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When High End Gaming Machines Fight
mikemuch writes "Games for Windows Magazine and ExtremeTech teamed up to determine which prebuilt high-end PC delivers the ultimate game performance in terms of frame-rate and ability to yield the highest game quality settings on large displays. The winner, VoodooPC's Omen, features an Intel Core 2 Duo QX6800 processor and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX's in SLI configuration. It delivers over 15,000 3DMarks (as do a few of the other contestants), but 'only' costs $5,700 — in contrast with some of the other machines that go for close to eight grand."
Really, where? The only time I've seen anything like that is in response to the inevitable "anything you can do on a PS3 you can do cheaper on a PC" where the response is that you can't buy a sub-$600 PC that outperforms a PS3.
Personally, I like to build my own system, as high-end as I want. That way, I don't spend $4000 on something that could cost 300-500 bucks.
There is no way that either of the systems would cost anything like $300-$500, even at wholesale. My wholesale account at Ingram Micro indicates that the two GeForce 8800 video cards alone would cost nearly $1200 (and they don't even have any available) and the processor almost $1000. The fact is that on an older system, you might, by biding your time and doing rebates, be able to save a substantial amount of money, but not on high-demand hardware like this.
On the other hand, I never bother to buy any of the latest high-end stuff; I know that it will be half as much in six months.