I was skimming through Wired.com’s Desktop Reviews this morning and came across a pretty interesting 7K gaming machine called the Maingear Shift. On the outlook it just looks like your normal gray tower case – the thing measures 21.5 x 8.5 x 24 inches, and weighs just over 40 pounds.

It’s CPU is the 3.3 GHz Intel Core i7-975 Extreme, with 6 GB of RAM. The GPU is 3 GPUS! Three ATI Radeon HD5870 graphics cards. Wired says that these babies averaged 65 to 70 frames per second inCrysis andCrysis Warhead (highest settings at1920 x 1200 resolution), and dropped to the mid to low 50s cities, complex scenes, and intense fighting.

Invest 7K in a desktop and you better expect high end hard drives! The Maingear shift has two 80-GB solid-state drives for using the operating system and games and it comes with a 2-TB spinning hard drive at 7,200 rpm. It also comes with a Blu-ray burner and a ton of ports: 10 USB ports, 2 Firewire, eSata, a multiformat card reader, and Coax and Digital SPDIF ports for 8-Channel surround-sound support. It’s got a 1,200-watt power supply which gives you a ton of power and plenty of space for upgrades.

Probably the most interesting thing about the Maingear Shift is the case: it’s bland on the outside but highly complex and beautiful on the inside. The first thing you’ll see is the immaculate wiring job: Cables are tied down but they’re within easy reach for disconnecting components and swapping new parts in. It has six drive bays, each can hold either a 3.5-inch drive or two 2.5-inch drives. That basically means that you can install six 2-TB drives or even 12 SSDs if you budget can afford it. Maingear really knows their stuff! Installing or removing a drive is as simple as unlocking and sliding out the plastic tray, dropping your new drive in, attaching the appropriate cables and sliding the tray back into place. No tools required! It’s got an improvement heat management system: the liquid cooled CPU is aided by 3 large slow fans that pull the outside air into the case and blow it out through the top.

Wired asks is the Shift is worth seven grand? The components price out at about $4,480 leaving $2,450 for labor! That’s a lot of cash for building a system. The case does have an interesting design which adds a lot of overall value to the package. the package. The improved heat management means greater longevity for your parts. The case allow easy access to core components which also means that future upgrades will be a breeze.

Video Review

Vlad Savov over at Engadget just covered this story: Apple is updating their most power desktop this August. Rumors have been flying the last couple of months and (thank God) Apple has just verified them. So sometime in August you’ll be able to buy a dual-core CPU with 12 cores! The CPU will be the Intel which will run up to 3.33 GHz speeds (which can be Turbo boosted to 3.6 GHz), depending on the model chosen. The quad-core models are prices at $2,499 and eight-core machines will cost $3,499.

The most notable upgrade is the Radeon HD 5770 graphics card. You can pair these cards together for up to 1GB HD if you thirst for high frame rates. You can buy a machine that comes with up to 32GB of RAM, 4TB of conventional HDD storage, or an array of four 512GB SSDs. We’ll have to wait awhile for SSD drives to drop in price before seriously considering that option! Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s look into what Best Buy offers for the business professional. Best Buy’s Toshiba T235-S1352 is a great business laptop because it’s lightweight, has super long battery life, and is will adequately multitask with its peppy dual core processors. The T235-S1352 is has a 13.3″ LCD screen (1366 x 768 resolution) that can play 720p content. The machine comes with a 1.2GHz (Intel U5400) processor that and the Intel HD on-board graphics card; surprisingly it will play full blue ray/high def movies at 1080p. Inside you’ve got 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a larger 320GB (5400RPM SATA) hard drive. The battery life is now up to 8hours, 33 minutes; a definite improvement from the older generation. Also included is an integrated webcam/microphone set and a HDMI output for transmitting to a compatible HDTV set. Other specs include Multiformat media reader, Wireless N & WiFi, 4 USB ports (3 USB v2.0 ports and 1eSATA/USB combo), 1 VGA port, 1 HDMI output port, 1 headphone out and 1 microphone in jack. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit. The thing weighs 3.9 pounds and is a little over 1-inch thick.

The Toshiba T235-S1352 is now priced $579 at Best Buy. It’s a store item (not an outlet item) so you can buy it locally if it’s in stock.  Read the rest of this entry »

One thing’s for sure: Alienware really knows how to make an upper end gaming rig. This Alienware Area 51 (A51-2443CSB) Desktop is a top of line gaming and rendering machine. It’s processor is the Intel Core i7-920 which is one of today’s fastest four core cpu running at 2.66GHz. It also has a ripping ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card (1GB of memory), 6GB of (DDR3-1333) RAM, and a ginormous 1.2TB hard drive. Dave Dave Altavilla at HotHardware reviewed a similar Alienware desktop with just a slightly faster processor (3.33Ghz i7-980 X) and absolutely loved it. On DiRT2 the machine easily cranked out 133-135 fps at 1920×1200 with highest visuals enabled. Sweet.

Buying the Alienware 51 (A51-2443CSB) will cost you a lot of pretty pennies – about $2100 to be exact. You certainly get what you pay for though in terms of sheer power. It’s an outlet item which means that you’ll have to buy it online and have it shipped to the store. Read the rest of this entry »

And now on to an examination of Best Buy’s gaming laptops. The HP HPE-210y is their popular gaming desktop designed for the budget gamer. It’s got the AMD Phenom II quad-core processor humming along at 3.0GHz, 8GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM for excellent multitasking, and the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card which adequately handles games at low resolutions. The huge 1TB hard drive and Blue-ray Disc-enable DVD±RW/CD-RW drive are nice touches. It comes with Windows 7 Home Edition (64-Bit), wireless N networking, 7 USB ports, and a 15-in-1 media reader (aren’t those becoming extinct?).

The HP HPE-210Y is priced $899 at Best Buy. It’s a store item, not an outlet item. Yes! You can buy it at the local Best Buy store. Read the rest of this entry »

Before we move onto Best Buy’s desktops let’s take a look at one final gaming laptop. The Alienware M17X-2308MBK is designed for high performance portable gaming. Alienware has a reputation for producing high end gaming rigs with the fastest hardware available; the M17X-2308MBK is no exception! Inside you’ll find the Intel Core 2 (Q9000 (Penryn) which features 4 cores running at 2GHz. On the memory front there’s 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM installed which can be upgraded to 8GB. Your graphics card is the NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 260M which has 1GB dedicated video memory, 112 CUDA core, and runs at 1375 MHz.  The 500GB hard drive spins at 7200rpm and Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive has double-layer support. Other features include a wireless N/Gigabit LAN, 2 megapixel webcam, to 8-in-1 media reader, 4 high speed USB ports, and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. The operating system is Windows 7 64 bit edition. Overall weight is 11.68 pounds and battery life is up to 3 Hours, 26 minutes.

If you’re wanting this high end Alienware machine you’ll have to choke up some serious cash. The Asus G73JH-RBBX09 is priced $2,184.99 at Bestbuy.com. It is an outlet item which means that you’ll have to order it online from their outlet store. Read the rest of this entry »

Best Buy currently has 9 laptops that are designed for gaming. Their top gaming laptop is the Asus G72GX-RBBX05. It’s got a large 17.3″ LCD widescreen,  an (P8700)  Intel Core 2 CPU running at 2.53GHz, 6GB of (DDR2) RAM, and a 500GB (540000RPM) hard drive. It’s (nVidia GTX 260M 1GB) graphics card has enough power to handle most of today’s 3-D games. Everything else that comes with this system is pretty standard: Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW (dual layer) drive, 1.3MP webcame, 8-1 in media reader, wireless N, and gigabit networking. Windows 7 64 Bit Version is your operating system, overall weight is 8.8 pounds. Best Buy indicates that the battery life is 1 hour, 23 minutes…that’s pretty piss poor!

The Asus G73JH-RBBX09 is priced $999.99 at Bestbuy.com. It’s not an outlet item which means that you should be able to buy it at your local store. Read the rest of this entry »

Our Best Buy journey has begun! This month we’re taking a close look at Best Buy’s most popular desktops, laptops, and notebooks. We’ll begin our foray by looking at their most popular gaming laptops.

The Asus G73JH-RBBX09 is the one of the top selling gaming laptops at Best Buy. If you’re looking for a large screen laptop that has oomph to play any of today’s 3-D games this is it. It’s got a larger 17.3-inch LCD which everybody seems to love, an ultra powerful quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (720QM), and a ferocious 8GB of GDDR5 memory. Look under the hood at the Graphics card and you’ll find the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. This graphics card is today’s most powerful video card for mobile computing. Gamers say it plays Modern Warfare 2 and Crysis on maximum settings “like a hot knife through butter.” Also inside is a 1TB hard drive (7200rpm) and Windows 7 (64 Bit Version). The think  weighs 7.5 pounds and is 2.2″ thin. Unfortunately all this power does come at a price: battery life is just under 2 hours.

The Asus G73JH-RBBX09 is priced $1,429.99 at Bestbuy.com as an Outlet item. Since it ships from their warehouse you’ll have to wait 1-3 days for it to arrive at your local Best Buy store. Read the rest of this entry »

Take a good look at both stores: Best Buy and Circuit City. For many years both were extremely successful electronics stores. Despite the economy Best Buy has continued to grow while Circuit City ultimately  closed all their retail stores in March of 2009. Why did Circuit City fail while Best Buy succeed? Let’s dig in. Read the rest of this entry »