YourWare Programs
In Search of the best gaming PC Sean Sullivan, a hard-core gamer, is halfway through his senior year of high school and is looking ahead to college. At the moment, however, he's thinking more about technology than tuition. His current system can't keep pace with today's demanding games, so he's planning his next PC purchase.
Sullivan asked us to seek out the best gaming system possible for less than $ 2,500. A white-hot gaming machine could easily cost $ 4,000, but given Sullivan's budget, we looked for a 400MHz Pentium II system with a 100MHz system bus and plenty of expansion slots.
Two other key components were a minimum 11GB hard drive and 128MB of RAM, because Sullivan says he might rely on the system for graphics homework. With that in mind, we also looked for a good 2-D graphics card and a dedicated 3-D accelerator for high-end games. Another gotta-have for gamers is a bone-rattling satellite/subwoofer sound system.
We found shopping for a blow-your-hair-back gaming system in the direct channel a bit more challenging than purchasing the average PC. Many vendors divide their products into broad categories--like home or office--with no special configurations for gamers. That makes it a snap to seek out systems with speedy processors, roomy hard drives, and abundant RAM. But snagging a system with premium components essential to gamers is more challenging. Our first move was to hit a few shopping-service Web sites, which didn't yield any enticing configurations. Things got a little more interesting when we trolled individual vendors' Web sites. After narrowing our candidates down, we checked the specs in their print ads, then started calling vendors to see what other configuration options they could offer. Quantex, for instance, advertised an Ultimate Gaming PC that had all the right specs. Problem was, at $ 2,799 it was $ 300 over Sullivan's budget. We dropped the capacity of the hard drive to 11.5GB and the size of the monitor to 17 inches, yielding a system that cost $ 2,541. Next, we pointed our browser at iDot.com's site. (iDot.com is 100 percent Web-based.) Though iDot.com's Enthusiast2 was a strong contender, options for customizing it were somewhat limited, and the standard configuration was slightly over our budget. Furthermore, when we added a dedicated 3-D graphics card, the price went up by more than $ 200. Gateway, however, offered a knockout PC with solid components and high-end gaming add-ons, including a 12MB 3Dfx Voodoo2 3-D accelerator and a Boston Acoustics Media Theater speaker system. But what really locked us in was Gateway's answer to obsolescence, one of Sullivan's primary concerns. Gateway's YourWare program enables buyers to purchase a system on credit, with monthly terms of two to four years. When the payment term ends, Gateway will buy back the computer at the Orion Computer Blue Book value, providing that you apply that sum toward a new Gateway system. The gamer-configured 400MHz Pentium II Gateway G6-400 we selected, for instance, cost $ 2,447 if purchased outright. Going the YourWare route, the system cost approximately $ 130 a month for 24 months or $ 95 a month for 36 months, based on the 14.9 percent interest rate we were quoted by a sales rep. Though the interest will end up costing Sullivan a little more than buying the PC outright, the ability to trade the system in for a new model in two years was appealing.
Gaming PC
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