What Hardware Should I Buy? - Jan 2009

High End Hardware

With a bigger budget you’ll see a big step up in quality and performance, especially as it allows us to include higher quality cooling components like a premium case and a premium aftermarket CPU cooler.

A bit more cash also buys a whole lot more processor, graphics card and hard drive space than our recommendations in the affordable system. What's more, you can pick up some truly excellent hardware that should be more than enough to take on even the most demanding of games for a good while to come if you're willing to spend that little bit more.

There's a little bit of a reshuffle in our high end hardware this month, with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 (216) replacing the ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB as our graphics card of choice. While both are excellent cards, and evenly matched in both overall performance and pricing, the GTX 260's support for Nvidia's CUDA and PhysX now gives it the edge.

Elsewhere prices continue to creep upwards, and we're even noticing prices in the USA start to creep up too.

Graphics Card

First Choice: XFX Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 (216)
UK Pricing: £206.15 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $279.99 (ex. Tax)

Yes, it's all change this month for our recommended high end graphics card, with Nvidia's GTX 260 (216) finally beating out the ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB. We've been benchmarking graphics cards a great deal in December thanks to our shiny new Core i7 test systems and with their respective latest drivers the two high end cards from ATI and Nvidia were practically inseparable in terms of frame per second.

For every test the 4870 1GB was ahead in, the GTX 260 (216) was able to edge ahead in another, and with the hefty price cut that the 260 (216) received at the start of December, it's now priced in the exact same range as the 4870 1GB too.

Overall there really isn't really that much to separate the two cards, although the 260 (216) is generally better at the more common desktop resolutions of 1,280 x 1,024 and 1,680 x 1,050 and at lower anti-aliasing settings.

However, with both cards so evenly matched, the real decider here is Nvidia's hefty selection of extras that its graphics cards are capable of. CUDA accelerated applications such as the video encoding utility Badaboom and the adoption of PhysX technology into high profile game launches such as the PC version of Mirror's Edge have lifted these features from just another tick box to genuinely compelling features. Whether we'll see more applications and games taking advantage of Nvidia's CUDA and PhysX technologies remains to be seen, but right now if the choice is to have them or not, and there's no disadvantage in performance or price in choosing a compatible card, then we have to go with Nvidia.

What's better is at just over £205, this XFX card represents excellent value, and even includes a copy Far Cry 2 to put it through its paces.

**ADDENDUM**

Prices for GeForce GTX 280s have been slashed since publishing this article - it's to clear stock for new products being released shortly. As such, for just £230 you can pick up a GTX 280 - an absolute bargain right now and certainly worth the £25 extra over the GeForce GTX 260 (216).

CPU

First Choice: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 stepping
UK Pricing: £149.48 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $189.99 (ex. Tax)

Intel’s seminal Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor was all we were ever going to consider for our recommended high-end processor and even after the release of Core i7, it is still the processor that we would buy for our own systems.

While the spec sheet is fairly impressive: a quad-core processor running at 2.4GHz with 8MB of cache, the chip’s overclocking headroom is legendary. By following our handy guide, you should comfortably hit clock speeds of 3.0GHz even if you’re using an Intel stock heatsink, without posing any stability or processor lifespan problems whatsoever.

Sadly, recent price rises have pushed the price above £150 again, but for a 3.0GHz quad-core this is still a great bargain, and while Intel has released 45nm Yorkfield quad-core processors since, none can match the value offered by this inexpensive performance behemoth. And it's still our processor of the year, for a second year running.

Motherboard

First Choice: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
UK Price (as reviewed): £107.57 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $117.75 (ex. Tax)

Recently we reviewed the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R and were certainly pleased enough to recommend it. When properly tweaked it performs great and while it may lack features like ATI CrossFire and dual Ethernet, it has lots of upgradability - plenty of SATA, great audio, decent overclocking and a really intuitive, full featured BIOS. For just over £100 it's good value and a great backbone to pair with our choices above.

If you fancy taking on the pros, Gigabyte is currently running a competition for its new range of Ultra Durable motherboards that includes the EP45-UD3R as well.