What Hardware Should I Buy? - March 2009

Graphics Card

Alternative: GeForce GTX 260 (216)
UK Pricing: £207.99 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $229.99 (ex. Tax)

It's almost impossible to separate Nvidia's GeForce GTX 260 and ATI's Radeon HD 4870 1GB when it comes down to pure frames per second performance – for every game that one is faster in, the other has an equally compelling response which makes the decision to choose between them extremely difficult.

While either card is a fine choice in this price band though, the GTX 260 is a little behind this month following select ATI board partners hacking a good £15 off the RRP and making bargain basement 4870 1GBs a slightly more attractive purchase. That said, stock levels are fluctuating as much as prices these days so it's worth shopping around to try and pick up a bargain as prices can vary as much as £30 for even the stock models.

However, as we’ve already said, the GTX 260 is still a fine card and holds a slightly more competitive edge at the more common desktop resolutions like 1,280 x 1,024 and 1,680 x 1,050. It’s also faster than the HD 4870 1GB at lower anti-aliasing levels, although personally we’d opt for higher resolutions anti-aliasing levels for superior image quality, especially if you’re shelling out the best part of £200 on a GPU.

What’s perhaps best about the current crop of graphics cards is that it’s really pretty difficult to choose a genuinely bad graphics card, and the on going slug fest between the 4870 1GB and the GTX 260 is a fine example. Both are great cards for the money following price cuts from both sides and with PhysX and CUDA yet to become genuinely compelling features (although that of course may change) the only real decider is the price, which this month the GTX 260 loses out on by the smallest of margins.

Processor

Alternative: AMD Phenom II X4 940
UK Pricing: £194.96 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $234.99 (ex. Tax)

Or

Alternative Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
UK Pricing: £99.99 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $119.99 (ex. Tax)

AMD's Phenom II X4 940 is a worthy competitor to Intel's Core 2 Quad and even though it doesn't match Intel in clock to clock performance (we still think the Q6600 G0 is still the better buy for the money), it is still good value for a 3GHz quad-core CPU that should match the Q6600 for a 3.5 to 3.6GHz overclock.

On the other hand, despite our love and insistence that for gamers particularly the E8400 is a better purchase, we've also noticed the Core 2 Duo E7500 and E7400 appear in recent months. Both of these dual core processors have lost half the L2 cache compared to the full fat 8000-series Wolfdale CPUs making for a healthy saving. The E7400 in particular is a good £40 cheaper than the E8400 but also has a slightly higher multiplier allowing for a much easier overclock (ala the Q6600 versus Q9550).

Let's not forget that 3MB of cache is still pretty massive and less cache equals less heat which means cooler running and even more overhead for overclocking. We'll look at getting one of these in for review to confirm our educated suspicions as soon as we can.

Motherboard

Alternative: Asus M3A79-T
UK Pricing: £137.99 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $194.99 (ex. Tax)

While this 790FX AM2 board from Asus is a bit more expensive that we'd like, the new Southbridge which offers advanced overclocking features for the Black Edition Phenom II X4 processors is well worth it if you're going the AMD route for your core hardware. In addition, there are more SATA ports and a pair of full PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes for CrossFire.

We could save some cash and grab a 790GX for £25 less, but having extensively tested the Asus M3A32-MVP with its older SB600 Southbridge and listening to quite a bit of positive feedback about this board we think it's worth stretching for the M3A79-T if you can.

Case

Alternative: Akasa Omega
UK Pricing: £120.69 (inc. VAT)

One of the best cases we saw released in 2008, the Akasa Omega takes the tried and tested design inherited from the Akasa Eclipse and improves upon it with significantly improved ventilation and a stylish and well constructed aluminium door to hide away your drive bays.

The case is made almost entirely of aluminium, so is deceptively light for its extra large dimensions with fantastic build quality throughout. The attention to detail is also excellent with detachable front panel cables, included coaster wheels and plenty of cable ties and clips to help keep the jungle of wires inside under control.

The Omega also benefits from one of the easiest build systems on the market right now, with a brilliant removable stainless steel motherboard tray and the whole package is rounded off with genuinely silent cooling as standard. If the Antec 902 or P182 are a little too common for you, the Akasa Omega is a seriously attractive alternative, albeit at a higher price.

Optical Drive

Alternative: LG GGGC H2OL Blu-ray, HD DVD DVDRW combo drive
UK Pricing: £79.31 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $115.29 (ex. Tax)

If you’ve got a little money to spare, or just want to enable High-Definition movie playback on your PC, then this drive from LG is by far the best value solution right now – it’s certainly cheaper than a Playstation 3! The only downside is that since last month this combo drive has raised in price by a huge 23 percent.

Packing all the usual DVD and CD read and write capabilities on top of the ability to read both High-Definition Blu-ray and the now defunct HD DVD format discs, it's an excellent combination drive, although you'll need to purchase disc playback software separately from companies like Cyberlink or Corel. Nevertheless, for less than £80 this is great little drive that unlocks a lot of extra functionality for your PC.