What Hardware Should I Buy? - Jan 2009

Graphics Card

Alternative: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
UK Pricing: £210.08 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $279.99 (ex. Tax)

It seems we've been gushing over the Radeon HD 4870 for most of 2008 after it arrived in the summer delivering fantastic performance at a very reasonable price point. AMD released the 1GB version of the card towards the end of the year and it delivers real performance improvements in some titles for only a little extra cash over the 512MB version of the card.

In fact, in recent games the performance difference between the 512MB and 1GB versions of the HD 4870 has become even more noticeable and this is only going to become more and more apparent as time goes on and games get more demanding. For such a small amount of extra outlay, you're buying a whole lot more future proofing in our opinion.

Unlike with the Radeon HD 4850, the dual slot cooler on the HD 4870 is more than enough to keep the card cool and availability of custom cooled cards is still pretty patchy. Because of this, we feel you’re better off looking for cheaper stock versions of the card, and in the UK, Powercolor has the cheapest offering right now at just over £210. It's another victim of increasing prices unfortunately, but still cracking value, especially as it's only ten percent more expensive than the cheapest 4870 512MB - well worth it in our opinion.

Processor

Alternative: AMD Phenom 9850 X4 Black Edition
UK Pricing: £131.11 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $147.99 (ex. Tax)

or Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
UK Pricing: £135.45 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $164.99 (ex. Tax)

While it’s easy to gush over Intel’s quad-core processor, if you want pure MHz rather than more cores you may never use then the E8400 is not only cheaper, but it should also easily hit 4GHz when overclocked. Manufactured using the newer 45nm process, it also operates at lower temperatures and if you're really into overclocking the front side bus and memory then this is exactly the CPU to go for without over spending.

However, not everyone wants an Intel rig though and the AMD alternative is currently the unlocked quad-core Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition. It may not be able to match the Core 2 Quad Q6600 for performance or overclockability, but it is still a decent option for AMD stalwarts, offering four 2.5GHz cores and 2MB of L2 cache and 2MB of shared L3 cache. The price is right too at around £135, but given the choice we’d take the Q6600 or E8400 in almost every scenario.

Motherboard

Alternative: Asus M3A79-T
UK Pricing: £136.72 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $184.25 (ex. Tax)

While a bit more expensive that we'd like, the new southbridge which offers advanced overclocking features for the Black Edition Phenom X4 processors is worth it. In addition there are more SATA ports and the 790FX is AMD's premium chipset offering a pair of full PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes for CrossFire. We could save some cash and grab a 790GX for £25 less, but having used the original Asus M3A32-MVP extensively that uses the 790FX with the older SB600 southbridge, and listening to quite a bit of positive feedback about this board we think it's worth stretching for the M3A79-T if you can.

Case

Alternative: Akasa Omega
UK Pricing: £114.87 (inc. VAT)

One of the best cases we saw released in 2008, the Akasa Omega takes the tried and tested design inherited from the Akasa Eclipse and improves upon it with significantly improved ventilation and a stylish and well constructed aluminium door to hide away your drive bays.

The whole case is made of aluminium, so is deceptively light for its extra large dimensions and the build quality throughout is fantastic. The attention to detail is also good with detachable front panel cables, included coaster wheels and plenty of cable ties and clips to help keep the jungle of wires inside under control.

The Omega also benefits from one of the easiest build systems on the market right now, with a brilliant removable stainless steel motherboard tray, and the whole package is rounded off with genuinely silent cooling as standard. If the P182 is a little too common for you, the Akasa Omega is a seriously attractive alternative, albeit at a higher price.

Optical Drive

Alternative: LG GGGC H2OL Blu-ray, HDDVD DVDRW combo drive
UK Pricing: £64.36 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $139.99 (ex. Tax)

If you’ve got a little money to spare, or just want to enable High-Definition movie playback on your PC, then this drive from LG is by far the best value solution right now – it’s certainly cheaper than a Playstation 3!

Packing all the usual read and write capabilities on top of the ability to read both High-Definition Blu-ray and the now defunct HD-DVD format discs, it's an excellent combination drive, although you'll need to purchase disc playback software separately from companies like Cyberlink or Corel. Nevertheless, for less than £65 this is great little drive.