Introduction

The world of high end computing is nothing new to gaming enthusiasts, who have been living in the realm of the technological elite for years. These individuals know their systems inside and out, often better than many top technicians in corporate America. This crowd was the group that cringed when they heard the slogan "Dude, you're getting a Dell." That's not meant as a slight against Dell; the company makes high quality machines for the office and home, as well as elite gaming notebooks. And at CES they even announced a proposed platform with Quad-SLI - four graphics processors working together as one - due sometime in the first quarter. However, standard PCs from folks like Dell aren't usually what top gamers are after.

In fact, it wasn't until recently that Dell and many other companies began to realize that the high end niche market has many people with money to burn on premium hardware. Even better for these companies is the fact that these folks often make repeat purchases from vendors they trust.

I am one of these enthusiasts at heart; I have been messing around with computers ever since the day my father brought home an IBM 5150. A green screen and hours of stick figures doing the "Decathlon" or other cheesy games fueled my passion for these new and exciting techno-wonders called computers. The only difference between those days and now is that today I am privileged to share my technological adventures with others who are as passionate about the subject as I am.

Background For The Article

We were approached by Redmond Magazine to share with their readers (in the January 2006 issue) the latest and greatest gaming PCs that the market had to offer. Naturally, we decided to take what we learned during that testing and share it with our readers. For those of you who read our articles regularly, you will find some of the explanations elementary; bear with us though, as it has been a while since we have had something oriented towards the entry level.

Initially, Redmond asked us to build a system with the newest technologies; however, we felt it would be better to find the best system integrators and let them showcase their talents. The choice of whom to procure systems from was a relatively easy decision, and if you are an avid reader of Tom's Hardware, you should know the answer.

In the world of high performance automobiles there are the Corvettes and Porsches, but only a few companies that build each car by hand like Ferrari and Lamborghini. The same is true for high performance in the gaming space. The Alienwares and Dells have their place in the world, but for that "from the ground up specialization" factor, enthusiast elites deal with premier system builders like Falcon Northwest and All American Computers.