Sharky Extreme's March Extreme PC Buying Guide

[Wizno]

The four months since our previous Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's guide have brought several expected hardware developments as well as a few disappointments. Quad-Core processors have retained high prices with little in the way of software development to make use of the extra power. NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI chipset turned out to be great on features, if a bit shy on overclocking ability, but its 8800 series graphics processors exceeded many expectations. ATI's RD600 chipset was released with reduced features, and its R600-powered graphics card line has been delayed yet again. On the software side, Microsoft's highly-anticipated Vista operating system still looks like a late beta product.

The great news for our $4,000 budget is that even though Intel's high-end processors have retained similar prices over several months, many other parts have received moderate to large price drops. The most prominent are the Athlon 64 X2 and FX processors, which not only fell in price, but the latest models have been introduced at rock bottom pricing. Savings in some areas have allowed increased spending in others, making this month's Extreme Gaming PC a considerable improvement over previous efforts

Sharky's Extrme Gaming PC Buying Guide