a quick upgrade for performance, the most noticeable upgrade is actually the graphics chip, even over the CPU, unless your doing non-graphics intensive work (like databasing)
as far as ARS Techinca is concerned
their "God Box" is more like a top ten most wasteful products ever
for a gaming system SCSI is worthless
RAID is essentially pointless
Windows Server is never considered
those graphics cards aren't the best you can buy
nor are those CPU's
and 4GB of RAM is pathetic for a high power SMP on unlimted budget
the hot rod also falls short, with underpowered CPU, and graphics to fit what i'd call a hot rod, not to mention their obsession with M-Audio, which is only a choice for video editing/professional applications
for home use the Audigy series from Creative is ideal
no matter what your doing, not just gaming
personally their so called "god box" could be made much better, if they scraped SCSI, added more RAM, embraced nested RAID in the form of SATA RAID 0+1 or RAID 10 (very simmilar modes, just reverses of each other)
and then if they used 512MB 6800U cards (since we are on the topic of wasting money faster than you could light fire to it)
along with 8GB of RAM, just to make it "that much better"
the best gaming machines have between 1-2GB of RAM
1GB is normal for a gaming computer
2GB is just a luxury item, but not even needed (maybe a 2% performance boost)
dual LCD's just drives me batty
along with their case suggestion, if your spending money like no other consider a Mountain Mods UFO or a Lian-Li
possibly a Koolance (but the Exos water system isn't so great)
for the CPU's themselves i'd take the Opteron 252's OR a pair of Xeon 3.6's
in addition i'd prefer to see the IWil dual PCIE x16 board for Intel, over the Asus which only offers 1 AGP 8x, over SLI capability, not to mention i'd like it if SuperMicro were not suggested
for a few reasons:
A) their only market is servers
B) hardly any of their boards offer AGP or PCIE
C) their not going to give you a chance of overclocking, not that the IWill, Tyan or Asus would either (Xeon's don't OC well, and Opteron's are about the same) but the SuperMicro is just cutting off any chances
in addition Reg/ECC DDR has high latencies, and probably could not offer the performance found in regular DDR
also, using 2 PCIE slots you could support a maximum of 8 monitors on 2 cards (PCIE Parhelia's from Matrox)
their suggestion of the Parhelia isn't so good, considering the PCIE versions are hard to find, and often overpriced (not that the AGP ones are fair either, their also amazingly expensive)
their low end optical drive choices are also rather odd, considering that NEC, Pioneer, Plextor, Sony and HP offer far superior drives, with faster write speeds, more abilities (such as LightScribe found on HP and a few other drives)
the Exabyte drive is a joke, considering that their looking at 3 147GB hard drives, backing up with a maximum of 160GB
on an $800+ SCSI tape drive
that isn't affordable, nor is it practical
Iomega's REV or even plain DVD DL/DVD-RAM disks would be superior in terms of cost
their PSU suggestion is a joke
for a true master system, an 850W PCP&C should be used
in addition their lack of liquid cooling is rather disturbing (considering that liquid cooling mounts are avliable for Socket 940, for Socket 604 it might be harder, but for 940 you can even phase cool them)
the Dell monitors, while kings of the LCD arena, could not hold their own to equivalently priced CRT's (as CRT's in that price range are of the highest quality (at or above professional photo and video grade))
since their all about wasting money their speaker choice is pathetic
if you really wanted the best system on earth, getting basic optical outputs into a 7.1 Hi-Fi amplifier from Yamaha, h/k, or a higher end brand such as Krell or Rotel (in which case the amplifier would cost as much if not more than the computer) and using high end speakers from B&W, Martin Logan or (if your really feeling wealthy) a company like Boothroyd Stuart Meridian or Mark Levinson (at which point the sound system will cost about as much as the house it's sitting in)
their mouse suggestion is good, and their KB suggestion includes a second mouse
for $10,000+ that system really seems rather impotent
considering my >$2000 system, while not able to outbench it or break it's FPS levels, could compete and do each game at above 40 FPS at almost anyresolution
plus, my lack of LCD's means i can change resolution at will