Reviews Tom's Hardware US - How To

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Four High-End Quad-Channel DDR3 Memory Kits For X79, Reviewed You just bought the fastest (and most expensive) desktop platform on the planet. Which company's memory will you use to populate Intel's quad-channel controller? We tested four purportedly high-end kits in order to find out which set is the best. System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: System Value Compared A 20% budget boost for this quarter?s machines gave every builder room to fix former foibles, yet only the cheapest system showed big performance gains. What effect will those big and small changes have on price-per-performance proficiency? System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $600 Gaming PC You've already seen our first two System Builder Marathon configurations, both of which are more expensive than last quarter's. Our entry-level build costs a bit more too, but we think it's a much more capable collection of parts. System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $1200 Enthusiast PC We mix things up with a $1200 budget, a brutally powerful Radeon HD 6950 CrossFire combo, and AMD's new FX processor in the final mid-range System Builder Marathon PC of 2011. The results are predictable in some ways, but surprising in others. System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2011: $2400 Performance PC Lessons learned over the past two quarters have helped us build one of our fastest PCs yet. But is it really worth the extra $400 over the previous high-end System Builder Marathon PC? The benchmarks will answer that question. Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications Today's article contains everything you've ever wanted to know about PC power supply specifications. Form factor dimensions, cable end pinouts, voltage/amp/watt specifications, and even compatibility issues are covered in this comprehensive reference! Building A Liquid-Cooled MicroATX Gaming Monster You don't need a massive case to cram in tons of computing muscle. With a little help from a few manufacturers, our excessively-overclocked GeForce GTX 580 SLI build is small enough to sit atop most desks (and smoke our $2000 SBM machine). System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: System Value Compared Big changes to a few components radically alter the performance profile of every machine in this quarter's competition. We?ve already seen how these changes affect the value of each machine, but how will they compare to each other? System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: $500 Gaming PC A few months ago, we built our $500 gaming PC using Intel's Sandy Bridge-based Core i3 processor, and it was a real screamer. This time around we're switching back to an overclockable Phenom II X4 and hoping threaded performance helps our case. System Builder Marathon, Sept. 2011: $1000 Enthusiast PC This quarter's $1000 enthusiast-oriented PC gets a new lease on life with a 30 GB solid-state drive and a couple of GeForce GTX 460s. Does that make a difference over the last build and its conventional hard disk and Radeon HD 6850 CrossFire setup?