Buyer's Guide: High-End Systems - June 2001

Video card - Elsa Gladiac 920 GeForce3 - $375
In the past, we've had a tough time making the call between the ATI Radeon and the NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS, but the call always went to NVIDIA thanks to better drivers. This time around, the GeForce3 is the clear choice since it's the first fully DirectX 8 compliant part on the market, offerring a fully programmable T&L engine and vertex shaders, which makes it the biggest leap forward in 3D graphics in quite some time.

Although 2D image quality has been a complaint of many NVIDIA-based cards, this is really a function of the board manufacturer. With that in mind, we've gone with Elsa's GeForce3 solution, the Gladiac 920, since they tend to offer better 2D output quality than some other manufacturers. A BNC cable connection to your monitor may also help the situation if you're concerned about 2D image quality. If the 2D image quality still isn't good enough and you're willing to sacrifice some 3D performance, go with a Radeon 64MB DDR.

For more information, read our GeForce3 Unveiled, GeForce3 Performance Results, and GeForce3 Investigated articles.

Monitor - Sony GDM-FW900 - $2000
This pure flat monitor is without a doubt the best monitor we've ever set our eyes on, surpassing our previous favorite the GDM-F500R.  What sets this monitor apart is the 24" (22.5" viewable) widescreen CRT and its support for resolutions up to 2304 x 1440 @ 80Hz.  You've got to see it to believe it - one look and you'll be hooked.  But at $2000, it remains just a dream for the vast majority of us.

Depending on your priorities, the GDM-F500R may be a better option thanks to its finer stripe pitch and resulting crisper images, but the GDM-FW900 is certainly no slouch in this department either.

Case - Addtronics W8500-420A - $400
We took a look at the Addtronics W8500 a while back.  For those that don't remember, it's a WTX case, meaning that it's backwards compatible with the more common ATX standard as well.  A grand total of 9 fan locations ensure that you'll always have plenty of cooling available, while 11 drive bays handle expansion. 

The power supply situation for the Tyan Thunder K7 is a strange one to say the least. Rather than go with a standard ATX or even WTX power supply, for unknown reasons AMD and Tyan have chosen to go with a proprietary power supply pinout. For that reason, you'll have to buy the appropriate model from one of two manufacturers - Delta and NMB. Unfortunately, finding one of these power supplies may actually be the hardest part of putting one of these systems together.

For more information, read our Addtronics W8500 Review.

Sound Card - Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 - $180
The sound card selection for the dream professional system was as tricky as any other component.  But some careful thought shows that the Sound Blaster Live! is the best choice.  The first problem is that a number of sound cards out there don't have drivers that work properly with SMP systems under NT 4.0.  Further, the ideal sound card would also have driver support under Windows 2000, Linux, and BeOS. 

The Sound Blaster Live! provides all the features we need in a sound card and thus it is the only choice for this system.  It's got full support under Windows 2000.  Creative also has their own set of Linux drivers, while BeOS has built in support for the Live!  We have heard from a few users that the Live! drivers still do not get along with SMP systems under Windows 2000, but we have not been able to duplicate these results in the AnandTech lab. We'll continue to investigate, however.

Specifically, we chose the Platinum model since we don't have to worry about price while the Live Drive of the Platinum is a nice addition to any system. The 5.1 version of all Sound Blaster Live! cards are now available to handle Dolby Digital decoding. For the Dream System, this doesn't make any difference since we already have a Dolby Digital decoder in our speaker system. The Platinum 5.1 model does include an updated Live Drive that includes an infrared remote - perfect for watching DVD's using your computer.

Speakers - VideoLogic DigiTheater DTS - $600
We loved the Video Logic Sirocco Crossfire speaker system, but it's time to add Dolby Digital decoding to our Dream System. The natural replacement is another VideoLogic system, of course, and that means the DigiTheater DTS. Although it's a bit pricey at $600, we wouldn't want anything but the best in the Dream System.

For more information, read our VideoLogic DigiTheater DTS Review.