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!

Graphics cards tend to be very temperature sensitive which puts a bit of a crimp in the overclocking and tweaking plans of many of use out there, reference coolers just can’t seem to keep up.

TestSeek Labs has a look at the Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5750 which does away with the reference design in favor of their own finely tuned cooling solution:

The cooling solution occupies a double slot which may be a disadvantage because this card must be rated as a medium range card and many users prefer single slot cards in this segment. AMD/ATI sets the overall rules from which the manufacturers can build their cards and they often leave rather small margins which I guess must be the reason why I have yet to see a 5750 single slot card.

It’s not like you’ll be using any slot underneath a video card anyway, don’t want to preheat it with another card’s heat output…yes we’re a little obsessed with keeping stuff cool.

Gaming requires a whole host of skill sets if you want to last even a few minutes against your opponent. You’ve got your hand-eye coordination, strategic mindset, and when you’ve exhausted all possible avenues to victory the good old kamikaze mission is in order. With so much to practice your skills on who has time to build their own PC?

PureOC has a look at the iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC V2 gaming system that pairs together some modest gaming hardware which results in a rather speedy system to plow through games with:

A closer look reveals the motherboard is a LGA1156 Gigabyte P55-UD5, a very nice choice, with solid BIOS features and enough slots and overclocking/tweaking options to keep an enthusiast pleased. The Gigabyte board houses a Core i7 870, the flagship Socket 1156 CPU offered by Intel. This chip is not cheap, and it is fast. In fact, iBUYPOWER has overclocked the i7 870 here to an impressive 3.8GHz from a stock 2.93GHz. The CPU is cooled by an Asetek LCLC 240mm radiator (slim profile) liquid cooling setup, an excellent choice, offering a much quieter setup than a high performance air cooler. Seeing a liquid cooling setup in a custom-painted case, particularly when you bring it to a LAN party, is pretty special. You’ll be sure to get all the attention with this combination.

Perhaps a single, more powerful, graphics card in the build would’ve sufficed but it’s a slick gaming computer for a low price.

As far as boutique gaming systems are concerned there’s no one more famous than Alienware and their pursuit of the high end. Of course they’re only a choice if you don’t have the time and patience to build your own gaming system, but you’re an enthusiast and want things built your way right?

HotHardware has a review of the Alienware Aurora ALX and its Radeon HD 5870 CrossFire graphics crunching setup. It’s mighty fast:

As we saw in our preview article, the Aurora ALX is powered by Intel’s Core i7 975 processor running at 3.33GHz and features a custom X58 microATX motherboard. The 975 is Intel’s fastest and most powerful desktop CPU in its entire line up, though it is also the most expensive. For cooling duties, Alienware installed a 120mm singe radiator liquid cooling solution on top of the processor. And installed on the board is 6GB of Corsair Dominator memory running at DDR3-1600MHz at 8-8-8-24 timings. There is a ton of fast storage available as we find two 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration at the bottom of the case. Last but not least, the highlight of the system are the dual ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards running in CrossFire.

It’s on the pricey side so you’re going to have to pay for that performance, on the other hand you won’t have to tweak it in order to get the speed.

Ah mobile gaming. The niche where players will dispose of sizable amounts of income to get a competitive edge no matter where in the world they are. It’s an arena filled with impressive specs and a good dose of lap burning.

AnandTech has a look at the AVADirect Clevo D900F, Eurocom M980NU XCaliber, and Clevo W870CU gaming notebooks and their performance in various gaming situations:

Besides performance, there are obviously differences in terms of chassis, features, and pricing. The W870CU is the cheapest of the three notebooks, starting at around $2150 and coming with moderately high-end options for around $2900. The D900F and M980NU both start at closer to $2500, with typical configurations ranging from $3000 up to $3500. If you want to start putting in multiple SSDs, you can of course get prices that scale into the $5000+ range.

Pricey? Undoubtedly, but you can’t beat their performance while on the go.

The issue with gaming notebooks tends to be the massive footprint required to cram in all of the hardware leading to 17″ machines that are better off tethered to a desk than resting comfortably on your lap.

Legit Reviews has a look at the Asus G51Vx gaming notebook that manages to combine a nice array of hardware all into a 15.6″ machine:

The ASUS G51Vx is also equipped with a backlit the keyboard that detects the amount of ambient light and allows gamers to control the brightness of the keyboard to suit their needs.  Also, ASUS included an incredible bundle for ultimate experience on the G51Vx! Coming in at a cool $1594 at the time of writing this, you can see that ASUS built this with the gaming enthusiast in mind.  This isn’t for the budget-minded consumer, but it is not going to break the bank, either!

Considering the quality hardware in the machine that’s quite a low price for potent gaming power on the go.

Notebooks have, in the past, lagged their desktop counterparts by quite a bit in most every single category from storage to graphics and, most importantly, processor performance. Thankfully some fancy engineering has  brought an amazing level of performance to the mobile world.

The Tech Report has a look at the Clevo W870CU laptop which sports Intel’s mighty fine Core i7 920XM processor. It’s fast:

I’m a sucker for good driving games, and GRID is one of the best on the PC. The Clevo easily handled maximum in-game detail levels with 8X antialiasing, never dipping below 47 FPS. Heck, I’d even play the game with 16X CSAA, which delivered between 41 and 57 FPS. Pushing to the highest 16xQ CSAA mode dropped frame rates into the 30s, which is a little low for driving, at least for my tastes.

You won’t be mobile with the monstrous system but you can certainly get your gaming on.

While we’d all like to own the top of the line when it comes to hardware and the like sometimes you’ll settle for the lower cost option because you really don’t need all of that power or the budget is set lower than you’d want. That doesn’t mean you can’t get your game on.

Test Freaks has a look at the iBuyPower Corei5 gaming computer which puts together a competent set of hardware for your gaming needs all at an acceptable price:

Before we get into the comparison, I wanted to touch on the Express Gate Asus Splashtop. It’s a nice feature so you can get some stuff done, without actually having to boot into windows, the entire OS is right on the board itself. I’m not going to go into it all as it’s been covered many other places in depth but it’s a very useful, and quick to do quite a few things.

Heck their test system even includes a built-in OS should you want to do some basic web browsing without the tedious operating system load up.

What you see before you is Asetek’s custom made liquid cooling kit doing its job on Dell’s new Alienware Aurora PC. That should go a long way to cooling off their gaming rigs without all of that extra fan noise needed to keep those Intel Core i7 processors running cool.

Then again their northbridge seems to be sporting a 40mm fan which just about kills off any benefits.

Gaming laptops have typically come in one form: large and obnoxious looking. As well as they perform sometimes you just don’t want to proclaim your tendency to game to the general public, not that you could as they’re more like desktop replacements than actual portable machines.

Dell has taken things down a notch with their Studio XPS 16 notebook, offering up a more palatable set of color schemes making for a sensible looking machine. HotHardware has a review:

In fact, the machine looks so good that it’s easy to forget that it’s not exactly the thinnest or lightest machine on the block. Now, it’s certainly nimble enough for most, and we’re actually impressed with the overall look and feel considering its screen size. Also, the added room enabled Dell to install a full-size keyboard, more powerful speakers, a 1080p panel and a potent 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon 4670 GPU, which is admittedly the star of the system.

A nice machine but, for the price, they could toss in a battery that actually lasted a decent amount of time.