Holiday Gift Guide 2010: High-end Hardware
As the holiday season approaches, people start thinking about gift ideas. To help you give (or receive) the perfect holiday gift this year I've put together a list of six cool tech high-end hardware gift ideas.
Check it out!
Note: All prices are approximate. Shop around for the best deals.
Processor: Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition
Not only is this the ultimate processor for gaming, but it also can effortlessly chew through demanding multimedia encoding and decoding tasks.
The i7-980X offers unbelievable power, but don't even think about installing it into a CP unless all the other components are top-notch, because otherwise you won't see the full benefit of the processor you've spent money on.
The $1,000 you spend is just the beginning of your spending if you are going down the Core i7 "Extreme Edition" road.
Price: $999
Motherboard: EVGA E758-A1
This motherboard has it all, including support for 24GB of RAM, 12 USB ports, 10 SATA II ports, and 3-way SLI and Crossfire support.
In every respects this is the ultimate motherboard, and it ideally suited to both gamers and those wanting to build a high-performance PC.
Price: $260 | Find out more: [Reviews]
Graphics card: ZOTAC AMP! ZT-40102-10P GeForce GTX 480
Quite simply, you can't buy a better graphics card.
This is a monster of a card, featuring a Fermi GPU humming along at 756MHz, 1536MB of GDDR5 RAM, a shader clock running at 1512MHz, and 480 processor cores.
Also present is CUDA and PhysX support, DirectX 11 support, 3-way SLI, and offers a mini HDMI and two DVI ports. Price … a cool $520.
Price: $520 | Find out more: [Reviews]
Hard drive: Western Digital RE4 WD2003FYYS 2TB
The Western Digital RE4 WD2003FYYS is certainly a drive you should be looking at. It offers an incredible 2TB of storage, combined in a package that delivers good access times and high reliability.
This is everything you could possibly want from a hard drive.
Price: $290 | Find out more: [Reviews]
Solid state drive: OCZ Colossus Series 500GB
The OCZ Colossus LT Series OCZSSD2-1CLSLT500G is one of the best SSDs you can buy. This 500GB drive makes a super-fast boot drive, drive to store games on, or a working drive for high-end applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Premiere Pro.
When you need the speed, this is the drive to buy - but expect the price to be eye-watering!
Price: $1,250 | Find out more: [Reviews]
Display: Dell UltraSharp U3011 30"
Dell really knows how to put together a high-end display, and the UltraSharp U3011 is everything that a display should be.
This 30" screen is simply awesome, from the 2560x1600 resolution, to the wide viewing angle, to the incredible color accuracy. If you love your eyes, this is the screen that will prove it!
Price: $1,499