The AnandTech forums are often visited by users looking for advice about upcoming hardware purchases. With the blistering pace of product introductions in the technology marketplace, it's little wonder that people have a hard time choosing between components. Since our last high-end guide was released in October of 2006, major changes have taken place (or are about to take place) in virtually every part of this market segment; this guide will briefly examine those changes, while making recommendations on the best approach to spending your hard-earned money.

As far as the platforms themselves go, little has changed in the past seven months in terms of overall architecture specifications. Intel continues with the venerable Socket 775 platform, while AMD's relatively new AM2 promises to be used for some time to come. The NVIDIA 680i and Intel 975X chipsets own the performance arena for the Intel Core 2 processors, while the NVIDIA 590 chipset leads the AMD Athlon race.

The landscape is about to be transformed for Intel, however, with the pending release of their P35 chipset. The P35 should offer some performance benefits over existing P965 systems, and will officially launch on June 4th from a number of manufacturers. AnandTech has done a preview of several of these motherboards, which can be read here. This guide, however, can only focus on what is available in the market today; for those who want to update their system now and wait for any launch issues with the new chipset to be sorted out, this guide is for you. If you should choose to wait a few more weeks, the major changes will only be in the area of motherboards for socket 775, and possibly RAM should you choose to go the DDR3 route.

Processors, for their part, have seen a substantial amount of activity both in terms of introductions and pricing. In addition to the well-publicized foray into quad core processing from both major competitors, Intel's price-slashing of its Core 2 line has been met with similar measures from AMD. The graphics arena has also seen two very important launches, with the G80 from NVIDIA and R600 from AMD/ATI slugging it out at the high-end of the market. With complete flip-flops occurring in terms of who the performance leaders are, this High-End Guide is long overdue.

As has been the case in our recent Buyers' Guides, we will be addressing the case, power supply and peripherals separately from the main system components. In keeping with AnandTech tradition, we will price an "entry high-end" system at approximately $2,000 (including peripherals), and then expand the selections to see what we can get for as much as $5,000 (give or take). There is definitely room for some mix-and-match to hit the in-between price points.



Basic High-End AMD System

Basic High-End AMD System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+	$179	-
Motherboard	DFI LANPARTY UT NF590 SLI-M2R/G	$160	-
Memory	2GB Kit DDR2 PC2-6400 OCZ Platinum	$125	-
Video Card	2x EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB	$700	$60
Hard Drive	Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB	$112	-
Optical Drive	Pioneer DVR-212BK	$42	-
Operating System	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2B (OEM)	$110	-
System Total		$1428	$1368
Complete Package		$1964-$3623	$1904-$3563

In terms of gaming, there are relatively few titles which will currently take advantage of multiple cores at all, and an even smaller subset of those titles will attempt to use more than two cores in a meaningful way. A high-end system with a price ceiling of $2,000 will therefore be better served by an investment in other system components, rather than in an upgrade to the AMD FX processors. The 5600+ gets the nod over the more expensive 6000+ as the added 200 MHz of the 6000+ generally doesn't improve performance enough to warrant the extra money - investing the money in other areas will generally help more. Still, if you're inclined to spend the $50 more for the 6000+ there's nothing inherently wrong with doing so.

The DFI motherboard provides a strong platform for a high-end system. Coming in at a relatively inexpensive $160, this component provides the full 16 lanes for each graphics card in SLI mode and has all the bells and whistles (FireWire, dual gigabit network adapters, etc.) that are expected on a board in this class. The memory chosen for the system, the OCZ PC2-6400 OCZ2P800LP2GK, is turned specifically for this motherboard. As a result, the memory is capable impressive 4-4-4-1T timings, which noticeably improves the performance of the system.

The EVGA 8800 GTS cards in this system are very close to the fastest gaming configuration available today, trailing only its 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra siblings. Despite the additional $100 in cost, we feel it makes sense to go for the 640MB versions of the card rather than the 320MB. The reason is that 512MB cards have been available for some time now, and games are beginning to require more RAM to run at the highest detail settings. These cards leverage DX10 and ensure that this system can handle anything which the gaming market can throw at it. For users looking to avoid the headaches which occasionally result from running an SLI system, a single MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD OC as chosen for our Ultra SLI systems will provide performance approaching the GTS SLI option, while reducing the overall system cost. Should you choose that route, you could look at alternative motherboards but we still feel a dual x16 configuration is worth keeping for the future.

AMD's latest offering, the HD 2900 XT, provides performance that is reasonably close to the 8800 GTS 640MB cards, but it comes at a price premium of roughly $100 per card. Our experience with AMD's 2900 XT drivers (particularly in CrossFire mode) has also been less than impressive so far. Performance is great when it works properly, but that doesn't occur as much as we would like. Unless you're interested in joining the beta testing of drivers, an investment in AMD's CrossFire technology makes no sense at this time.

A retail also-ran in years past, Samsung has recently turned in a string of strong drives. The most recent of these, the Samsung SpinPoint T Series, gets the nod for our entry high-end system on the strength of its quiet operation and performance parity with the drives found at the higher end of the spectrum (like the Western Digital RE series). Keep in mind, however, that the current price-performance "sweet spot" can be found in the 250GB-320GB range; the 500GB drive was chosen only because it could fit within the pricing limits set for this guide.

As downward price pressure continues on DVD writers, the choice is now largely one of brand preference. Pioneer writers have a reputation for writing to anything even coming close to a circular shape, and - most importantly of all - don't have the poor reliability record that is associated with some of the other low-price drives. At this price point, however, you can choose virtually any brand of DVD writer you wish. There's really no reason to go for an IDE writer, though - spend the extra $6 and keep the system all-SATA if possible.

Windows XP MCE is chosen for this system due to the lower system overhead compared with Vista. If your memory requirements go above 2GB, or you are looking at running a 64-bit OS, then consider Vista as an alternative. Many of us are still hesitant to upgrade to Vista, but that's slowly changing and by the end of the year we expect Vista to become the predominant enthusiast platform. In the meantime, dual booting is another possibility.



Ultra High-End AMD System

Ultra High-End AMD System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	2 x AMD Athlon FX-74	$916	-
Motherboard	ASUS L1N64-SLI WS	$313	-
Memory	2 x Corsair XMS2 2GB PC2-6400 Kit (4x1GB total)	$294	$80
Video Card	2x MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD OC GeForce 8800GTX	$1140	$40
Hard Drive	WD Raptor WD1500ADFD plus WD 5000YS	$361	-
Optical Drive	Pioneer DVR-212BK	$42	-
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)	$125	-
System Total		$3191	$3071
Complete Package		$3732-$5391	$3607-$5266

The AMD Ultra High-End system gets two additional cores added due to the low cost of their FX-74 offering. While single-threaded applications (including, as already mentioned, most games) will not be able to take advantage of the four cores in this system, the processors will be leveraged wonderfully by most productivity applications (including, notably, media encoding). AMD is in the unenviable position of not having any quad CPU offerings that can compete directly with Intel's fastest quad core processors (the QX6800 and QX6700), but the dual sockets do offer improved bandwidth and scaling which can help in certain applications. Also note that the socket 1207 platform will have you ready to upgrade to AMD's Barcelona CPUs (now called Phenom) with the ability to run an octal core configuration later this year. If you really want eight cores, though, you might want to hold off a few months until the new CPUs become available.

Moving up the motherboard chain, the Ultra High-End system is treated to the ASUS L1N64-SLI WS motherboard. While that certainly carries a hefty price tag, this 680a SLI-based motherboard is currently the only solution for AMD enthusiasts that want to run a Quad FX platform. The good news is that ASUS definitely doesn't skimp on the features. You get a whopping four x16 PCI-E slots (two x16 bandwidth and two x8 bandwidth) and 12 SATA ports, along with more typical stuff like FireWire. At present, it's important to note that this motherboard requires both processor sockets to be populated in order to function properly, and for optimal performance you will also need to populate all four DIMM slots (giving dual channel bandwidth to both processor sockets).

Also keep in mind that while the latest Opterons and the Quad FX processors use socket 1207, the two processor families are not interchangeable - or at least they're not supposed to be. Quad FX processors use regular unbuffered memory and Opterons use registered ECC memory. Regardless, AMD has pretty much guaranteed that they will be releasing quad core Barcelona (Phenom FX) CPUs that will run on this motherboard later this year, most likely before quad core socket AM2 processors are released. To be honest, we're far more interested in this motherboard and platform as something for the future than for what it offers right now, and that being the case we're inclined to wait for actual performance numbers from AMD's next-generation architecture before laying out this much money on a new system.

Populating all four DIMM slots was a priority, so we chose four 1GB Corsair XMS2 memory sticks. An alternative option (especially if you plan on upgrading the AMD Ultra system to eight cores) is to go with some 2GB DIMMs like Corsair 2GB XMS2 memory sticks, though this adds an additional $180 to the system price.

As is typically the case with gaming rigs, the graphics solution is the most expensive part of this system. Yes, the Ultra series cards are the fastest gaming cards on the planet right now, but until the cards come down from their stratospheric price point, they won't fit into the budget of even our Ultra High-End system. The MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD OC come clocked at 610MHz, which is higher than most other GTX cards based on NVIDIA specifications and also more or less matches the default 612MHz base clock of the 8800 Ultra (though the Ultra admittedly has faster RAM clocks and can usually overclock the cores even further). The dual 8800 GTX cards come in at a whopping $1100 for the pair (after rebates), which is a pretty astounding amount of money to spend on a graphics solution. For an extra $600, you can make the leap to the 8800 Ultra series solution.

It has long been known that RAID 0 is of little to no benefit to most users... so why do other Buyers' Guides insist on pairing two drives in a RAID 0 configuration? The WD Raptor 1500ADFD is currently the fastest SATA drive on the market today, though its 150GB capacity lags behind current storage trends. The WD RE2 500 makes up for this capacity as a second drive, ensuring that the system enjoys the benefits of both unparalleled single user performance in OS and application load times, as well as ensuring the system has ample capacity for storage intensive applications. Both drives come with 5 year warranties. If you want even more storage capacity, consider the Seagate 750GB and Hitachi 1TB drives as an alternative. The Hitachi 1TB drive is one of the fastest drives we've tested, at times even besting the Raptor drives.

While RAID will not markedly improve performance for the average user, it can improve either reliability (RAID 5, RAID 1), or single volume data capacity (RAID 0). Another viable option for a system in with these requirements is to look at three hard drives and a dedicated RAID controller, like the 3Ware 9590SE. Users that require such configurations on their desktop systems are few and far between, though, so make sure that you are buying components you truly need.

Given the components used in this system, it's no surprise that we decided to go with a 64-bit operating system, and as we suggested on the previous page we recommend Windows Vista over Windows XP when it comes to 64-bit Microsoft operating systems. If you only want to run 2GB of memory, you can certainly get by with a 32-bit OS for the time being (either Vista or XP), but if that's the case you probably don't want to bother with AMD's Quad FX platform. We also selected the OEM version of Windows Vista in order to save some money, but purchasing the full retail version might serve many of you better. The OEM versions can only be activated a single time on a specific set of hardware; once you've activated the copy, it's tied to your motherboard and you cannot use it on a different motherboard in the future. If you're the type of user to frequently upgrade motherboards, you should definitely pick up a retail copy of Windows Vista instead. The retail product also gives you the option of choosing to install either the 32-bit or the 64-bit version.



Basic High-End Intel System

Basic High-End Intel System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	Core 2 Duo E6600	$223	-
Motherboard	EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR	$159	-
Memory	OCZ Flex XLC 2GB Kit DDR2 PC2-6400	$179	-
Video Card	2x EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB	$700	$60
Hard Drive	Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB	$112	-
Optical Drive	Pioneer DVR-212BK	$42	-
Operating System	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2B (OEM)	$110	-
System Total		$1525	$1465
Complete Package		$2061-$3720	$2001-$3660

One of the few components held over from our October 2006 High-End Guide, the E6600 processor has dropped in price and remains the sweet spot for high-end purchasers at the $2,000 system range. The processor is known to be an excellent overclocker, and provides an even better value after Intel's price cuts. And speaking of price cuts, it's no secret that Intel is planning another round of price cuts in late July. If you can hold out another month or so, you just might be able to pick up a quad core Q6600 in place of the E6600 for a minor price increase.

Prices of 680i chipset-based boards have been dropping recently, which gives the EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR its place in the baseline high-end Intel system. There were indeed some 975X motherboards which cost roughly the same, but as these implementations leveraged the ICH7 controller rather than the more-expensive ICH7R and an NVIDIA SLI currently continues to require NVIDIA chipset motherboards, it made sense to give the nod to the EVGA 680i solution.

There are potentially more overclock-friendly solutions like the ASUS P5B Deluxe, which costs roughly the same as the EVGA board and has a wider breadth of overclocking options. It runs on the P965 chipset, however, which sets it at a disadvantage in that one of the PCIe x16 slots can only run at x4 bandwidth, rather than giving each card the full x16. Again, such solutions also lack official NVIDIA SLI support so you would need to look at AMD graphics cards if you want to run a multi-GPU configuration. As mentioned already, however, running a single 8800 GTX in place of 8800 GTS SLI can save some money, avoid some headaches, and would be a great fit for a P965 platform.

We went with OCZ Flex XLC memory in the Intel high-end system. In our labs, this memory has reached 1T timings at speeds even slightly higher than 800MHz on 680i platforms. Your mileage may vary, of course, but this is an excellent pair of memory sticks at the sub-$180 price point.

The remaining components are all carried over from the AMD baseline system. The price for the Intel system comes in slightly higher than that of the AMD system, though the $2000 price point is maintained. Note that the Intel system configuration will show superior performance in virtually all applications compared to the AMD system, largely due to the Core 2 Duo's advantage over its Athlon X2 counterpart. If you're looking to overclock, the Core 2 Duo E6600 will also easily outperform any current AMD Athlon X2 processor, often by huge margins. It's not unreasonable to get 3.6 GHz and higher with E6600 chips when using an appropriate aftermarket CPU heatsink, and at present AMD lacks a dual core chip that can even hope to compete with such an overclocked processor.

This system gets Windows XP 32-bit, like the AMD baseline system. If you do choose to go above 2GB of memory, however, please ensure that you do move up to a 64-bit OS - preferably Vista at this point in time.



Ultra High-End Intel System

Ultra High-End Intel System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	Core 2 Extreme QX6700	$967	-
Motherboard	ASUS Striker Extreme	$305	-
Memory	2 x Crucial Tracer Ballistix BL2KIT12864AA1065 (4x1GB)	$430	$170
Video Card	2x MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD OC GeForce 8800GTX	$1140	$40
Hard Drive	WD Raptor WD1500ADFD plus WD 5000YS	$361	-
Optical Drive	Pioneer DVR-212BK	$42	-
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)	$125	-
System Total		$3370	$3160
Complete Package		$3906-$5565	$3696-$5355

One of the most difficult decisions in this guide was choosing between the QX6700 processor and the Core 2 Extreme X6800. The X6800 is the absolute top-end gaming performer due to its slightly higher stock speed, but the additional two cores of the QX6700 will have a more substantial impact in encoding and other content creation applications. The prices between the two processors are virtually identical. Of course, if you're willing to spend even more money the QX6800 is now available (if you can find it in stock) with prices starting at around $1300 and a stock clock speed that matches the X6800 (2.93 GHz). In the end, the QX6700 gets the nod on the grounds that game and application developers are promising that multi-threading will get more attention in the future. We don't expect performance to double in anything but the most extreme cases; however, it will likely have a greater impact than the extra couple hundred megahertz in the X6800.

It's also important to remember that all of Intel's Core 2 Extreme processors have unlocked multipliers, so it's extremely easy to turn your QX6700 into a QX6800. QX6800 parts might have little bit more headroom when it comes to overclocking, but if all you're interested in is a good quad core overclocking chip we would probably take a step back to the Q6600 instead and save some money to invest in a better cooling solution and power supply. Needless to say, combining SLI with a heavily overclocked quad core processor can result in some serious power requirements. (Ed: And in the winter such computers can serve as great space heaters!)

Note that while both the QX6700 and X6800 processors cost roughly double what AMD's flagship FX-74 processor goes for, you need to purchase two FX-74 processors. Intel holds the overall performance crown, and users who want that performance will pay the price, plain and simple. Say it with us: competition is healthy for consumers.

On the subject of expensive components, the ASUS Striker Extreme is one of the highest-priced motherboards on the market today. At $307, users demand - and, fortunately, receive - the best quality and feature set of any comparable motherboard. As is the case with all of ASUS' current "Republic of Gamers" line, there is the diagnostic LCD panel, heat-piping, and SupremeFX audio. The 680i chipset ensures full x16 bandwidth to both graphics cards in an SLI configuration, and a third x16 slot is included which runs at x8 speed. An alternate motherboard selection (if you aren't going to run an SLI configuration) is the ASUS P5WDG2 WS Professional.

Two Crucial BL2KIT12864AA1065 kits bring the Intel system to 4GB of memory. Though clocked at unimpressive 5-5-5-15 timings, this RAM can typically be made to run substantially more aggressively with little effort. Even more impressive is the price - the kits can be had for $130 each (after the massive $85 mail-in rebate, that is).

The remaining components are the same as were chosen in the AMD Ultra High-End platform. The Intel system is almost always going to be faster than the current AMD Quad FX platform, as we showed in our Quad FX article, but the dual sockets and HyperTransport interconnects do allow the AMD platform to scale better in many situations when moving from dual core to quad core. Of course, the power requirements of Quad FX are also quite a bit higher than Intel's Core 2 Quad solutions.

The sweet spot in terms of price/performance for Intel lies in the "mainstream high-end" segment, while we start to see diminishing returns as we move upwards. With Intel's new P35 chipsets and Penryn processors making their introduction in the not-too-distant future, it may make sense to avoid the extreme high-end echelon of processors altogether at the moment.



Displays, Cases and Peripherals

Base High-End Case and Accessories
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Display	Acer AL2216Wbd 22" 5ms 1680x1050	$250	-
Case	Apevia Aspire X-Cruiser	$59	-
Power Supply	Corsair CMPSU-620HX	$126	-
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 with Optical Mouse	$28	-
Speakers	Creative I-Trigue 3300	$73	-
Total		$536	$536

The monitor chosen as a minimum for the high-range systems is the Acer AL2216Wbd. The 22" display has a 5ms response time and a resolution of 1680x1050, and while our review found that it wasn't competitive in terms of overall quality with most of the 24" LCDs, it's hard to argue with the significantly lower price. Regular readers of the Guide section of AnandTech will recognize this monitor as a frequent selection during the past few guides, and also notice that the price has dropped significantly on this model.

Apevia is generally known as a component-brander, rather than a manufacturer, whose products typically target the value segment. The Aspire X-Cruiser case is, accordingly, a steel case, but it has lots of interesting embellishments. The clear side window, fan speed controller, fan speed indicator, and blue LEDs provide a lot of value compared to more well-known cases. Airflow is handled by two 80mm fans. Depending on your personal tastes, you may or may not like this case, but there are plenty of people that simply view the case as something to hold the rest of the components and for such users the Aspire X-Cruiser is a nice fit. Note that this case is an entry-level recommendation - if you are targeting this segment, you have more than ample choices to ensure that you get one that fits your needs.

The Corsair CMPSU-620HX is a solid offering from a company long known for providing excellent power supplies. Claiming an 80% efficiency rating and sporting three 12V rails rated at 18A, this power supply handles all hardware recommended in this Guide without issue at stock speeds. Overclockers (especially on quad core systems) and water-coolers, however, should look to the larger PSU offerings to ensure system stability. Airflow is provided by a bottom-mount 120mm fan. The Corsair power supplies are rebranded SeaSonic units, so if you prefer a SeaSonic S12 (or can find it for less money) the two are essentially the same.

For the entry level speaker selection, we turn to Creative Labs. Creative's products run the gamut from entry-level to enthusiast, with a focus on PC gaming. The C44-6004, while not quite the pinnacle of Creative's effort, provides gamers with a solid audio environment, especially at the given price point. The Creative features entry-level 7.1 sound. Logitech's X-530 and X-540 are as usual viable alternatives in this price bracket. Any speakers selling for under $100 are definitely more midrange rather than high-end, but for a lot of people that's more than enough.

Mainstream High-End Case and Accessories
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Display	Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP	$569	-
Case	Antec Nine Hundred	$115	-
Power Supply	PC Power Silencer 750 Quad	$200	-
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft Natural Keyboard and 5000 Optical Mouse	$61	-
Speakers	Logitech Z-5300e	$145	-
Total		$1090	$1090

Most users either love or hate the Antec Nine Hundred case. The appearance of this steel mid-tower offering is something that has yet to be imitated by a competitor (draw what conclusions you will), but it's impossible to argue against this being a hardcore case. Four fans, including a 200mm behemoth at the top, ensure that airflow is more than adequate for even the most demanding of components. USB, FireWire, and audio ports for the case sit at the top, which makes a lot of sense, given that cases are usually on the floor.

An upgraded high-end solution deserves a larger display, and the Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP fills the need. Staying true to its name, Dell offers this 1920x1200 panel with virtually the same specifications as competing designs from Samsung (244T) and others, but at a significantly lower price point. The 3 year warranty seals the deal.

The power supply also gets an upgrade for this package, making a fairly large jump up to the PC Power Silencer 750 Quad. This power supply is built to perform, with the capability of delivering a full 60A on its single 12V rail. At $195, it is a premium level component to be sure - but at this level, the additional cash outlay eliminates any concerns of power instability in our high-end system. The inclusion of four PCI-E 6-pin power adapters will definitely work well with the SLI 8800 GTX configurations.

Finally, the sound system makes the jump into the land of THX, with the Logitech Z-5300e package. The silver accents on the speakers are themselves another example of styling which provokes either a love-or-hate reaction; however, the sound quality from the system (particularly the subwoofer) places the audio aspect of these components squarely into the "enthusiast" category.

Ultra High-End Case and Accessories
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Display	Samsung 305T 30" 2560x1600	$1331	-
Case	Kandalf VD4000BWS Liquid Cooled	$270	-
Power Supply	OCZ POWER GAMER OCZ1010GXSSLI	$251	-
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard and G5 Mouse	$110	-
Speakers	Logitech Z-5500	$233	-
Total		$2195	$2195

Yes, the Dell 30" 3007WFP usually can be found for a little bit less than the Samsung 305T in the Ultra High-End selection; however, the newer 3007WFP-HC costs a bit more. The Samsung 305T panel therefore gets the nod for the display device on our $5000 rig, as you also get two dual-link DVI inputs whereas the Dell LCDs only include one. Like all current 30" panels, this display features a native 2560x1600 resolution; every ounce of horsepower in our 8800 GTS/GTX SLI configurations will be put to the test. For those interested in the improved color gamut of the newer Dell LCD, we would also suggest taking a look at the HP LP3065, which offers the same improved color gamut but also includes three dual-link DVI ports.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, a case with built-in liquid cooling makes a lot of sense, and the Thermaltake Kandalf is an excellent way to go. The VD4000BWS is a truly amazing case, with three 120mm fans and blue LEDs complementing the aforementioned liquid cooling. This case is a monster, with nine 5.25" bays and eight 3.5" bays (two external) housing whatever components a user could dream of throwing in. Considering many water-cooling solutions can cost several hundred dollars, the overall price of this case plus water-cooling kit is very attractive. If you would prefer to avoid water cooling altogether, the Cooler Master 830CM Stacker case is a strong alternative.

The power supply for the system gets another nudge to the OCZ Power Gamer 1010GXSSLI. Going a couple notches further than the PC Power unit, the 1010GXSLI sports four 20A 12V rails, which is enough to handle even the water-cooled SLI setup chosen for the most expensive systems in this Guide.

For those of us with $5000 (okay, $5328) to spend, the Logitech Z-5500 Digital system is the only way to go. A powerful subwoofer placed only a few feet from a gamer can't be anything but good, and you'll be hard pressed to resist playing with that LCD control panel. The total sound volume is impressive given the price, and only much more expensive (and larger) home theater equipment will really put these speakers to shame. You don't necessarily need speakers this loud... but you know you want it.



Alternatives and Conclusion

The possibilities in a system purchase at the high-end segment of the market are literally limitless, and readers should determine for themselves what focus their system should have. Here are some alternative components to consider for customizing your system.

Alternative Processors
Platform	Component	Price	Rebates
AMD 1207	Athlon 64 FX-72	$329	-
AMD AM2	Athlon 64 X2 6000+	$227	-
Intel 775	Core 2 Duo E6700	$316	-
Intel 775	Core 2 Extreme X6800	$969	-
Intel 775	Core 2 Extreme QX6800	$1300	-
.

Alternative Motherboards
Platform	Component	Price	Rebates
AMD AM2	Foxconn nForce 590 SLI C51XEM2AA	$165	-
Intel 775	DFI LP UT NF680I LT SLI-T2	$300	-
Intel 775	MSI Diamond P6	$280	-
Intel 775	MSI P6N SLI Platinum	$160	-
.

Alternative DDR2 Memory
Brand	Component	Price	Rebates
Mushkin	XP2-8000 Redline	$320	-
Corsair	PC-8500 Dominator	$205	-
Corsair	2 x 4GB (2x2GB = 8GB total) XMS2 TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX	$540	$80
G.Skill	F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ	$115	-
.

Alternative Power Supplies
Brand	Component	Price	Rebates
Enermax	Enermax 850W	$260	-
OCZ	OCZ700GXSSLI (700W)	$126	-
SeaSonic	SeaSonic 700W	$210	-
Zalman	Zalman ZM600-HP (600W)	$132	-
.

Alternative Graphics Cards
Brand	Component	Price	Rebates
EVGA	EVGA GeForce 8800GTX Ultra	$832	-
Foxconn	Foxconn GeForce 8800GTS 320MB DDR3 Overclocked	$305	-
Sapphire	Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB (100201)	$426	-
XFX	XFX GeForce 8800GTX 768MB DDR3 XXX Version	$620	-
.

Alternative Data Storage
Brand	Component	Price	Rebates
Hitachi	Deskstar 7K1000 1TB 7200RPM	$410	-
Seagate	Barracuda ES ST3750640AS 750GB 7200RPM	$310	-
Seagate	ST3500641AS-RK 500GB	$135	-
Phillips	SPD7000 Blu-Ray Writer	$500	-
.

Sound Cards and Multimedia Devices
Brand	Component	Price	Rebates
Auzentech	X-Meridian 7.1 (AZT-XM71)	$170	-
Bluegears	b-Enspirer 7.1	$110	-
Chaintech	AV-710	$22	-
Compro	VideoMate V600 External Video Converter	$150-$160	-
Creative	X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional 70SB046A00000	$140	$40
Hauppauge	WinTV-PVR 500 MCE Tuner	$145	-
NVIDIA	DualTV MCE Tuner	$160	-
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Gamers will want to devote more money towards their graphics cards, while graphics designers may want more memory. Elaborate cases may not make a whole lot of sense if you aren't planning on showing off your computer, and maybe that Blu-Ray drive is just too tempting to pass up. HTPC enthusiasts might want to add a TV tuner (or two) as well, or maybe you want something really different like the Compro VideoMate V600 that will allow you to watch TV or connect any gaming console to your computer display? The video quality is very good and we have a review forthcoming; the one major drawback is that it's limited to a maximum 1680x1050/1600x1200 resolution. The choice is yours: target your spending wisely!

One area that deserves a bit of extra attention is the multimedia options. In the past, just about everyone agreed that any high-end system -- particularly for gamers -- required a discrete audio card. The situation has changed quite dramatically with Windows Vista, as Microsoft has moved to a professional model for sound. Audio drivers are no longer in Ring 0, which should prevent them from causing system instabilities. The good news is that the new Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) makes integrated audio almost as good as discrete; the bad news is that all the extra effects in most current/older games got lost. If a game supports OpenAL (Q4, Prey, BF2142, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., etc.) then you still get full hardware accelerated 3D effects, and while Creative's new ALchemy Project is working to extend EAX support for older games, many titles are still not on the officially supported list. Also worth mentioning is that ALchemy is currently only for X-Fi cards (not including the Xtreme Audio version); Audigy users may get support in the future, but at present they are left out in the cold. Game developers are currently designing Vista specific features such as offloading audio computations onto a separate core/thread, providing increased flexibility for audio effects, so long-term we may see a shift in the audio market to the point where virtually any solution will offer the same overall quality.

As mentioned in the introduction, the time to look at a new high-end system may not be perfect right now, with the P35 chipset introduction bringing DDR3 memory and a 1333MHz FSB into the mix. Intel's X38 chipset is also right around the corner, just in time for Intel's Penryn processors. Pending hardware introductions, however, will be looming every time one of these Guides are released. As has been said repeatedly in the past, the "correct" time to update your system is when you have made the decision that your computer no longer meets your needs. If that time is now, don't forget to visit the AnandTech Forums to ask any questions which you may have before making your purchase!