Maximum Game System

(Updated September 20, 2004)

Power Supply: PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510

Processor (Athlon): Athlon 64 FX53 2.4GHz/1MB/939 pin (retail)

Processor (P4): Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition

CPU Heatsink (Athlon64 and Pentium 4): Stock heatsink with retail kit

Motherboard (Athlon): MSI K8N NEO2 Platinum (nForce3 Ultra chip/socket 939)

Motherboard (P4): Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (Intel 875P chipset)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix PC3200 (2 x 512mb)

Video: Leadtek Geforce 6800 Ultra  

Sound: Audigy 2 ZS

Hard Drive 1: Western Digital 74GB SATA 10,000rpm 8mb cache (OEM)

Hard Drive 2: Seagate 160GB 8mb cache 7200rpm SATA (OEM)

CD Burner: Plextor 52x32x52x (Retail)

DVD Burner: Pioneer DVR-108 (OEM) 

Floppy Drive: Panasonic Black (OEM)

Operating System: Windows XP Pro Edition (OEM)

TOTAL for Athlon 64 System

TOTAL for Pentium 4 System

$189

$849

$1025

$  0

$139

$174

$278

$600

$ 86

$179

$109

$ 82

$ 84

$ 10

$141

$2945

$3156

Maximum Game System: Need I say more?

Once again, the list of components represents their approximate costs.  They do not include shipping and are subject to change.  For the most part, NewEgg was used to check prices and availability at the time of this write-up (September 20, 2004).

The information in this guide can be used to do your own shopping and system building, or it can be used as a starting point to have Sequoyah Computer build the system for you (the cost would be whatever the price of the parts, shipping, and $100 would be).  

Lian Li has divided the PC-V1000 into three sections and changed the orientation of many of the main components.  The power supply is now located at the bottom of the tower, and the motherboard has been flipped around so that the PCI slots are above the CPU socket, when the tower is upright.  Being one of the first to own this unusual case will not come cheap, as it costs around $200.  You also need to pay attention to some details when selecting components to use in this case.  The unusual location of the hard drives, in relation to the motherboard connectors, may require a longer cable, which then must be fed through a rather small slot.  If you are planning on using multiple hard drives, SATA drives with their slender cable will be much easier to manage.  The compartment in which the power supply fits only has enough depth to accommodate standard sized power supplies.  There are few over-sized models out there which will not work in this case.

If you are looking for something a bit more traditional and bit less expensive, the CoolerMaster's Praetorian case, which was suggested as an upgrade for our Enthusiast's System, has the kind of looks that will still let this system stand out in a crowd.  It sells for about $98.  

LianLi's very similar PC-6077 is another alternative, though it seems to be a bit more expensive than the CoolerMaster, typically selling for around $112.  And if you are just looking for a big, inexpensive box in which to put your hardware, take a look at one of Enermax's small server chassis, such as the CS10101B.  I'd like to find something of comparable dimensions that makes use of a couple of 120mm fans; however, I'm still looking.

None of the above cases come with a power supply, so we'll need to find something suitable for running some relatively high wattage components.  Many consider PC Power and Cooling's no-frills, but very robust, power supplies to be up among the very best made.  Their claim to fame is overbuilding their power supplies so that they maintain high power outputs, even under stress.  Their Turbo Cool 510 sells for around $189, and it specifies capabilities for producing 30A of 3.3V, 40A of 5V, and 34A of 12V current.  It also has small controls (potentiometers or POTs) for fine tuning the voltage levels on each of the three rails.  

Enermax makes a similarly priced ($189) 600 watt power supply, the Noisetaker EF701P-VE SFMA 2.0 (shown below), which has two independent 12 volt rails (3.3v - 36A, 5v - 45A, 12v1 - 18A, and 12v2 - 17A; 3.3v + 5v = 320w max).

A couple of still powerful, but less expensive alternatives would be Enermax's 550 watt EG651P-VE (24 pin), which sells for $135, and OCZ's 520 watt Powerstream, which sells for $126.  They both have plenty of power on the increasingly critical 12 volt rail (36A for the Enermax and 33A for the Powerstream).  The OCZ states that all three of the Powerstream's voltage rails are "independent" (similar to the Antec True Power design, I assume), and it has external POTs for fine tuning the voltage level on each of the three rails.

It might be helpful to describe, briefly, how this processor was introduced and why there now are three different motherboard sockets supporting versions of the Athlon 64.  This will help us make a choice about which one to use for our Maximum Game System. 

When AMD originally introduced the Athlon 64, they established two versions of this processor: the regular or mainstream Athlon 64 and the performance or enthusiast Athlon 64 FX.  The mainstream Athlon 64s were introduced on the socket 754 platform, which did not have dual channel memory capabilities.  The Athlon 64 FX was introduced on the socket 940 platform; this is the same one used by AMD's Opteron server processors; and, it does support dual channel memory.  These original Athlon 64 FX processors seemedto be rebadged Opterons, albeit running at a bit faster speed than the regular Opterons and without the multiprocessor support that many Opterons possess.  Both the Athlon 64 FXs and the first generation of the other Athlon 64s had 1MB of cache onboard.  These were the original "Clawhammers".

After starting out with two Athlon 64 platforms, the socket 754 and the socket 940, AMD introduced a third Athlon 64 platform with a 939 pin socket.  This new platform also supported dual channel memory (like the socket 940), but it dispensed with the need for expensive error correcting memory, since it was not intended for use in servers.  The socket 939 clearly is the new high performance platform for the Athlon 64, and the Athlon 64 FX line was moved to this new socket, where it was joined with other new Athlon 64 processors.  These new Athlon 64s support dual channel memory, but they only have 512MB of onboard cache ("Newcastle" cores).  In fact, it looks like only the FX processor will continue using 1MB of cache from here on.  The other Athlon 64 processors that were introduced with 1MB of cache (socket 754 processsors) have all been phased out and replaced by similarly named models using only 512MB of cache.  They are running 200MHz faster than their predecessors to make up the difference in performance.  At this time, the Athlon 64 3700 (socket 754) is the only processor, other than the Athlon FX, still being produced with 1MB of cache, and I suspect that it will be replaced soon enough, as well.

The socket 939 platform appears to be the best choice for our Maximum Game System.  With its dual channel memory and support for the Athlon FX, it is provides plenty of horsepower for a maximum performance system.  This kind of speed will not come cheap; the Athlon 64 FX53 (2.4GHz with 1MB of cache) costs about $850.  So, our Maximum System earns it's name in terms of its price, as well as performance, but this is actually not as expensive as Intel's top of the line Extreme Edition processors, which sell for $925 (3.2GHz with 2MB of cache) and $1025 (3.4GHz with 2MB of cache).   

Although there are no really cheap socket 939 processors at this time, there are a couple of less expensive socket 939 Athlon 64s, if you need to step back a bit from where the cost of the Athlon FX53 is taking things.  There is the $630 Athlon 64 3800 (2.4GHz/512MB cache) and the $379 Athlon 64 3500 (2.2GHz/512MB cache).

If you aren't going to purchase the Athlon FX processor, you can match the performance of the other two current socket 939 processors with the processors from the socket 754 line (Athlon 64 3700 and 3400).  Despite the slightly slower speed rating given to these processors by AMD, they are essentially equal in performance to the Athlon 64 3800 and 3500, and they are $90 to $130 cheaper.  Although the socket 939 looks like it will be the platform on which AMD will continue to roll out its highest performing CPUs, the socket 754 is a good alternative, at this time, if you are trying to balance performance and cost.   

There are two main contenders competing to provide the chipsets used in both the socket 939 and socket 754 motherboards.  These are VIA with its K8T800Pro chipset and Nvidia with its nForce3 Ultra (called the nForce3 250g for the socket 754 version).  In terms of performance, there is not very much to distinguish one maker's chipset from the other (perhaps because the all-important memory controller is integrated into the Athlon 64 processor, itself).  This means that the deciding factors in selecting a motherboard will depend much more on the features that are made available.  The Nvidia's chipset seems to offer a bit more in this regard than VIA's does.  It includes an integrated ethernet interface and firewall, and it has working AGP/PCI lock, which is very desirable, if you want to do any overclocking.  

MSI makes a nForce3 socket 939 board that seems to be readily available and reasonably priced.  Although there is a more expensive Gigabyte board, as well, MSI's K8N NEO2 Platinum ($145) has all the features necessary, even for a Maximum Game System.

For memory, Crucial's new performance line of memory, Ballistix, has shown itself to work very well with Athlon 64s.  Ballistix PC3200 is fast enough to keep up with the stock speeds of our motherboard and processor, and the Ballistix PC3200 overclocks very well, if you wish to try squeezing a bit more out of your processer.  Since this is for a dual memory channel system, we need a matched pair of DIMMs.  I'm suggesting a pair 512MB modules for starters, with the option of adding another gigabyte, later.

Since we're not really talking about a system designed around the idea of overclocking the processor, I'm not recommending a heatsink, beyond the stock one that comes with the processor's retail package.  Check out the Alpha PAL8150, if you are looking for a non-stock cooler.

I know some folks are going to want an Intel system, even if it is more expensive and doesn't provide any real performance advantages in a game system.  After all, these processors are still very fast, and they continue to excel when it comes to encoding multimedia files.  There are many reviews around the internet comparing the performance of the flagship Intel and AMD processors, such as this one at AnandTech, if you would like to read more on where these processors have their relative strengths and weaknesses.

I'm going to stick with the Northwood core Pentium 4s at this point, even though the newer Prescott cores have been with us for a while, now.  The reason for this is that the Prescotts, at the speeds in which they are currently available (which is up to 3.4GHz) don't show any consistent performance advantages over their Northwood counterparts.  Furthermore, the Prescotts are really suppose to find their home in Intel's new LGA 775 socket, alongside of Intel's new 915 and 925 chipsets.  But, these new chipsets depend on on other new technologies, such as PCI express video cards and DDR II memory, which really hasn't fully matured.  Therefore, I'm putting Prescott, 915/925 chipsets, PCI express, and DDR II components on my list of hardware to keep an eye on for likely future inclusion in our list of recommendations, but for now, we will continue to make use of the Northwood Pentium 4, the socket 478, the i875 chipset, and DDR memory.  

Without going into the level of detail that we did with our primary recommendation for the Athlon 64, the Pentium 4 3.4 Extreme Edition takes it's place as the Intel's alternative in a Maximum Game System.  Supporting it, we have the tried and true Asus P4C800-E (socket 478, i875 chipset), shown below.  The Ballastix PC3200 memory that we recommended for our AMD system will work just as well with our Pentium 4 system.  

Since the high cost of the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is going to scare off all but the most intrepid shoppers, some Intel alternatives needs to be mentioned, as well.  The Pentium 4 3.4C sells for $375 and the Pentium 4 3.2C sells for $265.  Pair one of these with the $131 Abit IC7-G Max II and a good heatsink, such as the Thermalright SP94, and you likely can coax even more performance out of these Intel chips, if you are so inclined.  High end Pentium 4s have been known to reach speeds up to around 3.6GHz.

Now, we have Nvidia's latest generation video cards, the Geforce 6800 series, and it looks like Nvidia has a winner, again.  ATI's own latest video cards, the X800 series, is very  competitive, but ATI's top end X800 Pro only  seems to be able to equal to the Geforce 6800 Ultra in some game benchmarks, while Geforce 6800 Ultra is a clear winner with a number of games, most notably with the new game, DOOM III.

Well that's the good news.  The bad news is that these cards are not being produced in very great numbers, making them difficult for the consumer to get hold of.  At the moment, Newegg, for example, lists Geforce 6800 Ultra cards from six different manufacturers in their online catalog, but none of these are in stock.  This would seem to suggest that Nvidia is having trouble getting very good yields out of their manufacturing process for these high performance chips.  When sellers start getting some more Geforce 6800 Ultras in stock, expect to pay from $500 to $600 for them.  (The only 6800 Ultra that I could find in stock, after a quick review of a half dozen or so of the online vendors that I'm familiar with, was an Asus V9999 Deluxe model, selling for $799 at ZipZomFly.)

ATI doesn't seem to be having much better luck with their X800 XT.  Newegg, again, has a few models in their catalog, but they are all out of stock, as well.  The pricing on the X800 XT basically is the same as that of the Geforce 6800 Ultra; so, expect to pay $500 to $600  for one of these cards, too.

So, if you are in the process of putting a high end game computer together, now, you can place yourself on the waiting list for one of these cards at your favorite vender, or you can settle for something a bit less.  Actually, second choice is not all that bad.  The Geforce 6800 GT is basically the same as the Geforce 6800 Ultra, except for the speeds at which the core and memory are running.  While the Geforce 6800 Ultra is specified to run its graphics core at 400MHz with DDR 1100 memory, the Geforce 6800 GT knocks a bit off of these numbers, with stock speeds of 350 MHZ for the core and DDR 1000 memory.  The price for the Geforce 6800 GT typically ranges from $400 to $450.

The Geforce 6800 GT makes a better second choice than does ATI's similarly priced X800 Pro, because it essentially is just an under clocked 6800 Ultra, while the X800 Pro has some of graphics core's features disabled.  Besides running 25MHz slower, the X800 Pro's core has had the number of its pixel pipelines cut from 16 to 12.  (Nvidia doesn't cut the number of pipelines on their 6800 series video cards until you get to the Geforce 6800, which also only has 12 pixel pipelines.)

Assuming you can find one, I'd recommend Leadtek's Geforce 6800 Ultra, the "A400 Ultra TDH", even though this card is more expensive than many of the other Geforce 6800 Ultras.  It shows the unique approach of Leadtek, who has been a long time partner with Nvidia.  Rather than simply cranking out a duplicate of Nvidia's reference design, they've done their own engineering in order to make this product even better.

If you are interested in games and in more than the pretty good sound that already comes with most of today's motherboards, you pretty much have to turn to Creative Labs and their Audigy series of sound cards.  The latest iteration of the Audigy is the Audigy 2 ZS, which adds 7.1 sound to the Audigy 2.  Although I'd like see a bit more competition in the sound card market, Creative pretty much has this niche sewn up.  Unfortunately, this appears to mean that they have become rather complacent about the quality and the frequency of their driver updates.  Sometimes, it seems that you have to buy their latest piece of hardware, if you want access to up-to-date drivers.  Complaints aside, the Audigy 2 offers all the environmental and 3D sound effects that bring a good computer game to life, and it offers very good music audio as well, making it a very well rounded card.  

I think the best performance boost to be gained, based on your hard drive choice, will come from selecting a 10,000 rpm drive.  While at one time, this would have meant choosing a SCSI drive, these days Western Digital offers their Raptor line of SATA drives.  However, these drives are relatively small in terms of their capacity (there only are 36GB and 74GB models to choose from), compared to what is offered in 7200 rpm drives, and they remain relatively expensive.

My suggestion is to use a 74GB Raptor as the main drive and pair it with a 7200 rpm 160GB SATA drive, such as the Seagate Baracuda.   In this arrangement, the Raptor would be set up as the boot, operating system, game, and swap file drive, while the "slower" 7200 rpm drive can be used for additional file storage.  Since both of these are SATA drives, they should work well in the Lian Li PC-V1000 case.   

These days, every computer needs to have CD burner, but a Maximum Game System will require a burner that is able to handle ripping copies of the most troublesome forms of data, making it possible to back-up those expensive game CDs as well as to play games from an image file (stored on a hard drive), instead of swapping out CDs every time you start up a different game.  For these purposes, you need a high quality drive from a manufacturer that will stay on top of the drive's functions and features with regular firmware updates.  Plextor is an easy choice, given these criteria.  

Their current top end burner is the 52x32x52x PX-Premium, which sells for $78.  Their  52x24x52x OEM model would also serve quite well, and it can be found for around $46.

Many folks will want a second optical drive; so, they can transfer files directly from one CD to another.  And with the cost of DVD burners dropping dramatically, I think that it now makes sense to use one of these as one's second drive, at least in a high end system, such as this one.  Pioneer's DVR-108 16x double layer DVD burner runs about $85, as does NEC's very similar N-3500A drive.

Of course, if you really are just interested in the ability to read CD-ROMS and DVDS and you don't plan on burning more than the occasional CD, then, a combo CD-burner/CD-reader/DVD-player would meet you needs.  Lite On makes a popular model that sells for about $44.

When it comes to monitors, bigger is better, at least as far as screen size is concerned.  And, the price on cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors has dropped to the point that even the largest and highest quality of these are relatively affordable.  For example, the 22" NEC/Mitsubishi FP 2141SB is one of the best best aperture grill monitors you can buy, and it is currently selling for around $619.  I've also seen HP's P1230 22" monitor, which also uses Mitsubishi's Diamondtron tube, selling for less than $500.  As far as their visual output goes, it would be hard to beat these monitors, but there sheer size and bulk (about 65 lbs.) is a disadvantage.

This has been the main advantage of the now popular liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors.  One problem that LCDs face, when used for playing computer games, is that they may be a bit slow with regard to how quickly they can change the state of each of their pixels, and this can lead to some visual artifacts, such as "ghosting" or streaks.  While LCDs with fast response times (16ms or less) have become common with the 17" LCDs, there are only a couple of larger monitors with these faster response times, the Dell Ultra Sharp 2001FP and the Viewsonic  VP201B.  Both of these are 20.1" screens with same good brightness and contrast specifications, as well as a 16ms response time.  Expect to pay from $850-$900 for one of these.

You can save some money on a good game LCD by dropping down to a 17" model.  For example, Samsung now offers a couple of 17" LCDs with a 12ms response time, the 172X and the 710T.  The 172X is the more expensive of the two, and it typically goes for around $519.  The 710T seems to be a victim of its own success, as its cost use to be lower, but is now up around $475. 

The other important output, especially when you are playing computer games, will come through your speakers (or headphones).  The Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 speakers are something of a benchmark by which other speaker systems are measured.  This speaker system provides about 50w of music power on each of its five satellite speakers and about 170w of music power from its sub-woofer.  This system costs about $344.  Logitech offers a system with similar (though not quite equal) capabilities, the Z680 5.1 speakers, for around $225.

When it comes to input through keyboards and mice, things get even more subjective, since we are talking about what will feel most comfortable in your hands and to your touch.  Keyboards from Logitech and Microsoft are a good place to start looking, because these popular products are well made.  They are also readily available at your local computer superstore, where you can test them out a bit to see what they are like.  Logitech, in particular, seems to be reaching out to the game players with their line of mice.  Their latest cordless mouse, the MX1000, makes use of a laser, instead of an LED, to provide the highest degree of sensitivity on just about any surface.  If you prefer a corded mouse, so you don't have to worry about re-charging and batteries, the Logitech MX510 also seems to have been designed with the PC gamer in mind.  The MX1000 might be considered a bit pricey for a mouse, at $85.  The MX510 sells for around $43.

I think that for the vast majority of computer users, even hard core game enthusiasts, the price tag for the Maximum Game System is just too much.  While they might enjoy reading about the best in computer game equipment, they  really would only think of buying such a system some time after they won the lottery.  So, I'm going to take another look at our parts list and see if I can't come up with some significant savings without giving up too much in the way of performance.  I won't go into a lot of detail, since I've already mentioned these components as alternatives in the write up, above.

Power Supply: OCZ Powerstream 520 watt

Processor (Athlon): Athlon 64 3700 (2.4GHz/1MB cache/754 pin) Retail

Processor (P4): Pentium 4 3.4GHz

CPU Heatsink (Athlon64 and Pentium 4): Stock heatsink with retail kit

Motherboard (Athlon): MSI K8N NEO Platinum (nForce3 250g chip/socket 754)

Motherboard (P4): Abit IC7-G Max II (Intel 875P chipset)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix PC3200 (2 x 512mb)

Video: Leadtek Geforce 6800 GT  

Sound: Audigy 2 ZS

Hard Drive: Seagate 200GB 8mb cache 7200rpm SATA (OEM)

CD Burner: Plextor 52x24x52x (OEM)

DVD/CD-ROM Player: Sony DVD-ROM (OEM) 

Floppy Drive: Panasonic Black (OEM)

Operating System: Windows XP Pro Edition (OEM)

TOTAL for Athlon 64 System

TOTAL for Pentium 4 System

$126

$497

$375

$  0

$127

$137

$278

$450

$ 86

$125

$ 46

$ 27

$ 10

$141

$2011

$1899

Perhaps at some point soon, I should break out this Optimum System from the Maximum System guide and give it its own page, as it seems to fill the gap between the Enthusiast's Game System, which uses less expensive components but also depends upon the user's willingness to overclock those components to get the best performance, and the Maximum Game System, which consists of the highest performance, but also often highest priced, components available.