Best value PC Game System $1000 Budget

I'm a keen Gamer and there's plenty of others like me so whilst looking for my next PC Game System I thought it would be a good idea write my experiences. I currently have a custom built machine with a 2400 AMD processor with 1.5gb Ram and a 100gb hardrive. It has done the job for about 3 years but it's now come to a time when I've got a $1000 to spend on something new. So I'm going to spend the next week looking at systems to see what I can get.

So where do I start, well in the past I've purchased parts from different places and built the system myself but lately I keep seeing deals with complete systems that look like they might be cheaper to buy than the parts. So in this review I'll look at complete systems and the parts.

One thing is striking me as I look around the net and that how much the hardware has progressed. I haven't been keeping up to date with the latest hardware and can't believe what is available these days. Quad Core and then 2 Quad Core blimey this is speed we used to dream about and now it's here at an affordable cost. I'm shocked and can't wait to get one.

I've brought a few things of Amazon and trust them so i'll make my start there. Looking at complete systems between $900 & $1000 i've found these 3 systems that look interesting.

Titanium Gamer AMTI9007 Gaming Computer with Intel 2.5GHz Core2 Quad 6600, 2GB DDR2/800, 250GB SATA II, DVD-RW, NVIDIA GeForce N9400GT MD512MB Video, 600 watt Power Supply, Microsoft XP Home Edition

Microtel SYSAM6009 Gaming Computer with Intel 3.0GHz Core2 Duo8400, 2GB DDR2/800, 320GB SATA, DVD-RW, NVIDIA GeForce N9400GT 512MB Video, 600 watt SLI Power Supply, Microsoft XP Home Edition

CyberPowerPC GU8264 Gaming Desktop PC – AMD Phenom II 920, Nvidia nForce 750a, 4GB DDR2, 1TB, DVDRW, Nvidia GTX 260 896MB

Now there's a lot of detail there but how do i distinguish between the systems. Well first let's look at the Titaniom Gamer AMTI9007 this has a Intel 2.5GHz Core2 Quad 6600 as the first item. I know thats a CPU but I want to know more about it so I put that to Google and done a bit of research. This processor has 4 cores so it's got 4 processors in one and each one runs at 2.4ghz with a front side bus of 1066Mhz. This to me is all amazing stuff but even though this computer is amazing there's better chips out there already so that's left me wondering if the next machines have a better CPU.

So let's have a look the second machine the Microtel SYSAM6009 has a Intel 3.0ghz Core2 Duo8400. Now this processor only has 2 processors but each one runs at 3ghz. The front side bus is quicker as well it runs at 1333mhz. So already i'm at a dilemma I can have 4 processors or 2 but the 4 processors are slower then the 2 but if i'm playing a game and battling 4 monsters at the same time which processor will perform better.

Now let's look at the final machine the CyberpowerPC GU8264. This machine has a AMD Phenom II 920 processor now I had a bit of trouble finding out more about this on the net because there's multiple results for this processor but i've put it down to the X4 version but please check before you buy this machine. Now if it is the X4 version then this has 4 processors in one running at 2.8ghz. It's difficult to now compare this with the others because AMD Phenom chips don't have a front side bus that works in the same way as Intel chips do. The speed is slightly higher than our first machine but will the front side bus speed make a difference. To me i'm not to bothered about slight speed differences because I know there's a lot of other factors to take into account.

So there's 2 things I can do here either look for direct comparisons between the 3 chips or look at the Graphics card. As I know direct comparisons are going to be hard to find that are accurate. So lets have a look at the Graphics Cards the first machine has a NVIDIA GeForce N9400GT MD512MB Video card now this looks impressive but what does all that mean. I can see by just looking at it that it has 512MB video RAM which to me is a lot. So now lets see what this thing can do so after looking at the net for more info i've discovered although this is a great graphics card there are much better ones out there. This card has 16 Stream Processors that looks like this card is at the lower end of the Gaming experience so this machine is not for the extreme Gamers.

Let's look at the second machine that surprisingly has the exact same graphics card so let's look at the third machine that has a Nvidia GTX 260 896MB card. Now this one totally blows the socks of the previous 2 it has 896MB Video RAM and 192/216 Stream Processors. Now this alone is going to be the biggest factor to a Gamer. This card is in the Extreme range of NVidia's comparisons and one every Gamer should have. So not only does this machine have the top Graphics card it has 4 Processors that run faster or close to the first machine.

The CyberpowerPC GU8264 pc also has a whopping 4gb DDR2 RAM which is plenty for even the top games these days. Not only that it's got a 1TB Hardrive which will fit 102 10GB games on it. So out of the 3 machines I first looked at this undoubtedly will be the best one.

This review was created on 19/8/09 so if your reading this 3 months or more after that date I'd highly recommend going through the same process I went through to find the best system because in 3 months or even a couple of days your going to get more for your money because computer prices are forever coming down. As new stuff comes in the old stuff gets less expensive.