What is the PC Perspective HW Leaderboard? The PC Perspective Hardware Leaderboard is going to become the first place you look to find the components that will make up your next computer. On this page you will find our editor's combined opinions on the best systems you can build based on three different budgets. You can expand each of the systems (High End, Mid-Range and Budget) to show you all the components that we believe represent the best products in their price ranges.

Why a Leaderboard? We like the idea of a Leaderboard because it presents a no non-sense way of looking at the best hardware available. On this page, you won't find paragraph after paragraph telling you why this processor is better than that processor. Instead you'll find the quick and dirty on our editor's choices for the best hardware you can get. No beating around the bush here. Of course, if you still want to get our full and detailed opinions on various hardware, you can look through our reviews page. But the HW Leaderboard is going to give you our final decisions in one quick look.

Updated Aug 18, 2010:

Along with the PCPer HWLB its self, you can also head to the PCPer Hardware Leaderboard forum! This forum is where you can discuss my selections and offer your own suggestions.  It is also the place for you to talk about the new system build you are working on even if it's NOT based on anything here. 

Our Dream System's CPU is not quite so new anymore but the 6 core 3.33GHz Core i7 980X is still the performance king.  This is an incredibly expensive chip, but it is currently the best 6 core processor available by a long shot.  The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Extreme is (more or less) extinct so the GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R gets a chance to show off its support for the latest storage interfaces.  Our graphics subsystem is protean as always, three HD 5870's have been trumped by a pair of GTX 280's as the price has come down quite nicely, making the 280's a better deal.  If you are willing to purchase one of the few and incredibly expensive motherboards that can do three 16x PCIe cards at full bandwidth, keep in mind that three GTX 280's pass the point of diminishing returns and you will see very little return for the extra $459.  Sandforce is a very welcome addition, in part thanks to the extra 20% of storage space now available for it but also for the sheer speed this controller offers. 12GB of DDR3-1800 comes back into the recommended build thanks to a drop in price and the ability of the new Windows to take advantage of that amount of system memory. 

There is also an alternative Dream System, the system so powerful it has gone to plaid!  The price increases by an additional 50% but you will be running a dualie and 4 graphics cards at 16x speeds.

The new High End system shares its motherboard with the Dream Machine meaning anything in the Dream Machine can be installed into your existing system giving you a great template for an upgrade path. Pick up a second set of Corsair's DDR3-1600 and slap in a second GTX480 and you will be gaming in style.  You can use nVIDIA's nVIEW for multiple monitors and 3D Vision to add depth to the extra width!

Our Mid-Range System recommendation underwent some big changes with the advent of Lynnfield and now it is changing up again.  The low end of Intel's new unlocked K series chips, the i5-655K offers incredible overclocking potential for anyone will to try it.  The new P55 motherboard that houses your components comes from Gigabyte; their 2oz copper design and dual-BIOS features are impressive and native USB 3.0 support ensures you can use the fastest external storage available!  The move to a P55 board also necessitates a change in DDR3 choice, in this case Corsair provides 4GB of dual channel DDR3-1600. 

The Budget Leaderboard's Athlon II X4 635 will give you four cores of processing power on a budget and will run rings around previous generations of AMD CPUs in BOINC and Folding@Home applications.  The GIGABYTE GA-770T-USB3 has a price just under the $100 mark and offers a feature set that is brilliant at the price and now that USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s components are more common it makes sense to be able to take advantage of them.  The HD5670 is still a very viable GPU for use as an HTPC and it can handle light gaming if you keep the resolution reasonable and the price just keeps getting lower.  As with all of the HD5xxx the series of cards a second or third display is possible although I would recommend that for productivity or browsing and not so much for gaming.  The sale on Corsair's XMS3 Xtreme Performance RAM is back, though not quite as cheap as it has been in the past 2GB of DDR3-1333 is well worth it.

That's it for this month readers! Don't forget to drop by the Hardware Leaderboard forum to share your comments!

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Dream System Leaderboard

Estimated Cost: $3149

High End System Leaderboard

Estimated Cost: $1757

Mid Range System Leaderboard

Estimated Cost: $911

Budget System Leaderboard

Estimated Cost: $448