UPDATED - MAY 6, 2010: With Intel's most powerful CPU and a solid state drive, this PC performs tasks almost instantaneously and plays the most intensive games.
CORE SYSTEM
CPU: Core i7 980X Extreme Edition - $1760
If the price tag isn’t enough to make you fall off your chair, then the performance will. Intel’s new top of the line desktop CPU packs in six cores (twelve with Hyperthreading) and runs at a respectable 3.33GHz up to 3.6GHz with Turbo Boost.
COOLER: Cooler Master V10 - $175
The V10 from Cooler Master is one of those love it or hate it products. Though there may be water cooling kits available that can clear more heat than this model, the simplicity of slotting this on to your motherboard and getting better than air cooling performance can’t be understated. With this, you should be able to push the Core i7 980X clear past 4GHz without breaking a sweat.
MOBO: ASUS Rampage III Extreme – $699
This is ASUS's new ultra high end motherboard for its Republic of Gamers brand. There’s nothing that hasn’t been jammed into this board, with support USB 3.0, two SATA 6G ports, four full length x16 slots (with full speed x16/x16 for SLI setups, built in Bluetooth and comprehensive overclocking tools.
RAM: CCorsair CMG6GX3M3A2000C8 PC3-16000 2000Mhz DDR3 Memory 6GB x2 - $1350
With 12 gigs of super fast memory, this setup will let you overclock like a charm. Low latency 8-8-8-24 timings keep things flexible, and games, video editing or whatever you choose to do will be smoother with the large amounts of RAM available.
GRAPHICS: INVIDIA GeForce GTX480 x2 - $1538
Though the GTX480 is arguably the quickest single card solution on the block, it’s strength comes in numbers. Throw two of them together and you’re starting to look down the barrel of some VERY solid frame rates even in the most demanding games. DirectX 11 support keeps things current for the time being
HARD DRIVE: Seagate Barracuda XT 7200.12 SATA 6GB 2TB - $350
Now here’s some contention. We are tossing up heavily between a good solid state hard disk drive and this, the first SATA 6G drive on the block. As we’re considering this machine a showcase of newer technology, the spindle drive came up trumps. And with 2TB of storage, it’s a lot roomier than a 256GB or 512GB SSD.
OPTICAL DRIVE: Sony BWU300S Blu-Ray Drive - $549
Still one of the few Blu Ray rewriters on the market. The Sony BWU300S is a cool looking and competent Blu Ray drive. With Blu-Ray single and double layer writing at 8x, and DVD writing at 16x, it’s not just a pretty face.
PSU: Cougar 1050GX 1050 Watts
This PSU took out a Design and Innovation award at this year's Computex show because it earned the hard-to-attain 80 PLUS Gold badge from the 80 PLUS industry group. What this means is that the power supply runs at a minimum of 80% efficiency no matter what its load (which means it meets the Bronze accreditation) but actually stays well above that, reaching an efficiency of 93% at 50% load, earning it the Gold. What it all really means is lower power bills, less system heat and a greener footprint
CASE: Ikonik RA2000 - $199
We might cop some flack here by not choosing one of the big four case manufacturers for this Extreme PC. Lian Li, Cooler Master, Antec and Silverstone all have a reputation for making high quality and expensive chassis; but this case has really caught our eye. Twelve internal storage bays, completely tool-less, rubber mounted drive silencing system, a great design, four 12cm cooling fans that don’t blow your eardrums out and what we thing is a very snazzy appearance. What more could you want?
CORE SYSTEM COST - AUD $6608