High-End Gaming: $1500

Our high-end system is for the non-discrimination gamer who wants to run at high resolutions and high levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.

High-End Gaming
$1500
CPU	Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz Nehalem	$289.99
Motherboard	MSI X58 Pro	$199.99
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon 4870X2 2GB 100251SR	$429.00
Memory	OCZ Platinum 6GB(3x2GB) DDR3 1333	$154.99
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200RPM SATAII	$129.99
Optical	Lite-On 20X DVD+R SATA iHAS120-04	$22.99
Power Supply	Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W	$139.99
Case	Silverstone Temjin TJ05 Full Tower	$159.99
	Total:	$1,526.93

At $1500, we enter the high-end segment of the market. A $1500 rig can handle almost any current release on high settings with both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. The Core i7 is Intel's latest processor and currently holds the crown for fastest CPU on the market, so we went with their 2.66Ghz 920 Nehalem. Don't let the fact the 920 is Intel's entry-level i7 fool you; the 920 can scream thanks to its quad core and improved memory architecture. The quick path interconnect (QPI) replaces the front side bus on the Nehalem architecture, although their function is similar.


To keep the 920 i7 well fed, we gave it 6GB's of OCZ DDR3 1333Mhz memory running in triple channel. MSI's X58 Pro motherboard is the backbone of our system, as it is the most cost effective X58 board on the market. Also, the X58 Pro supports up to 24GB's of memory and ATI CrossFireX, helping to increase its longevity should you upgrade later on.

Our graphics card once again comes from ATI with the 4870 X2 2GB by Sapphire. Again, this came down to the best performance for the dollar and while the GeForce 295 GTX offers better performance in many applications, it comes at the extra cost of $70. The 4870 X2 is just a better deal since it only lags behind the 295 by a few percentage points in most applications. Sapphire follows ATI's reference design pretty closely with their 4870 X2.


A more powerful graphics card meant a more powerful power supply which is satisfied with Corsair's 850W. The Corsair is a single 12V rail design offering 70 amps, more than enough to power our system. We also decided to go with a Western Digital's Caviar Black 1TB hard drive as well due to their higher level of performance. Finally, our case is an all-aluminum Silverstone, the Temjin TJ05 full tower. The TJ05 features a removable fan filter and multiple positions for additional fans.

Alternatives:

In this price bracket, you're options become somewhat limited due to the higher cost associated with upgrading. For instance, to jump to the Core i7 940, you will spend an additional $270. As previously stated, you could also go to a GeForce 295 GTX at an additional cost of $70. You could even add-in an extra hard drive for storage or a dedicated sound card, such as the X-Fi Titanium, although with Vista's audio subsystem the way it is, you are probably better off relying on the on-board unless you have a decent set of speakers or headphones.