Reviewed on August 4, 2009Asus crafted the Essentio CG5290-BP007 to serve as a no-frills gaming desktop for just more than $1,000. And while the boutique PC vendors have a bit more polish for not too much more money, Asus can at least claim that this PC is one of the fastest on the retail shelves. You might have a hard time arguing the necessity of such a fast gaming box for back-to-school, but we can at least recommend this system as a speedy bargain.TAGS:back-to-school, ASUS, retailer, customer service, 64-bit, games, Nvidia GeForce, NVidia, video card, PC
Reviewed on November 21, 2007Despite the usual caveats of an ever-fluctuating 3D market, for the moment, at least, ATI's new Radeon HD 3850 graphics card delivers the best bang-for-the buck in PC graphics hardware. Until now we haven't had an acceptable sub-$200 option for PC gaming this year. Thanks to AMD, now we do.TAGS:Radeon, DirectX, ATI Technologies, card, Nvidia GeForce, video card, NVidia, motherboard, games, PC
Reviewed on March 18, 2008Nvidia's new flagship 3D card delivers almost all the performance we expect for its price. If you can live with "almost," at this price range, then this is a solid PC gaming option. We also wouldn't blame you Crysis fans for waiting to see what's in store later this year.TAGS:Nvidia GeForce, ASUS, power supply, NVidia, card, Radeon, ATI Technologies, video card, PC
Reviewed on November 4, 2009AVADirect's tries to distill as much gaming power as possible into its Nano Cube, but the extra small case requires too many sacrifices next to even standard small form factor PCs. Gaming purists with a need for an extra tiny PC might appreciate the Nanon Cube, but even they should be wary of everything you need to give up for this tiny desktop.TAGS:Nvidia GeForce, Intel Core 2 Duo, motherboard, networking, games, Intel, NVidia, video card, hard drive, PC
Reviewed on January 30, 2008The 3D graphics card market changes too rapidly for us to get bullish about a card with premature driver software. The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 shows promise, even outscoring Nvidia on many PC games, but we would still wait until AMD works out the kinks before handing over your $450.TAGS:Call of Duty, ATI Radeon, Radeon, ATI Technologies, Nvidia GeForce, NVidia, AMD, Unreal Tournament, DirectX, games, card, video card, PC
Reviewed on July 20, 2006You'll want to give Shuttle's new AMD-based, small-form-factor gaming PC a week or two to see how the coming Athlon price drop will affect the price tag. Assuming that Shuttle continues its aggressive pricing, however, the XPC P2 2700 will deliver lots of bang for your buck.TAGS:Maingear, media card reader, Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD, pricing, AMD Athlon, Intel, Nvidia GeForce, games, CPU, video card, PC
November 8, 2006New GeForce 8800 graphics cards can move processing resources as needed to draw complex images in a flash. Photos: Nvidia's new graphics techTAGS:transistor, pixel, NVidia, video card, Nvidia GeForce, 3D, GPU, image, PC