F you want to play state-of-the art computer games in all their glory, not just any computer will do. You need the fastest processor, the best graphics card and the ultimate sound card, plus enough fans and ductwork to keep it all from frying.
You are not likely to find the ultimate PC at the typical electronics store. But those looking for a serious gaming machine do have several companies to turn to.
Companies like Falcon Northwest and Hypersonic offer systems with names like Mach V and Sonic Boom that promise to be the last word - for the moment - in PC gaming. The buyer can customize the machine by selecting components from a list or just go with the default choices. The concept is familiar to anyone who has bought a customized computer from Dell. But unlike the biggest computer vendors, these companies claim expertise in the ways of gaming, strive to offer the latest, fastest components available, and dress up their machines with a style that matches their speed.
With prices comparable to Dell's, Alienware is the choice for gamers on a budget. Its most expensive system, the Area 51, costs a little more than $2,000 uncustomized, wrapping in such goodies as a 3.0-gigahertz Pentium 4 processor, a 128-megabyte ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card and an Audigy 2 sound card but not the monitor or speakers. This is substantially less than any other gaming-machine maker charges for a similarly equipped system. But despite its relatively low prices, Alienware produces PC's with speed and performance comparable to those of their pricier competitors.
Alienware has gone all out to create a distinctive look, putting its PC in a huge plastic case that looks something like an Art Deco locomotive. A small alien head with glowing eyes adorns the PC's front door, and grilles on the sides glow when the computer is turned on.
At the other end of the price spectrum is Voodoo. Its F-class PC costs $4,200 uncustomized, even though it comes with less powerful components than the Area 51, using a Radeon 9700 and 2.80-gigahertz Pentium 4. For those willing to pay more, faster components are available, whereas choosing slower components takes the price down a bit.
Rahul Sood, Voodoo's president, describes his company as "the Ferrari of gaming" and says it uses only the components best suited for a gaming machine, regardless of price. The customization page at the Voodoo Web site does not even indicate whether selecting a particular component will increase or decrease the final price of the unit; Voodoo operates on the assumption that its customers are not concerned with cost.
Voodoo goes the distance to impress, with a huge, beautifully painted case. The computer is delivered in a straw-packed crate, and when it is removed, an electronic device attached to the box plays a brief fanfare. All of the specialized gaming computers come with binders containing information on the computer, but Voodoo's binder comes in a big vinyl pouch that can be zipped shut.
Falling between Alienware's low-priced aesthetic and Voodoo's sky's-the-limit approach are Falcon Northwest and Hypersonic. Both companies use cases from Cooler Master, which are smaller than the cases used by Voodoo and Alienware; barring customization, they are indistinguishable except for the logos. Falcon and Hypersonic offer straightforward rectangular computers that stand apart from typical PC's only because they use the same auto-body paint applied by Voodoo.
Falcon, in business since 1992, is generally acknowledged as the pioneer of the gaming PC concept. Hypersonic was founded in 1997, a year after Alienware. It is the newest player and the company most likely to be ignored in gaming machine roundups; the other three are sometimes referred to as the Big Three, and Hypersonic has yet to persuade gamers to make that the Big Four.
All of these companies' top-of-the-line machines deliver performance that lets you play your games without compromise. Software settings for textures, shadows and specialized sound processing can all be set to maximum without noticeable effect on the game's speed, and there will be none of the slowdowns and stutters experienced on less powerful systems. There are likely to be some differences in speed based on configuration, the effectiveness of the cooling system and other technical considerations, but such differences will probably only be noticed when the user is running a battery of speed tests than when playing a game.
