A performance specced, but well-priced desktop computer for the home office that can handle occasional gaming stints.

Quad core is not particularly new, but is still the latest selling point for CPU manufacturers. The quad core experience gives you extra computing power by expanding the number of processing cores to handle more tasks, which is a departure from the style of just increasing the clock speed to get more performance.

With a decent motherboard, and most of the obligatory extras there is very little need for upgrading of this Systemax computer. Here is a rundown of the specifications:

• Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 CPU
• Windows XP Home
• SLI capabilities
• 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2
• 250 GB SATA II hard drive
• Gigabit LAN
• GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB PCIe Video Card
• RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5
• Eight USB ports
• Firewire
• PCI and PCIe expansion slots (two each)
• Built-in audio

Quad core processors are all good, and although there is a difference between them, it will probably not be noticeable. Two gigs of RAM is a definite plus, and is about the most memory which will help the system to perform better. Gives a boost to Vista too (although only Windows XP Home is included in the package).

The graphics card will suit non-pro gamers. Even with newer games, performance will be pretty top-notch and as long as the highest quality settings are not chosen should return high frames per second.

Storage is fine, with 250 GB at your disposal. This is the one area where an upgrade might be necessary. With all those RAID features available an extra drive could get: a RAID 0 for nice boost in performance or a RAID 1 for data protection, RAID 5 requires at least 3 drives and RAID 0+1 requires 4, so take your pick.

Other features include USB, firewire, optical output and gigabit Ethernet. Just what the doctor ordered.

There are no special rebates required with this computer, which I prefer and at a whiff under $1000 gives a fair amount of computer for the money.

The Intel Core2 Extreme quad-core CPU offers the best in computer performance today. Four cores will carry you four times as far, and you sure have to pay for this level of performance.

At the end of the Pentium 4’s era, there was an AMD vs Intel battle to speed up processors to extreme levels. When processors became hot enough to cook on, there was obviously something that had gone wrong. Intel was quick to release a dual core Pentium, and then its Core2 range. The Core2’s managed to bring power consumption back to sane levels and regain much of Intel’s street cred.

After dual-core, the obvious next step is quad-core. As the technologies to produce the internals of a CPU get more sophisticated, so more cores can be stuffed into a single processor. But is there a tradeoff?

Intel Core2 Extreme offer a huge performance leap over their smaller brothers and sisters. By definition, the Extreme series leave the bus and multiplier so they can be adjusted by the user. This is useful for those who like to overclock, but not for the vast majority of desktop computer users who just want things to work.

This processor offers a large 12MB L2 cache, which amounts to 3MB per core. This is an increase of 50% of what is found in the other dual and quad-core processors in the range. This is a real performance booster, as L2 cache allows information to be stored close to the processing core, for much faster operations on data.

A new motherboard will be necessary, look for one that supports DDR3, to really stay ahead.

When building a super-fast computer for gaming or heavy duty office work with processor intensive programs, this is a processor worth considering. Stay ahead of the curve, but pick something else from the range if you want value for money.

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The Intel DX38BT Motherboard is based on the Intel X38 Express chipset and designed to support the most cutting edge processors, and sports an impressive range of high performance features.

The latest stuff is never cheap, and this motherboard is no exception, but it does give all you need to take advantage of new technologies. With support for DDR3, Quad-core and Extreme edition Intel processors and eSATA, it’s features allow the use of the latest products.

The striking black gives the Intel DX38BT some good looks, fitting right in a gaming system box with a view of the inside. The LGA775 CPU socket is still there, but the rest of the board is the interesting part. Here are some of the features:

• Intel Core2 Extreme, Quad and Duo support
• 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB
• No integrated graphics
• Up to 8 GB of dual-channel DDR3 DIMMs (4 x 2 GB)
• HD audio
• Gigabit Ethernet support
• Up to 12 USB 2.0 ports
• Three PCIe x16
• Two firewire
• Six SATA ports with RAID

Even though this board is aimed at gamers, and by offering three PCIe x16 ports, it certainly caters to them, but the rest of the features offer almost everything you could need to start a computer.

There is plenty of room for memory expansion, up to 8 GB, which is great for new games, but is also more than enough for any office application you’d like to throw at it. Up to four sticks are supported, but I hardly imagine that anything over a total of 4 GB would be necessary.

HD audio, although common to many boards, is always a good extra, and with the quality offered, along with 7.1 channel audio and the ability to listen to two separate audio channels you’ll be able to listen to music and chat to your friends online at the same time.

Gigabit Ethernet has not yet taken complete hold, but in looking forward it will certainly give a good amount of future-proofness, and allow very high speeds over networks that support it.

Storage is handled by IDE and SATA. The standard two IDE ports are there, holding up the fort from times gone by, although I suspect they will be on their way out sometime soon, much like the ubiquitous serial ports and parallel port that are missing from this motherboard. The eSATA ports are certainly more useful than serial and parallel ports, which continue to be useful only in industry where dedicated machines have been running on them for decades. Six SATA ports with RAID will allow a combination of striped storage or mirrored storage, according to your needs.

I love motherboards with lots of features and my only gripe with this one is the lack of onboard graphics. That said, I’d just invest in a cheap one considering all the features of the board itself. Although quite expensive, you get more than you need for any application, it has all the necessary features and more. I would recommend it for anyone considering the jump into the Core2 range.

A stock clearance computer with a lot of decent parts, manages to provide a good spread of parts that by themselves can deliver well, but more importantly provide a good place to upgrade from.

The awe of SLI graphics has mostly died down. The benefits are still there, but hardly provide performance that can’t be achieved by a new graphics card. Not a complete computer, this set will require the addition of a CPU cooler to allow it to be used, and keyboard, mouse and monitor.

The basic kit includes the following:

• Ultra black case
• XFX nForce 680i SLI Socket 775 ATX motherboard
• Pentium D 925 3.0GHz Dual-core processor
• 2 x XFX GeForce 7300 GT 512MB PCIe video cards
• Maxtor 200GB hard drive
• Ultra 400W power supply
• 2 x Crucial 1GB PC5400 DDR2 memory modules

The Ultra black case is nothing special, it will hold your parts and just sit there like most cases should. The clear side will give a little thrill to those who really want to show off their computer’s internals, and lights can be added for a little extra glitz.

The motherboard is well featured with a firewire port, USB ports, 5.1 audio, Ethernet, 2 PCI slots, 2 PCIe x1 slots and SLI capable PCIe slots. Good all round. There are also RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capabilities that are built onto the motherboard, but the hard drive will need to be upgraded.

The Intel Pentium D processor is one of the first run of dual-core processors from Intel. They are fast and offer speed benefits over their single-core counterparts. But there are some things to note. These processors use a lot of power, up to 135W, which is ultra high compared to the 65W for the Dual Core2 series that is newer, clocked lower and processes faster overall. It is still quick and considering the price, still worth it.

SLI graphics cards bring good performance, especially in SLI mode. Newer graphics cards, namely the 8000 series GeForce cards are more than capable of outperforming these two, but the newer cards are still expensive. These two are GT versions, so they are the fastest of their generation, which works to their favor.

A 200GB IDE hard drive and 400W Ultra power supply round out the package.

The package if fine, and good if you are on a budget. However, considering that top-notch gaming is the realm of the newest components, great deals are always going to set you behind the times. This is fine, but be aware that as games increase in their need for powerful graphics cards and processors, this system will fall behind fairly quickly.