind that as vendors introduce newer GPUs, the power requirements usually go down for mid-range cards so it’s not implausible to get GeForce GTX 580 performance later this year with the power needs of a GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

All X51s will also come with Nvidia’s long awaited, secret Optimus technology. Optimus lets you seamlessly switch between discrete and the integrated Sandy Bridge graphics. It was actually backdoor announced by board makers when the original Z68 chipset came out last Spring but was quickly denied by Nvidia. Now nearly a year later, Optimus for desktop is finally ready. Configuring Optimus seems fairly easy and straightforward, too. Just go into the Nvidia control panel, select "Manage 3D Settings" and then you’re given an option to let Optimus automagically select what to run on by looking at the 3D workload or manually select the integrated graphics or discrete graphics.

Since gamers like bling, Alienware added a dash of that with its trademark lighting on various places around the case. Like the laptop and Aurora, the X51 lets you change the color of the LEDs on the case and the keyboard and mouse using the AFX lighting applet. To show you how much thought the designers put into the box, the signature Alienware head on the front of the box can be rotated to match the orientation of the box.

We'll get a box in for review when we can, but we can say that the X51 is an impressive amount of hardware in a small box. We've seen high-end graphics, even up to GTX 580 cards in small form factor rigs before, but they're generally pretty bulky. That Alienware can stuff a 150-watt GPU into a box the size of a business-class small form factor is pretty damn amazing. To be honest, this isn't the first attempt at a small, thin gaming box. Hewlett-Packard's (Voodoo's) Firebird made a run at it with its Firebird machine, back in 2009.

While interesting and truly silent, the Firebird's use of mobile CPUs and SLI'ed mobile GPUs was a big turn off to gamers. We weren't overly joyed with the Firebird, but we did think that it was a glimpse of one possible future for desktop gaming. Alienware's X51 pretty much cements that: PC gaming is truly getting smaller and cheaper.

Two configuations will be offered, with the cheapest being $699 for a box with a Core i3, 4GB of RAM, a 1TB drive, and a GeForce GTX 545.

iBuyPower's Chimera 4 Line Of Overclocked Gaming PCs Unleashes A Fiery Beast

Brad Chacos — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:31:52 +0000

Having a computer powerful enough to play Battlefield 3 is awesome. But sometimes, power isn’t enough; sometimes, you want to get your frag on and look damn stylish doing it. Enter iBuyPower’s new Chimera 4 line of overclocked gaming desktops; the internals may vary, but they all come housed in the company’s new Chimera Inferno 4 Gaming Case, an eye-catching chassis that features a fiery, flaming profile of a lion or chimera or something.

iBuyPower promises that every computer in the line will come with its CPU overclocked by at least 10 percent. Prices start at a budget-friendly $800 for the Chimera 4-FX, which sports, as you may have guessed from the name, an AMD FX-4100 4-Core CPU. Moving up the price ladder gets you increasingly powerful Intel Core processors, topped by the Chimera 4-V1, a $1680 setup that includes an 800W PSU, 8 GB of RAM, a 2GB AMD Radeon 6950 graphics card, and a Core i7-3930K (with a $500 option to up that to a Core i7-3960X). As usual, you can tweak and expand the system to your hearts delight with iBuyPower’s extensive customization options.

Check it out for yourself over at the Chimera 4 page on iBuyPower’s website.

Can You Build A 2560 x 1600 Gaming Rig Without Breaking the Bank? We Find Out!

David Murphy — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:58:26 +0000

It's easy to build a gaming machine on a budget if you're playing at 1650x1080 or 1920x1200, but if you're rocking 2560x1600, you need a little more oomph

As Maximum PC senior editor Gordon Mah Ung puts it, building a budget gaming rig for a 30-inch panel is the metaphorical equivalent of slapping a Ferrari engine into a crappy Ford car. If you can afford a display that rings up north of $2,000, then why the heck are you trying to cut corners on the system you’re connecting it to?

I can’t answer that one for you. But what I can tell you is exactly how you can go about getting the best frame rate for your buck without purchasing a PC that’s more expensive than your mega-monitor. That’s my task for this build-it: killer gaming performance without needless budgetary destruction. And as you might expect, picking the perfect graphics card for the mix is the biggest challenge of this build.

So in the interest of fairness, I selected two videocard setups that I put to the test in this build: the best of Nvidia’s dual-GPU monstrosities, and two high-end ATI cards in a CrossFire setup. Compared to what these cards can do, everything else on this PC is practically window dressing.

Choosing the Right Hardware

As far as top-notch processors go, Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture is a no-brainer for my killer system build. I’ve opted for the 3.3GHz 2500K instead of its 2600K cousin because it’s less expensive and is easy to overclock up to the 2600K’s 3.4GHz, and I don’t feel that the addition of Hyper-Threading is going to make that much of a difference to gaming frame rates. To keep the system speedy (and load times low), Intel’s Z68 platform and its integrated Smart Response Technology allow me to use an SSD as an expanded read/write cache for a standard hard drive. What little benefit in speeds I’d see by jumping from a Western Digital Caviar Blue to a Caviar Black drive is eclipsed by the SSD cache’s performance.

And now for the elephant in the room: the videocards. The point of this system build is to present an affordable PC that can dish out top-notch gaming on a 30-inch panel. That’s why I’m not just taking the easy route and slapping in two Nvidia GTX 590 cards or two ATI Radeon HD 6990 cards in a paired configuration and calling it a day (don’t do the math; the cost of these cards hurts.)

Maximum PC recommending a CrossFire scenario instead of a single-card setup? What is this world coming to?

As for my ultimate decision to go with two ATI Radeon HD 6970 cards in a CrossFire configuration instead of a single, dual-GPU Nvidia GTX 590, I’ll let the benchmarks (see page 2)—and the price points—speak for themselves. Simply put, I found that I could achieve similar or even better performance (depending on the game) from a comparably priced CrossFire setup than with Nvidia’s single-card solution.

From benchmark tests of Batman: Arkham Asylum, to Dirt 3, to Metro 2033, to an ever-punishing trip through Crysis 2, my CrossFire setup consistently spanked Nvidia’s GTX 590. Now, I realize that my selection flies in the face of the advice that Maximum PC has been giving you since videocards were invented—namely, that you should always purchase the fastest single-card solution you can get under the presumption that you’ll later be able to bolster your setup with a wicked-fast SLI or CrossFire setup, if you so desire.

But with the price of these extreme videocards shooting up into the $700 range, I think we can take that suggestion and throw it out the window. If you can afford $1,400 worth of videocards, you’re reading the wrong article. For the best out-of-box solution that can make your games scream on a 30-inch display without breaking your bank account, you can’t go wrong with dual ATI Radeon HD 6970s.

Ingredients

Case	Cooler Master Storm Enforcer	$80
PSU	Antec HCG-750	$95
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3	$160
CPU	Intel Core i5-2500k	$209
Cooling	Stock Intel Cooler	$0
RAM	Patriot Memory G2 Series DDR3/1333 kit	$40
Optical Drive	Lite-On iHAS424-98 DVD Burner	$25
HDD	1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue 7,200rpm	$60
SSD	Corsair Force F40 40GB	$100
GPU	2x XFX Radeon HD 6970	$720
OS	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)	$90
Total		$1,579

Hardware Highlights

COOLER MASTER STORM ENFORCER

It’s always a delight to attempt to pack huge videocards inside of a mid-tower case. Not! But that’s the price I’m paying for sinking most of my budget into graphics. Cooler Master’s Storm Enforcer case presents a tight squeeze for parts and cable management, but its slick looks, side-panel window, and support for two USB 3.0 ports on the front of the case make it an appealing package for a sub-$100 chassis. Most of the parts and pieces you can stuff inside the chassis are screwless additions, except for your screw-dependent PCI devices—an unexpected omission by Cooler Master.

See the gaping hole in what would otherwise be a nice column of drive bays? The beauty of the Cooler Master Storm Enforcer case is its modularity: You can remove some of the drive bays in the chassis to give yourself more room for cards, cables, and delicious airflow. Good thing, too—I had to remove the case’s included 2.5-inch drive bays (originally attached between the 3.5-inch bays and the PSU mount), in order to get the power supply to fit. The next best solution is to attach the SSD to a 2.5-inch-to-3.5-inch converter kit, and then use the Cooler Master’s included drive rails to attach the contraption into one of the remaining 3.5-inch drive bays.

ANTEC HCG-750 PSU

What I gained in cost savings by picking Antec’s reasonably priced power supply, I lost in modularity. There’s no way to get rid of cables I otherwise don’t need on this power supply, which is a bit of a let-down given the already cramped confines of the Cooler Master Storm Enforcer case and the two huge graphics cards I’m packing into the rig. But that’s OK—I was able to stuff the PSU’s extra cords behind the right side panel.

GIGABYTE Z68X-UD3H-B3

Since this is a budget build (of sorts), Gigabyte's Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard delivers an appealing mix of features and affordability. I love the diversity of connections Gigabyte throws into the mix: four USB ports, two USB 3.0 ports, eSATA, FireWire, and HDMI and DisplayPort for all those times you won't be using your discrete videocard. Three SATA 3Gb/s connections meet four SATA 6Gb/s on the motherboard itself, and Gigabyte makes sure to wire up its PCI connections in such a way that populating them all doesn't disable any other connections on the mobo itself—a big problem with other inexpensive Z68 motherboards I considered.

One thing you should note: The Z68-UD3H-B3's SATA ports are color-coded to indicate which of the ports are which. The gray ports are 6Gb/s SATA, but they are on the integrated Marvell controller. The two white Intel chipset-based 6Gb/s SATA ports (hint: use these for best performance!) are next to the two black 3Gb/s ports. Careful—you can't mix-and-match RAIDs across controllers.

INTEL'S SMART RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY

Enabling Intel's Smart Response Technology is as easy as setting a single option within the system's BIOS, installing Windows onto a non-SSD hard drive, and flicking on SRT within a small Intel software utility.

The Big Picture

My initial goal with this build was to get a $1,500 PC that could run Crysis 2 at maxed-out settings. So the cost is a little higher, and the frame rates are a little lower, but I’m confident that the PC I’ve fashioned best straddles the line between affordability and awesome gaming. And this is all without overclocking the system a single bit—I will leave the process of jacking up your CPU and GPU speeds to your capable hands. I just wanted to showcase the kind of out-of-the-box performance you can expect from such a rig.

Gaming-wise, you aren’t going to get much better than an ATI Radeon 6970 CrossFire setup unless you jump into the realm of tri-card packages or dual-GPU CrossFireX/quad-SLI configurations, and those don’t really bring the word “budget” to mind (which is also why I opted not to pack two Nvidia GTX 580 cards into this rig). While you might scoff at my decision to spend half this rig’s cost on its graphics, I think the benchmarks speak for themselves. It’s no small feat to max out the resolution and quality of the games I’ve picked, and my system delivered excellent frame rates on what I’d otherwise consider unthinkable playing situations.

For a smallish chassis, Cooler Master's Storm Enforcer easily fits everything we need to game on a 30-inch panel.

Why’s that? It’s simple: I ran benchmarks that cranked antialiasing as high as it would possibly go on each game, a practice that’s all but unnecessary when you’re playing at a 2560x1600 resolution. You just aren’t going to need to maximize the visual-smoothing feature during common gaming. And as soon as you’ve turned that setting down a bit, boom—time to enjoy Crysis 2 in its raw, speedy glory. Wave goodbye to the 40 frames per second as reported by our maxed-out benchmark settings (including DirectX 11 and the high-resolution texture pack add-on; I’m not kidding when I say I tried to melt faces with this game).

Since every Build It invariably generates its share of “I could do that for cheaper” comments, here are some of the downgrades I’d consider if I really wanted to stick to a $1,500 price point. First off, there’s the case: You can always find a cheaper (albeit lamer) case, but it’s going to be a journey worthy of Indiana Jones to find an inexpensive one with USB 3.0 support that doesn’t stink. I might also drop down to ATI Radeon 6950 cards sprinkled with an overclock or a third-party firmware update that unlocks the cards’ shaders. If worse comes to worst, I could always drop the SSD and SRT. But that’s not very Maximum PC now, is it? Especially when all you’re left with is a fairly average, non-eye-popping hard drive.

For a tad over $1,500, you now have a system that’s capable of rocking out on a monitor that costs just as much, if not more, than the system itself. God speed, gamer.

Benchmarks (fps)

	CrossFire ATI Radeon HD 6970 Rig	Nvidia GTX 590 Rig
Batman Arkham Asylum
MSAA 16XQ, PhysX	n/a	72
No MSAA, No PhysX	206	192
AA and AF maxed, no PhysX	124	n/a
Dirt 3	75.6	68.3
Total War: Shogun 2	124.5	110.8
Metro 2033
PhysX Enabled	n/a	29
PhysX Disabled	40.5	30.1
Crysis 2	42.3	41.9

Best scores are bolded. All benchmarks run at maximum/ultra-quality mode across both setups, DirectX 11 mode used when appropriate. Crysis 2 benchmarks incorporate DirectX 11 patch and high-resolution texture patch. All benchmarks run four times, with frame rates recorded for second, third, and fourth runs.

AVADirect Custom Gaming PC Review

Gordon Mah Ung — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:49:33 +0000

AVA finds a way to mix performance and silence

In our world, performance and silence go together about as well as Aliens and Predators. Each one has its appeal, but put them together, and you generally get a turd.

That’s a fact AVADirect has set out to disprove with a PC apparently named by U.S. Army logistics command: Custom Gaming PC, Silent PC, Low-Noise Custom Computer System. Despite its funktastic name, the AVADirect PC doesn’t disappoint and seems capable of creating its own alternate reality where performance commingles harmoniously with peace and quiet.

Sure, Puget System’s virtually silent Serenity Mini that we reviewed in our August issue was certainly fast with its 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz, but its Radeon HD 5750 didn’t have the ponies for heavy gaming tasks at high resolutions.

Despite its beefy GTX 580 GPU, this is the quietest gaming rig we've ever not heard.

AVADirect took gaming to heart with its silent PC. Besides overclocking its 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K to 4.7GHz using a Prolimatech Megahalems cooler, AVADirect matches that chip with Asus’s three-slot ENGTX580 card. With its beefy build and giant fans, the yuge ENGTX580 is generally intended for overclocking, but if you don’t overclock, you can run the card quietly. So damn quiet, in fact, that the fans on the ENGTX580 don’t spool up to any noticeable level.

There’s something cool about running tri-SLI or quad-SLI, but it’s also pretty cool—nay, way cool—to run the Unigine Heaven benchmark at 2560x1600 and not hear the GPU make a peep. We’re so used to noise, either very loud or low-level system noise, during gaming tests that the AVADirect’s silence is a bit unnerving, in the way hybrid cars can sneak up on you at the crosswalk.

The rest of the machine’s specs are laid bare in our spec chart, but the highlights include an Asus P8Z68-V Pro board, 8GB of G.Skill DDR3/1600, a 120GB OCZ Vertex 3, and a 2TB WD Caviar Green. The Caviar Green is already silent, but to make sure you can’t hear the HDD at all, AVADirect seals it up in an enclosure for extra measure. The NZXT H2 itself is an interesting take on the standard bearer of quiet cases: Antec’s P180 series. One thing we like is the three-position fan controller that lets you toggle the speeds without having to reach in back. The NZXT case doesn’t have the fancy baffles of the P180, but it will take a full-size ATX board while still being almost as small as the microATX Mini P180 case.

In performance, the AVADirect doesn’t break any records; in fact, many of the small form factor boxes we reviewed in August (including AVADirect’s shriektastic entry) are faster. But none of them are as quiet, either. And a Core i5-2500K at 4.7GHz with a GTX 580 is certainly no slouch, no matter how you cut it.

OK, so the AVADirect won’t take any records, but it wins in the one area the company was shooting for. So brew yourself a cup of organic herbal tea, burn some incense, and start grenade spamming and sniping away in blissful serenity.

$2,135, www.avadirect.com

Shuttle's Latest Gaming PCs on Show at E3

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:16:23 +0000

The most sought-after gaming hardware at this year’s E3 was always expected to be of the console variety, with Nintendo set to unveil Wii’s successor and Sony scheduled to divulge more details about its next-gen handheld. While Taiwan-based Shuttle Inc. is unlikely to steal the spotlight from the soon-to-be-unveiled Wii successor or even the PlayStation Vita, as Sony’s upcoming handheld is now called, it is trying its best to make its presence felt at the Electronic Entertainment Expo with its latest gaming PCs. Details after the jump.

The company is showcasing its latest small-form-factor gaming PCs at the ongoing computer and video gaming convention, the company announced in a press release Monday.

From the press release: “Square Enix will feature Shuttle's H3 Series Gaming PCs in its media lounge and also throughout the booth (South Exhibit Hall -- 1647) to live demo its hottest new and pre-announcement video games for the coming year and beyond.

“NVIDIA will demonstrate the extreme performance of Shuttle's H7 Pro and J3 Series Gaming PCs at the booth (Concourse Level -- OFMR8109), and feature GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards which highlight the true capability of these small machines for high-octane gaming.”

Asus Gaming Gear Steals The Spotlight At Computex

Brad Chacos — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:59:53 +0000

Does Asus have a chip on its shoulder? The company showed up swinging at the Computex expo in Taiwan with the official announcement of the PadFone yesterday, and today, it unleashed a torrent of PC-related products upon the drooling crowds. Souped-up notebooks, motherboards, graphics cards, peripherals and full-blown gaming PCs – most sporting the Republic of Gamers brand – were on display as Asus tried to offer a solution for every gamer who ever even thought about playing Crysis.

Maybe the coolest thing Asus unveiled was the G53SX Naked Eye 3D gaming notebook, which obviously carried the ROG brand. The portable beast is powered by Sandy Bridge Core i7 processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics, but perhaps best of all, it can display in 3D without the need for those goofy 3D glasses. Slashgear reports the notebook will be able to convert 2D to 3D and even display them side-by-side.

Other announced ROG systems were the G74SX 3D notebook – which still needs glasses – and the CG8565 Gaming System, which includes a Z68-based Core i7 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 GPU. The thing looks like a stealth fighter itching to kick your ass and includes an overclock button, charmingly labeled "Level Up."

Asus also displayed three new ROG motherboards: the Maximus IV GENE-Z and Maximus IV Extreme-Z motherboards both feature Intel's Z68 processor, while the company's press release boasts that the "Crosshair V Formula is the first AMD 990FX-based motherboard supporting both 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX." It runs on a AM3+ CPU. Two NVIDIA GTX 580-based graphics cards also carried the ROG brand, and the company showed off its M5A99/97 Series and Sabertooth 990FX motherboards. The M5A99/97 lets users fiddle with power settings, while the Sabertooth 990FX keeps cool with CeraM!X technology.

Asus also revealed the first peripheral carrying the ROG brand: the Vulcan ANC gaming headset, which features active noise-cancelling technology so that you can hear you foes being vanquished while simultaneously ignoring your girlfriend shouting at you to get off the computer.

Maximum Giveaway: Win a $3000 Gulftown PC From iBUYPOWER

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:41:52 +0000

Update: Last chance to enter! We're drawing the winner this afternoon!

Spring is in the air, and you know what that means. Flowers blooming? Birds singing? Romance in the air? No way. This is Maximum PC, and we celebrate the vernal equinox the same way the ancient druids did: by giving away one bad-ass gaming PC. That's right, we're going to give one lucky reader a $3000 gaming rig from iBUYPOWER, sporting Intel's blistering-fast 6-core Gulftown i7 CPU.

To get your name into the random drawing, you'll need to follow us on Twitter and retweet this message. We'll pick a winner with a random drawing on Monday, April 5, 2010.

Prize system specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium
Intel Core i7 980x Gulftown
ATI Radeon HD 5870
6GB DDR3 1600 Memory
X58 Motherboard with USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 Expansion card
LiquidCPU Cooling System with 120mm Radiator
iBUYPOWER Chimera Inferno 2 Case
1000W Power Supply
80GBIntel X25-M MLC SSD
1TB HDD
10X Blu-Ray

iBUYPOWER Gaming PC -- Value $2,999 (With shipping + tax)

MAXIMUM PC iBUYPOWER GAMING PC CONTEST
OFFICIAL RULES

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

1. SPONSOR: This promotion (the “Contest”) is sponsored by Maximum PC magazine and Future US, Inc. (“Sponsors”), subject to the following terms and conditions.

2. ELIGIBILITY: Contest open to legal residents of the United States (excluding residents of Rhode Island and Puerto Rico) and legal residents of Canada, excluding residents of Quebec. Void where prohibited by law. Entrants must be at least 18 years of age. Employees of Sponsors, their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and agents, and foregoing employees’ household or immediate family members (defined as parent, spouse, child, sibling, or grandparent) are NOT eligible to enter Contest. By their submission of entry, participants warrant they are legally entitled and authorized to make such submission, either on their own behalf, or as to information submitted upon the express authorization of another on whose behalf the information is submitted.

3. TIMING: Contest begins at 12:01 a.m. PDT on March 23rd, 2010 and continues until 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 5th, 2010. Incomplete or late entries will not be accepted.

HOW TO ENTER: Email us at contests@maximumpc.com, putting “iBUYPOWER Gaming PC Contest” in the subject line and including your complete name, address, daytime telephone number, city, state, and zip code in the body or follow our Twitter page at http://twitter.com/maximumpc and retweet this message. There is a limit of one entry per eligible participant. Entries become the property of the Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned.

5. PRIZES AND ODDS: One Grand Prize will be awarded. The Grand Prize will be an iBUYPOWER Gaming PC with Intel Core i7 980x, ATI Radeon HD 5870, Intel x25 SSD, and a total retail value of $2,999.00

Odds of winning shall be determined by the number of eligible entries received.
Prizes are nontransferable and must be accepted as awarded. Winner will be responsible for all taxes (federal, state, and local) and all expenses not listed herein related to acceptance and use of any prize. Prize will be awarded if properly claimed. Limit one prize per household.

6. DRAWING: Winners will be selected by random drawing from all valid eligible entries received. Drawing will be held on or about April 5, 2010. Drawing will be conducted by Sponsors, whose decisions on all matters related to the Contest shall be final and binding and within their sole discretion. Canadian entrants selected in any drawing will be required to correctly answer, without assistance of any kind, whether mechanical or otherwise, a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question to be administered by mail or by telephone. Winning is contingent upon compliance with all terms and conditions set forth in these official rules; any entry drawn or any potential winner identified thereby found at any time to fail to comply with these official rules will be held invalid and ineligible for award.

NOTIFICATION: Winner will be notified by phone or email within one week following the random drawing. Winner so notified must within ten (10) days of notice of award, complete, execute and return the provided Affidavit, Waiver, Release and Indemnity Agreement including, where lawful, a Publicity Release (plus any additional documents required at the discretion of Sponsors). Failure to comply with the requirements of this paragraph (or the return of any prize or prize notification as non-deliverable) may result in disqualification and in the forfeiture of any right to a prize, in which case prize will be awarded to an alternate by random drawing. A list of winners will be available for six months after the award of prizes by sending a self addressed envelope with sufficient prepaid postage to:

MAXIMUM PC
iBUYPOWER GAMING PC CONTEST
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400
South San Francisco, CA 94080

Residents of the state of Vermont and Canada may omit return postage.

8. PRIVACY POLICY: Submissions are subject to standard privacy policy, the terms of which can be found at http://www.futureus.com/privacy.php, which terms and conditions entrants accept and agree to by submission of entries pursuant to these official rules.

9. RELEASE: by participating in the Contest and/or accepting a prize, a participant/winner agrees to defend, release and hold harmless the Sponsors and their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, divisions, advertising and promotion agencies, and the foregoing companies’ officers, directors, shareholders, employees, representatives and agents (collectively “Releasees”) from and against any actions, claims and/or liability for injury, loss or damage of any kind, (including the violation or infringement of any proprietary or personal right of any individual or entity) resulting in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from participation in the Contest, and/or the use, acceptance, or possession of a Contest prize, and/or participation in a Contest prize-related activity, including any action, claim or liability arising from the unauthorized submission of any information.

By participating in the Contest and/or accepting a prize, a participant/winner consents to and gives the Sponsors the right to use, publish, and display a winner’s (and where applicable a participant’s) name, city and state, and prize awarded, for the purpose of advertising, trade, publicity and promotional purposes in any media now known or hereafter discovered, worldwide, and on the Web, without review, notification or approval, all without additional consideration, unless prohibited by law.

10. CONDITIONS: Participants agree that by participating they release the Releasees from any liability in connection with: a) Entries that are ineligible as a result of being lost, late, illegible, damaged, incomplete, stolen, postage due, or misdirected: b) Any typographical or other human or technical errors in the offer or administration of the Contest, including but not limited to errors in advertising, these official rules, the selection and announcement of a winner(s), or the distribution/awarding of a prize(s); c) Any omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay, misdirection, damage, injury, technical malfunctions or traffic congestion on the Internet/telephone network, or at any website, or any combination thereof.

Sponsors reserve the right to modify these rules for clarification purposes without materially affecting the term and conditions of the Contest. In the event that the Contest is infected by a computer virus/worm, or is not capable of running or being executed as planned (as a result of but not limited to an error, omission, defect, delay, misdirection, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, action of entrants, or technical failure) or any other cause which in the sole opinion of Sponsors corrupts or affects the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Contest, Sponsors reserve the right in their sole discretion to disqualify any suspect entry or entrant and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest. In the event of such cancellation, termination, modification or suspension, notice thereof will be posted at the entry website(s) mentioned above, and winner(s) will be determined solely by Sponsors in a random drawing from among all eligible non-suspect and/or non-disqualified entries. In such event, Releasees shall have no liability to any participant who is disqualified due to such an action. Failure to enforce any term of these official rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision.

11. LAW: This Contest is governed by the laws of the United States and is subject to all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Void where prohibited or restricted. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation, and enforceability of these Official Rules, or the rights and obligations of entrants or Sponsor in connection with any drawing or award, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of, the State of California, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any cause of action by you with respect to the offer (and/or any information, products or services related thereto) must be instituted within one (1) year after the cause of action arose or be forever waived and barred. All actions shall be subject to the limitations set forth in above. The language in these official rules shall be interpreted as in accordance with its fair meaning and not strictly for or against either party. All legal proceedings arising out of or in connection with the offer of these official rules shall be brought solely in San Mateo County, California. You expressly submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of said courts and consent to extraterritorial service of process.

iBuyPower Shows Off 5 New Liquid Cooled Desktops

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:35:58 +0000

Just in time for the holiday gift giving season, iBuyPower has come out with five new liquid cooled gaming PCs. The PCs are available from NewEgg and can be purchased right now. The low end model, the Gamer Extreme 922 SLC, runs a Core i7 860 and the Nvidia GTX220. Price wise it clocks in at a mere $989. There’s even a box for the AMD fans out there. The 559 Gamer runs the AMD Phenom II X4 965 and will cost $1,549.

If you need more power, the Gamer Supreme 979 SLC may be an option. It comes equipped with the Intel Core i7 975 and two GTX 295s in SLI. The 979 will also have 12GB of DDR3 RAM, a Blu-ray drive, and a 128GB SSD. Indeed a real monster of a rig with a monstrous price of $3,999. Is it worth it? Maybe, but that’s your call.

The remaining rigs fit nicely in-between the extremes. You won’t be able to fit one of these in a stocking, but if your gamer has been extra nice this year, you might be able to cram one under the tree.

$2000 Gaming PC Buyer's Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts for April 2009

Norman Chan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:00:00 +0000

After pricing out $1000 and $1500 gaming systems, we wanted to go a bit on the high-end and see how we would configure a $2000 gaming PC. $2000 may be more than a lot of you are willing to spend on a new home-built PC, but there are plenty of people out there who spend more than $2000 on custom-designed boutique systems from OEM builders. And for those fat-walleted gamers, this article will show that you can get a whole lot more if you build it yourself (though putting the pieces together is another matter). Just as with the $1500 PC, this build leans heavily on the CPU and GPU side to optimize the rig for high-res gaming, though it'll perform more than admirably with video encoding and other productivity tasks. And as always, we write this with a disclaimer that your own personal configurations and preferences may differ from ours, which does not make them any less valid. In fact, we encourage you to use our guide as a template so you can create your own spreadsheet to swap out the parts we chose with what may suit your needs and budget. Leave your feedback in the comments section to get the conversation started!

All prices found on newegg.com, as of April 15th, and do not include mail-in rebates (unless indicated), tax, or shipping.

Videocard

(2) BFG Geforce GTX 285 Cards
$330 each, $660 total www.bfgtech.com

Of course, we started filling out our Excel sheet by choosing the most important part of any gaming PC: the videocard. In this case, we knew that with a $2000 budget, we could afford more than one videocard, and go the SLI or Crossfire route. Last year's Dream Machine, for example, was outfitted with dual ATI 4870X2's in a Crossfire configuration. The fastest single-slot card available now is Nvidia's GTX 295, but with the cheapest 295 priced at $520, we really didn't want to use half our budget on videocards. So we opted for dual GTX 285s in SLI mode.

The GTX 285 is an updated version of the already speedy GTX 280, and represents the fastest single-GPU graphics card for sale today. Two 285's absolutely stomp the GTX 295 (and dual 4870X2s, for that matter) in performance. BFG is also offering a $30 rebate on their 285s priced at $330, so our decision was simple. Of course, if you wanted to save some cash (and power), a lone GTX 295 will run most games at 1900x1200 with all settings maxed out at 30+ frames per second (yes, even Crysis).

CPU

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
$289, www.intel.com

For a $2000 gaming PC, it's once again a no brainer to go with Intel's Core i7. Nehalem is pretty much the only choice for a top of the line processor, since AMD's Phenom II has been relegated to compete at the mid-range level. The only real decision in this category was which Core i7 SKU to use. We have no qualms going with the 2.66GHz 920 part, even if it represents the "budget" end of the Core i7 lineup. The 920 performs tremendously well compared to even the best Core 2 CPUs, and smashes Phenom in most of our benchmarks. It's also very easy to overclock, so you can stretch your investment a long way. One thing to note: the Core i7 920 has gone up in price since we last recommended it in our $1500 Gaming PC guide, from $280 to $289. Just another example of Keynesian economics at work. When demand is high, prices go up!

Motherboard

Asus P6T
$240, www.asus.com

Since our configuration uses Nvidia SLI, we needed a compatible X58 motherboard. The Asus P6t fits the bill, with both Crossfire and SLI (up to 2 PCI-E cards) support. Earlier X58 boards only supported Crossfire, but most newer (and more pricier) models -- including Intel's own motherboards -- work with the Nvidia multi-GPU standard. The P6T has 3 Dimm slots that with recognize up to 12GB of DDR3 memory, onboard RealTek surround sound audio, and your typical suite of USB, Firewire, and network ports. Asus also sells a Deluxe version of the P6T (reviewed here) for $40 more that is the same as the P6T but offers 3-way SLI support, overclocking tools, as well as better quality on-board sound. Since we don't plan on using 3-way SLI, the vanilla P6T will suit us just fine.

Power Supply

Corsair HX1000 Watt
$260, www.corsair.com

Our dual-GTX 285 setup is going to be very power hungry, so we had to make sure that we chose a power supply that not only could handle the energy demands, but also sported enough PCI-E power connectors to funnel power to our GPUs. A good reference is Nvidia's SLIZone website, which lists approved power supplies for different Nvidia videocard configurations. Luckily, our current go-to PSU, the Corsair HX1000, has been deemed worthy for this setup. Your power supply options greatly diminish if you're going the Tri-SLI route or try to shove two dual-GPU cards in one system. For ATI fans, AMD has set up a similar PSU certification website to list all approved power supplies. And yes, the Corsair HX1000 will work with all the newest ATI cards too.

Memory

OCZ 6GB DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V
$91, www.ocztechnology.com

No surprises here. With RAM prices continuing to stumble, we see no reason why you shouldn't buy 6GB of memory for you next gaming PC. 6GB runs on three dimms in tri-channel mode on X58 motherboards, and OCZ's DDR3 series delivers exactly what you need for gaming at a great price. These sticks run with 7-7-7-20 memory timings, and should be stable at the stock voltage settings. You can go with other brands as well: Corsair, Crucial, and Patriot all make reliable DIMMs and are competitively priced. Of course, you'll need a 64-bit OS to make use of all this memory. We get to that on the next page.

Case

NZXT Tempest
$100, www.nzxt.com

In the issue we just shipped, editor Nathan Edwards sang the praises of Silverstone's Fortress FT01-B mid-tower case. But this new king of mid-towers retails for $220, more than twice the cost of the previous favorite NZXT Tempest. So back to the $100 NZXT it is. Once again, from our review: "We experienced no difficulties whatsoever installing a modern-day system into this no-nonsense chassis. There was plenty of room to manage cables around our huge 8800 GTX card, and the case’s eight hard drive bays come with screwless rails preinstalled—you pop them off, attach them to a drive, and slide the whole deal into place. The two 12cm front-panel fans take care of the cooling efforts." But if you have an extra $120 to spend, you can't go wrong with the Silverstone Fortress -- and look for our official review in the June issue.

Hard Drive

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB
$120, www.seagate.com

Yes, we're aware that some users of the Barracuda line have suffered drive failures due to firmware issues. We're also aware that Western Digital has a 2TB drive for sale, which we've evaluated. But the Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB is still our favorite "capacity" hard drive. None of the 7200.11s we have in the office have failed, and Seagate has fixed all the firmware bugs (which were related to the controller board) on new shipments of this model. As we state in our review, the 1.5TB is just as fast as the speediest terabyte drives, and edges out comparable models from Western Digital and Samsung. We actually considered using a Velociraptor 10,000rpm drive, but with a max capacity of 300GB, we couldn't justify the relatively high price. Keep in mind that when we reviewed the 7200.11, it MSRPed for $180. It sells now for $120. Done deal.

Optical Drive

Samsung SH-S223F
$25, www.samsung.com

The Samsung SH-223 is a minor upgrade from its predecessor, the SH-203, but it’s our new favorite. The burner has 22x DVD +/-R and though a majority of the specifications mirrored that of the older model, the SH-223 is seconds speedier. In fact, in our April issue's DVD rip challenge, the SH-S223 outperformed its nearest competitor by over 2 minutes when ripping a 7.18GB disc (after applying the newest firmware). And don't worry if you can't find it listed on Samsung's website -- this drive is still very much alive and in production. Since its last appearance in our $1500 gaming PC price guide, the S223F has gone up in price by $3.

Operating System

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM
$100, www.microsoft.com

We actually included the price of an OS in this pricing guide, since our build left us with more than $100 to spend. If you're still wary of running 64-bit Windows, man up and have some faith. 64-bit Vista may have been a mess when it first launched, the Microsoft has hotfixed and patched the vast majority of compatibility problems with its soon-to-be-suceded OS. Trust us: 64-bit Vista stable, and it'll let you use all 6 GB of memory you bought for this rig.

Price Breakdown

We knew going into our build that $2000 could get us a lot, and we were right about that. $660 spent just on GPUs may be a bit exorbitant, but you're going to get a whole lot of performance for that investment. Plus, the rebates available for several of our chosen components make the total price even more attractive. Compared to our $1500 build, we spent a higher percentage of our budget on GPU (34% compared to 27%), and the addition of the OS and CPU Cooler helped balance out the rest of the funds. The motherboard we chose was a bit pricier than the one in the $1500 PC as well, even though they're both solid X58 boards. And that's the point of a $2000 system: you can afford to splurge a little on premium parts to reach claim that extra bit of performance. Are those extra frames per second worth the $500 difference? Probably not for most people. But since this is Maximum PC, we want to give you the option anyway.

Part:	Model:	Price:	(Price after rebate)	Newegg Link
Motherboard	Asus P6T	$240		Link
CPU	Intel Core i7 920	$289		Link
CPU Cooler	Zalman CNPS 9900NT	$60		Link
Memory	OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666	$91	$81	Link
Video Card	2x BFG Geforce GTX 285	$660	$600	Link
Power Supply	Corsair HX1000W	$260	$240	Link
Case	NZXT Tempest	$100	$80	Link
Hard Drive	Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB	$130		Link
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-S223F	$25		Link
OS	Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit	$100		Link

Total: $1,955 ($1,845 after rebates)

$1500 Gaming PC Buyer's Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts for March 2009

Norman Chan — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Time for another price and parts guide! The $1000 parts guide we posted earlier this month garnered much discussion and debate among readers, so we wanted to a better job explaining our choices in this edition. Compared to the pricey decked-out systems from OEM builders like Falcon and Digital Storm, $1500 isstill technically in the "budget" range . But for many people, that's still a lot of money to spend on a PC. We catered this build for gamers, and anchored our picks on the GPU and CPU, while judiciously choosing the other parts and brands to fit into our budget limits. The results were pleasantly surprising, and recent price cuts and rebates across the board really helped. Of course, your own configuration may vary wildly from ours depending your own needs, priorities, or brand allegiances,but we think this is an awesome configuration for something building a new gaming PC.

(All prices found on newegg.com, as of March 23rd, and do not include mail-in rebates, tax, or shipping)

Videocard

PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 X2
$401, www.powercolor.com

We started off this build with the video card, since we wanted something that relatively high-end, and anticipated that it would take up a considerable chunk of our $1500 budget. Initially, we considered options that would give us enough money left for a Core i7 CPU and motherboard. A single Nvidia GTX 280 was the first card we considered, since prices for it have fallen after the release of the ultra high-end GTX 295 and 285 models. The 4850 X2 was also another viable choice, since for $300 it delivers a better price/performance ratio than the top mid-range Nvidia offering. But then we remembered the 4870 X2, which held the title for fastest single-slot solution before the GTX 295 was released. Amazingly, PowerColor sells its 4870 X2 on Newegg for $401, and even clocks it higher than ATI reference boards. At this price, the pick for GPU was a no brainer.

CPU

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
$280, www.intel.com

For a $1500 gaming PC, it would be an insult if we didn't recommend an Intel Core i7 CPU. Nehalem is pretty much the only choice for a top of the line processor, since AMD's Phenom II has been relegated to compete at the mid-range level. The only real decision in this category was which Core i7 SKU to use. We have no qualms going with the 2.66GHz 920 part, even if it represents the "budget" end of the Core i7 lineup. The 920 performs tremendously well compared to even the best Core 2 CPUs, and smashes Phenom in most of our benchmarks. It's also very easy to overclock, so you can stretch your $280 investment a long way.

Motherboard

MSI X58 Pro
$190, www.msicomputer.com

Since we're using a Core i7 CPU, we have to pair it with an X58 LGA 1366 motherboard that supports its socket. Our favorite X58 board is currently the MSI Eclipse, but its no frills companion SKU, the MSI X58 Pro, is just as capable and reliable. In fact, we haven't had issues with any of the X58 boards we've tested so far, so the only big differentiating factors are SLI support and overclocking features. And since we're running an ATI-based 4870 X2 in this build, SLI is unnecessary as an upgrade path -- Crossfire will work fine here. The Eclipse is almost double the price of the X58 Pro at $350, so we're happy with the cost savings we made here. Alternatively, the Asus P6T Deluxe ($290) is also a fine choice, and supports SLI.

Power Supply

Corsair HX1000 Watt
$240, www.corsair.com

We don't review power supplies in the magazine, but we've used enough of them in the lab to have a good feel for what's reliable and trustworthy. PC Power & Cooling is our typical first choice, but we've also recently been very satisfied using Corsair's HX1000 PSU. Modular power cables, six 8-pic PCI-E connectors, and a plethora of SATA power cables ensures that you'll have plenty of opportunity (and power) to upgrade your system with more video cards, optical drives, and hard drives.

Memory

OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V
$97, www.ocztechnology.com

With RAM prices continuing to stumble, we see no reason why you shouldn't buy 6GB of memory for you next gaming PC. 6GB runs on three dimms in tri-channel mode on X58 motherboards, and OCZ's DDR3 series delivers exactly what you need for gaming at a great price. These sticks run with 7-7-7-20 memory timings, and should be stable at the stock voltage settings. Of course, you'll need a 64-bit OS to make use of all this memory.

Case

NZXT Tempest
$100, www.nzxt.com

We're currently testing another batch of mid-tower cases in the lab, but until we find something better, the NZXT Tempest remains our top mid-tower case, as it has for months. The Tempest bests the Antec 900 in a few minor categories (though they're both essentially the same case), but undercuts the 900 in price -- especially after a recent $10 price cut. From our review: "We experienced no difficulties whatsoever installing a modern-day system into this no-nonsense chassis. There was plenty of room to manage cables around our huge 8800 GTX card, and the case’s eight hard drive bays come with screwless rails preinstalled—you pop them off, attach them to a drive, and slide the whole deal into place. The two 12cm front-panel fans take care of the cooling efforts."

Hard Drive

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
$120, www.westerndigital.com

We chose Western Digital's Caviar Green for our $1000 Budget configuration, but have picked the 1TB Caviar Black series in this build. The Caviar Black costs about $15 more than its eco-friendly sister model, and uses a tiny bit more power to keep its platter spinning at a constant 7200RPM. This drive also utilizes dual processors to locate, move, and cache data quickly and sports double the cache as the Green model. That means that you'll get faster performance which will come in handy when loading games. We picked the OEM version drive, which saves you a few bucks, but omits the full manufacturer's warranty.

Optical Drive

Samsung SH-S223F
$24, www.samsung.com

The Samsung SH-223 is a minor upgrade from its predecessor, the SH-203, but it’s our new favorite. The burner has 22x DVD +/-R and though a majority of the specifications mirrored that of the older model, the SH-223 is seconds speedier. And don't worry if you can't find it listed on Samsung's website -- this drive is still very much alive and in production. Since its last appearance in our $1000 budget PC price guide, the S223F has gone up in price by $1.

Operating System*

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM*
$100, www.microsoft.com

If you're still wary of running 64-bit Windows, man up and have some faith. 64-bit Vista may have been a mess when it first launched, the Microsoft has hotfixed and patched the vast majority of compatibility problems with its soon-to-be-suceded OS. Trust us: 64-bit Vista stable, and it'll let you use all 4GB of memory you bought for this rig. We didn't include the operating system in our final price list, partly because we wanted to keep our cost below $1500, and partly because we know many of you have licensed copies of Windows that you can still use (or even the Windows 7 beta!). However, if you take the rebate discounts into consideration, adding the $100 price for Vista 64-bit will still keep you well under $1500!

Price Breakdown

From our pie chart below, you can see that the GPU and CPU -- arguably the two most important components in a PC -- together take up almost half the price of our build (and more than that if you include the motherboard). The videocard itself claims over a quarter of the total price, but that's a smart allocation since it has the biggest impact on gaming performance. 17% (or $240) devoted to the power supply might seem a bit high, but we think the investment is worth it for the upgrading potential. Since our total price still falls under $1500 (not including tax or shipping, nor rebates), you could also opt for a powerful CPU cooler (we like the Zalman CNPS 9900NT) if you plan on overclocking or upgrade to a premium version of our build's motherboard model.

Part:	Model:	Price:	(Price after rebate)	Newegg Link
Motherboard	MSI X58 Pro	$190	$170	Link
CPU	Intel Core i7 920	$280		Link
Memory	OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666	$97	$77	Link
Video Card	PowerColor 4870 X2	$401	$381	Link
Power Supply	Corsair HX1000W	$240	$220	Link
Case	NZXT Tempest	$100	$80	Link
Hard Drive	WD Digital Caviar Black 1TB	$120		Link
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-S223F	$24		Link

Total: $1,452 ($1352 after rebates)

Low Cost, Low Power Gaming PCs Soon to Come From HP

Benson Hong — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:30:36 +0000

When the words “gaming” and “desktop” come to mind, we often associate the words “pricey” and “unaffordable” with them. HP hopes to change that mindset with the launch of their new series of low cost gaming computers. At CES this week, HP will be showcasing not only an inexpensive line of gaming PCs but also a new line of affordable and ultra-light notebooks.

The Firebird desktops will come equipped with a Core 2 Quad, 4GB of DDR2 memory, and dual GeForce 9800 video cards. These desktops will be utilizing energy saving components, usually found in notebooks, to lower power consumption. HP claims the power usage by these desktops will not exceed 350 watts, which is impressive considering your average GeForce 9800 card can consume almost 250 watts under load on their own. With a price tag starting at $1800, consumers will be happy to know they’re saving money both at the register and on their energy bill.

The 3.8 pound HP Pavilion DV2 is said to be less than an inch thick while sporting the new AMD Neo processor, a 12.1 inch screen, 500 gigabyte hard drive, and an ATI Mobility Radeon 3410. The DV2 is said to hit stores this March with a price tag between the $600 and $800 range.

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$2000 Gaming PC Buyer's Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts for April 2009

Videocard

(2) BFG Geforce GTX 285 Cards$330 each, $660 total www.bfgtech.com

CPU

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz$289, www.intel.com

Motherboard

Asus P6T$240, www.asus.com

Power Supply

Corsair HX1000 Watt$260, www.corsair.com

Memory

OCZ 6GB DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V$91, www.ocztechnology.com

Case

NZXT Tempest$100, www.nzxt.com

Hard Drive

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB$120, www.seagate.com

Optical Drive

Samsung SH-S223F$25, www.samsung.com

Operating System

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM$100, www.microsoft.com

Price Breakdown

Total: $1,955 ($1,845 after rebates)

$1500 Gaming PC Buyer's Guide -- Updated Prices and Parts for March 2009

Videocard

PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 X2$401, www.powercolor.com

CPU

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz$280, www.intel.com

Motherboard

MSI X58 Pro$190, www.msicomputer.com

Power Supply

Corsair HX1000 Watt$240, www.corsair.com

Memory

OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V$97, www.ocztechnology.com

Case

NZXT Tempest$100, www.nzxt.com

Hard Drive

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB$120, www.westerndigital.com

Optical Drive

Samsung SH-S223F$24, www.samsung.com

Operating System*

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM* $100, www.microsoft.com

Price Breakdown

Total: $1,452 ($1352 after rebates)

(2) BFG Geforce GTX 285 Cards
$330 each, $660 total www.bfgtech.com

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
$289, www.intel.com

Asus P6T
$240, www.asus.com

Corsair HX1000 Watt
$260, www.corsair.com

OCZ 6GB DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V
$91, www.ocztechnology.com

NZXT Tempest
$100, www.nzxt.com

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB
$120, www.seagate.com

Samsung SH-S223F
$25, www.samsung.com

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM
$100, www.microsoft.com

PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 X2
$401, www.powercolor.com

Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
$280, www.intel.com

MSI X58 Pro
$190, www.msicomputer.com

Corsair HX1000 Watt
$240, www.corsair.com

OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 7-7-7-20 1.6V
$97, www.ocztechnology.com

NZXT Tempest
$100, www.nzxt.com

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
$120, www.westerndigital.com

Samsung SH-S223F
$24, www.samsung.com

Microsoft Vista Home Premium 64-bit OEM*
$100, www.microsoft.com