Chris Leckness is a Geek

I am looking to get a new Desktop. Any opinions?

Ok, not really Mobility related, but it’s time for me to replace my aging Dell XPS with something cutting edge, again. I know with Alienware and XPS, you are really paying for a name, then quality gear. I know I could hit newegg and put one together for cheaper than going through a company, but I don’t have to time to really spend on that. I have decided to buy a ready made, top of the line video superstar box. I have narrowed the choices of companies down to CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower.com. They might be the same company for all I know, but I like what i’ve seen for the price at these two. I was looking into the VooDoo from HP, but the sales rep said they won’t be shipping until October.

What do I need?
Well, I like to go top end and ride that machine out a year or two, so keep that in mind. My price limit is $3200. I plan to do lots of video processing, some video game play, and lots of photoshop and such. I want more machine than I need really. Here is what I am thinking so far…

• 800w Quad SLI Ready Power Supply
• Intel Core 2 Quad Proccessor Q9550 (4x 2.83ghz/12mb L2 Cache/1333FSB)
• Intel Liquid CPU Cooling System
• eVGA NVidia mForce 790i Ultra Chipset Motherboard
• 8GB OCZ-GOLD DDR3-1333 RAM
• 128GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Disk (SUPER FAST)
• Blueray player and DVD-ROM
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 /1gb Video Card

This is what I am thinking so far, but it’s not set in stone. I plan to make a choice early next week.

I can get this setup for around 3k. Anything to add, any suggestions against any choices? Any input would be great.