Building your own PC is a test of patience and fortitude where selecting the right components and avoiding the various pitfalls attached to certain configurations is key to avoiding long hours of troubleshooting….or you could put one together out of pre-selected parts.

Nvidia is rolling out their very own GeForce PC Kit which ships with an Nvidia themed case, GeForce  9800GT graphics card, and all of the other components you’ll need in order to put together a decently quick PC all at a decent $499USD price tag. Of course it all seems like a TigerDirect package Nvidia has approved and hopped on board.

There are some trade offs hardware wise (250GB hard drive is very undersized) and as far as an OS is concerned you’re on your own but, for the most part, it’s not a bad computer for a first time builder.

Source: Nvidia GeForce PC Kit

LAN gaming used to be a niche market powered entirely by tasty snacks and caffeine fortified drinks, thankfully the innovations  have been shrunken down into even smaller and more portable dimensions without the annoying sugar crash.

CyberPower has updated its LAN Mini H2o V2 PC lineup with a slew of new CPU and storage options, think SSD, all anchored by the DFI LANParty MI P55-T36 miniITX motherboard. You can expect some high powered hardware in their small Silverstone SST-SG05 PC case thanks to the optional Asetek LCLC CPU water cooler.

Pricing starts at $999USD which should slide you into a comfortably fast and small gaming rig.

Intel’s Core i3 processor is something of a value chip lineup but just because it sports fewer cores doesn’t mean it’s a performance slouch.

CyberPower is harnessing the chip for its Gamer Xtreme lineup starting with their 1000 model coming in with a base price of $649 all the way up to their decked out 6000 series which sports an ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card and a Blu-ray player starting at $1489.

The cheaper chip option may just make that gaming rig much more affordable and, with a bit of that overclocking spirit, a mighty quick machine.

Touch-screens are at a bit of a cross-roads. Gadgets are a logical place for the functionality given their user-friendly approach but in the PC realm there aren’t exactly many shining examples of the technology being implemented.

The MSI Wind-Top AE2220-25SUS hopes to change all of that with its All-in-One design sporting a peppy Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and that touch-screen you’ve been pining for. Benchmark Reviews has the full story:

The small footprint doesn’t just shelter a 1080p HDTV LCD display, it also incorporates touch-screen functionality along with an integrated HD web cam and high-fidelity 5.1-channel SRS Premium Sound. Blu-ray Discs can be played back from the MSI Wind Top AE2220, and a digital tuner is also built-in for receiving over-the-air HD broadcasts allowing the DVR functionality within Microsoft Windows 7. Ideal for every workspace conceivable, the dual-core 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor handles compute tasks and 4GB of DDR2 system memory ensure there’s no delay in program responsiveness, while a 500GB hard drive offers high-capacity storage space for saved data and recorded audio or video multimedia.

Quite nifty specs wise with the distinctive feel of a PC for the study/office.

Gaming rigs tend to target that absolute high end of the market where only the best components reside and custom paint jobs bump the system price up 25%, fortunately for you there are some sensible ways to go about things.

Digital Storm has cooked up an Intel Core i5 based gaming system that makes fine use of overclocking to bring astounding speeds all at a reasonable price. HotHardware has the review:

The relatively pedestrian quad-core has, in this case, been punched up to 3.8GHz from the factory. DS claims that the processors it ships in this configuration have been certified to operate “100% Stability and Reliability.” We’ll test that claim later in the review. It’s worth noting that the company doesn’t actually guarantee any single clockspeed if you opt to have the processor factory overclocked. For $45, the company will overclock the CPU to 3.3-3.9GHz, while $199 buys you entry in the 4GHz+ club.

A monster overclock all with a factory warranty, a bargain at any price!

VIA’s Nano platform has the low-power pedigree for the sorts of computers you’d want to cram into small places but its video options left something to be desired…well mostly everything.

The company has now announced its VN1000 northbridge chipset which integrates the VIA Chrome 520 graphics core that’s capable of decoding Blu-ray and other high definition content.

No word yet on its release date.

Source: VIA

Apple’s workstation/professional level series of desktop wouldn’t stay very competitive if it stuck around with old computer gear now would it?

The company has added Intel’s 3.33GHz “Xeon” processor to its single CPU lineup which should speed up those Mac-like tasks quite a bit over the old 400MHz slower chip that was previously the top processor speed on their platform.

For you storage fiends out there they’ve also added in a 2TB drive option, handy for you video editing types. Interesting although their $550 per price tag is a bit on the high side.

Source: AppleInsider

Shuttle can be credited with making the small form factor computer popular, what with their diminutive designs that took the latest and greatest components and rearranged them in such a way that they’d fit comfortably in such cramped quarters.

The new Shuttle XPC SX58H7 supports Intel’s Core i7 processors which is quite the powerful chip for such a small space. DriverHeaven has the full review:

Shuttle has certainly packed a significant amount into the SX58H7, even in its “empty” state there is very little free space. Looking at the system through the left side we can see the two CrossFire/SLI capable PCIe 16x slots at the nearest edge. In the top down view it is possible to see the copper heatsink which runs from the ICH 10R Southbridge (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) to the X58 Northbridge. Between the two chipsets is CPU location, a 1366 socket which supports all I7-900 series CPUS and over to the right we have three SATA II connectors, IDE port and front panel connections.  Looking through the right side of the system we can see four memory slots which work in triple channel at speeds up to 1600MHz and a capacity of 16 GB.

A powerful system although you may have a bit of trouble getting one of the latest high-end graphics cards into it due to power requirements.

The the ever shrinking computer got a little more stylish today with Dell’s launch of the Inspiron Zino HD in the US. While you might mistake it as some Intel Atom sporting nettop the machine actually sports much more robust AMD processor options.

The machine offers up configuration options of single or dual core chips, integrated ATI graphics or a dedicated GPU with 512MB of video memory for those Blu-ray playing builds, two eSATA ports, and a slew of colors to choose from.

Their pricing starts at $229 which is a bargain for a PC you can stick just about anywhere.

Source: Dell

As awesome as it is to get your media files, or any file, accessible all around your house most retail solutions will have you dropping quite a bit of cash for something with very little storage.

The VIA ARTiGO A2000 barebones kit will get you up and running quickly, you’ll just have to supply it with a bit of storage, memory, and an OS then off you go. TechwareLabs has the review:

One of the major and often overlooked problems in home servers is data security. Since home movies, pictures and multimedia are things that are generally accessed on a day to day basis, one tends to make the “accessing” process as easy and simple as possible thereby throwing any kind of security out of the window. Well consider this, the same drive that those pictures are stored at could also be the storing place for the credit card and other type of sensitive information that you wouldn’t want people accessing. StrongBox 4.0 by VIA is a securing program that takes advantage of the Via’s Pad Lock cryptographic engine to create a virtual drive secured by a 256 bit AES encryption. The Drive can be locked and unlocked by right clicking the virtual drive and selecting the appropriate option. This makes the drive secure while also giving the user the desired ease of use.

Secure and easy to use, a nice system for all of the file fiends out there.