Through its September 2009 System Builder’s Marathon (SBM), Tom’s Hardware has managed to build a pretty powerful gaming PC—for only $650. That price doesn’t include a display, keyboard, and mouse, but it still represents significant value for money, especially when you consider the use of two ATI Radeon HD 4850s.
Here are the parts used in this build, all available from NewEgg. Prices are current as of this writing (September 24, 2009):

Type
Component
Price

CPU
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 3.1GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Processor
$102

Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P ATX AMD Motherboard
$110

Memory
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) OCZ2G10664GK
$70

Video Card
Two …read more

With Intel gaining attention for its new Lynnfield processors, AMD has fired back with its own $100 quad-core. At the same time it has also made strides in the GPU market, recently coming out with the first DirectX 11 compatible video hardware. Here’s a proclamation that:

ATI now stands unchallenged in Blu-ray audio processing, power consumption, single GPU performance, and performance per watt, DirectX 11, multi-monitor setups, anti-aliasing performance, and anisotropic accuracy. By any measure, the confluence of these qualities easily makes the Radeon HD 5000 the most significant shakeup of the GPU market in the last two years.
Pretty bold assertions, …read more

Unless you don’t believe what the folks over at Anandtech have to say (and they know their stuff), their new video card buyer’s guide for this North-Hemispherean spring will be quite useful. Especially since it’s got recommendations for a variety of price points:

Price
Product

$75
ATI Radeon HD 4670
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT

$100
Wait for a month!

$150
ATI Radeon HD 4850

$165
ATI Radeon HD 4870

$180
An ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
NVIDIA GTX 260 Core 216

$180 – $280
Errr…

$280 – $400+
ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB

Hmmm… looks like ATI’s winning the current round of the never-ending battle between the maker and its arch-rival NVIDIA. According to Anandtech lately, that’s a …read more

Nice ATI! You’ll probably steal some thunder from NVIDIA when you release the Radeon HD 4550 and 4350 this October. Both video cards will feature support for DirectX 10.1, compatiblity with HDMI displays like the HP w2228h, and even 7.1 audio!
The 4550 will be $16 more expensive than the 4350 thanks to its 512MB of DDR3 RAM, compared to half that for the latter. Both cards run at 96 gigaflops, for those who are interested. (boingboing.net)