Buyer's Guide: High-End Systems - June 2001

Introduction

You do the research on the products. You read all the reviews. You even discuss with friends. But even with all that information, building a perfect, personalized system from scratch can be quite a daunting task. With that in mind, it's no surprise that we've had request after request to provide some system recommendations.

With the third edition of the AnandTech Buyer's Guide, we changed things a little bit, splitting the Buyer's Guide into two parts, one for value systems and the other for high-end ones. Despite the slight format change, we continue to provide some system recommendations in 3 categories - small office / home office (SOHO), gaming, and professional. Remember that these are just a few recommendations from us if we were building the systems. Obviously, each individual's needs will vary greatly, but that's the beauty of building a custom system - it can be tailored to fit those special needs.

Every component, from the motherboard to the case to the monitor, is covered for each system. Sample prices based on a review of popular vendors and price search engines across the web are included as well - these are not the very lowest prices you can find on the web, but rather are intended to be representative of what's out there. Don't forget to check out our latest Weekly CPU & Video Card Price Guide as well as our Weekly Memory & Motherboard Price Guide for the lowest prices from reputable vendors on those components.

Note that shipping is not included in the prices listed here, but can add up to 5-10% to the total system cost, depending exactly what you get, where you order from, etc. To minimize shipping costs, order as many components as possible from a single vendor or buy things locally where possible. Especially good deals can often be found in the AnandTech Hot Deals Forum where AnandTech readers regularly post good deals they find. An OS recommendation is included, but that price is not included in the total system price listed. Note that by buying a motherboard, you may qualify to purchase an OEM version of the OS which can save you a good bit in this department.

Components that are not readily obtainable at the time of publication are automatically out of the running for any system in the Buyer's Guide. Where possible, we've linked to reviews of the individual products on AnandTech for more in depth information.