Spring is in the air. The birds are starting to sing. The squirrels have that special twinkle in their eye as they chase each other around. Flowers are in bloom, and blah, blah, blah.. If you're the type of person who gets all jazzed up about the niceties of spring, we suggest you stop reading, put on your water wings and head to the beach. After all, we have some serious PC building to do here, and spring-loving patsies need not apply.
For real gamers, spring means two things: GDC (Game Developer's Conference) and E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). For those of you who aren't in "the know" GDC is a once a year opportunity for developers to tout their new games. Their goal: to get their games picked up by publishers in time for E3, the largest game conference of the year. We can only expect that E3 and GDC will be riddled with the latest and greatest gaming has to offer.
We want you to be ready for this onslaught of new games -- let the rest of those fools go out and smell the flowers in bloom. If you want to be stuck with the lowest frame rate and worst kill ratio, take some time and go ride your bike in the park. Our goal here is to layout the best gaming rig money can buy, which will give you plenty of excuses to stay inside and play games.
Spring does have some unique benefits for gamers. When you haul your case outside to cut a blowhole with a dremel, you won't need a coat. This is also a good time to plan out that A/C vent ported directly into your case to keep your overclocked beast cool this summer (hell, when isn't a good time to duct AC to your tower of power?). Most importantly, spring is the time to say good-bye to your overclocked Celeron 300 and upgrade to something new and fresh. We want to game, not flowers, not birds, and not Auntie Sally's potato salad. Eww, we hate that stuff!
Hey you, smelling the flowers...step away from the Lillies, nice and slow, all right let's build the best damn gaming system we can!
Plain and simple, building the best gaming system requires money, and lots of it. Last time around the flower patch we were able to build a top of the line system (a P4 1.4GHz or Athlon 1.2GHz) for under $3500. Just a month later that same $3500 will still buy you the fastest machine around, so we took roughly the same budget and have given our buyer's guide a spring refresh. One thing we promise right off the bat, we won't be cutting any corners concerning you gamers.