It is no surprise that the Core i7-3960X still powers the Dream Machine since Intel has not released a faster processor.  The CPU marks a return to Intel's flagship CPU costing $1000 so it does raise the price but that is the premium you pay to get the best.  Its stock speed is 3.3GHz or 3.9GHz Turbo can be pushed higher as this part is unlocked.

Still no sign of EVGA's newly announced the Classified SR-X so no X79 chipset for the duallie machine.  The Extreme Machine still sports a pair of Xeon X5650s @ 2.66 GHz for $1004 each.  There are faster Westmere Xeons, but do you really want to pay a premuim of $655 each for a 800MHz speed bump and nothing else?

A new CPU socket needs a new motherboard and MSI has a great one on offer.  The new Socket 2011 MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) board sports three PCIe 3.0 slots, a pair of x16 and a single x8 as well as a pair of PCIe 2.0 1x slots.  For peripherals you get 4 SATA 6Gb/s and 4 SATA 3Gb/s ports, a PS/2 combo port, 8 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0 ports and even a IEEE 1394 port.  For an extra $30 you can get the Frio Adv version which comes with a $50 Thermaltake Frio cooler.

For the Xeon X5650s, it is still the $580 EVGA Classified SR-2 until the SR-X arrives, with dual LGA1366 sockets for Xeons only, not Core i7's don't work in multiples nor will their coolers fit over these sockets. You can have up to 4 PCIe graphics cards all running at 16x, if you slap in a fifth then they all cut back to 8x and getting that 5th card to work, even as a PhysX processor is probably going to be difficult.  Total cost of motherboard and CPUs for that option has now hit $2588 and we haven't even touched the GPUs yet.

The brand new AMD HD 7970 is taking the world by storm, offering performance far above the GTX580 for about the same price, which makes it an obvious choice.  This month sees only one reseller who still has stock at NewEgg, which puts Sapphire on the Dream leaderboard.  As you can see from Ryan's review, the card is very impressive and does represent the fastest GPU on the planet.

The dual CPU machine obviously deserves dual GPUs, now bringing that system total to $3708.

Welcome to the world of quad channel memory support on the X79 chipset, a benchmarkers dream but not quite so effective in the real world. Patriot is offering an incredible deal this month where you can get 16GB of their Extreme Performance DDR3 1600MHz DIMMs with 9-9-9-24 timings for $65 after rebate. With two of these kits you have 32GB of system RAM and can think of turning some of it into a RAM drive.  If you though SSDs were fast you owe it to yourself to spend some time playing around with that tweak.

The Extreme system stays with Corsair's 12GB DDR3 2000 kit for $150 at NewEgg and makes up in speed what you are missing in channels.  That takes the price to $4008 after giving your system 24GB of RAM to play with.

OCZ's Vertex 3's are hitting the shelves and helping crank up the price of the Dream Machine even more.  Who needs Intel's SRT which is implemented on the new Z68 boards when you can have 240GB of storage that can saturate the new version of SATA?  Take Al's word for it, you can't get faster than this unless you are running one of the PCIe SSD drives he has reviewed recently.

It does make Intel's SRT feature a little redundant, but considering the price of platter based HDDs right now that may be a good thing.

Since we lose out on the bundled soundcard from last month it is the ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 which appears for this month. Not only can it handle 7.1 speakers it has a built in headphone amp for you audiophiles with high end cans.

If you need solid power with independent +12V rails @ up to 80A combined load along with six PCI-E connectors, consider Corsair's HX1050W. It has an 80+ Silver rating which should keep your power bills reasonably under control and still have no trouble powering your Dream Rig.  Make sure to claim the $10 MIR as well.

You will need to go even bigger if you are looking at the ultimate in ridiculously powerful systems, perhaps the $350 SILVERSTONE ST1500 1500W PSU as you have little choice in the way of PSUs at that wattage rating. That brings the Extreme Machine to an oddly round sum of $4844 to build, not including taxes or an XL-ATX case to house the components.

It would have been nice to be able to replace the i7-2600K with the new Sandy Bridge E i7-3820 but it does not seem to be in stock anywhere which presents a problem.  It is a slightly better deal than the 2700K, which will cost you $370 to pick up.  The 2600K is capable of hitting 4.5GHz without much effort, so the small frequency difference between the two chips can be ignored for anyone willing to spend a few minutes to overclock the chip.

The previous addition of an Intel mSATA drive to fully take advantage of Intel's SRT SSD cache caused some confusion, with some Forum members disappointed the motherboard chosen didn't come with an integral mSATA slot.  This month Gigabyte helps make it very easy to do, with their GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD motherboard which has a built in 20GB Intel SSD.  On top of that are the ever important paired PCIe 16x slots as well as quite a few others, SATA 6/Gbps and USB 3.0 are also available and an HDMI port ensures Virtu can be used.  You will even have a hybrid UEFI-like BIOS to tweak your settings.

It is sad to see the ZOTAC AMP! ZT-50702-10M GeForce GTX 560 go out of stock as the overclock on these cards was truly impressive, however that means a new card gets a chance in the High End system.  In this case it is the newly released GTX 565 GTX 560 Ti 448 Core, specifically the overclocked EVGA Classified model.  Its core is clocked at 797MHz, the shaders at 1594MHz and the GDDR5 3.9GHz which is significantly higher than the model Ryan reviewed.  Based on the same chip as the GTX580 and 570 though with less CUDA cores enable, you can expect great performance at resolutions of 1920x1200 and above.

Check out the deal Corsair has for you right now, a pair of 4GB DDR-1600 @ 9-9-9-24 for $48, with a $10 MIR that makes this RAM an incredible value.  It doesn't sport fins or a fancy colour scheme, what it does provide is a huge pool of memory for your 64bit OS to allocate without any pain to your wallet.   Feel crazy?  Pick up a pair of these kits!

If you want a WD Caviar Black 1.5TB HDD, you can pick it up for $180 if you are willing to pay that.  Otherwise the Seagate Barracuda 1TB is a much better buy and with the Gigabyte board's 20GB SSD you might be impressed at how quickly your machine runs. It is at a slow pace, but the price of HDDs are dropping and the availability is rising.

Pick it up at NewEgg and they will toss in a DVD burner for free.

If you really still feel the need for a soundcard, there is probably a reason for it.  Gaming, movies, chat and most other common audio tasks can now be filled by your motherboards onboard chipset and without any noticeable hit to your CPU.  That rules out entry level audio cards but perhaps the Creative Sound BlasterX-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro will be able to provide the extra options you desire.

Last months Antec High Current Gamer HCG-750 is out of stock so we will be replacing it with another one of Lee's favoured PSUs, the Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W.  It came of the testing table with good ratings for efficiency and stablity, plus Corsair's 5 year warranty will cover you for quite a while.  With the mail in rebate it is only $85 and NewEgg will also toss in free shipping.

The Intel Core i5 2500K is still pretty much the best buy in CPUs going.  The default clock is 3.3GHz but with a little work you can get this unlocked CPU even higher if you want to put in the work or take advantage of the built in overclocking options on the motherboard.  The onboard HD3000 will let you jump back and forth between your discreet GPU and the one onboard your 2500K, handy for those who do video encoding and game at the same time.  The next step up, the Core i7-2600, will cost you another $80 or $90 for the unlocked model.

It is a sad fact that MSI has retired their Z68A-G43 (B3) motherboard as it offered an incredible value.  That lets Gigabyte steal a spot on the Mid-range Leaderboard with the GA-Z68M-D2H, chosen over competitors because of its full speed PCIe 16x slot as well as HDMI out.  It is a microATX board, which will also open up some possibilities for system builders to create a PC with a very small footprint, just remember you will be installing a full size graphics card.  Gigabyte has also included some nice features such as Touch BIOS and extended Smart Response Technology.

The ZOTAC AMP! ZT-50702-10M GeForce GTX 560 has become extinct so a new overclocked GTX 560 must be found to replace it and Sparkle has stepped up.  Their Calibre Series X560 DF has a core speed of 930MHz, a shader clock of 1860MHz and its memory is running at 4488MHz.  It does cost $10 more than teh Zotac model but there is also a $20 MIR which makes it cheaper than its predecessor if you take the time to claim it.

With the price savings from some of the other components you can splurge a bit on your RAM.  1600MHz is a decent speed, paying for a higher end kit on the Mid-Range machine is not the best investement of your money.  Insteak pick up the Corsair Vengeance 4GB PC3-12800 kit which has timings of 9-9-9-24, which runs at 1.5V.  That means the the overclocker in you has some headroom to play with.

The HDD shortage is starting to abate a bit, bringing prices down somewhat but nowhere near the levels we became accustomed to last year.  Hitachi wins the spot this month with a 1TB Deskstar.  $140 could get you a small SSD but that would leave you with little storage space though it could be a brilliant upgrade down the road.

If you prefer last months suggestion of Creative's 7.1 Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium you can still grab it but it has gone up to $82.  Instead this month it is their X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 which takes up a PCIe 1x slot in this months Mid-range build.  It might not have a snazzy black PCB but it does have quite a few of the features of the Titianium and costs nearly half as much.

Lee's review of the Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 PSU demostrates what a good mid-range PSU chould do.  An 80+ Bronze rating helps the power bills, a single 12V rail helps your stability, 4 PCIe connectors make SLI or Crossfire easy and a five year warranty will ensure you can use this PSU without worry.  No wonder this PSU walked away with a Gold Award.

This month a $10 MIR drops the price to $95; it's not that we support MIR here at PC Perspective but if it is all that is around, make sure you take the effort to mail it in.  If a high enough percentage of people do it makes it more expensive for a vendor to maintain a rebate mechanism than to just offer the savings at the till.

If you are building a machine that needs to be inexpensive to the point where you can't spend even $80 on a GPU but plan on gaming then you could consider the A8-3850 and motherboard.  However you'd likely be better served with a Llano based notebook for the same price and have portability to boot.

Do not let the cheaper price of the i3 2120 fool you, it is only the Core i3 2105 with HD3000 graphics.  The performance benefit over HD2000 is significant and well worth the extra $5 and megahertz sacrifice.  Intel gets the win in this category for general computing as well as Virtu and the possiblity of using Intel`s SRT to see the systems performance increase across the board using an inexpensive SSD.  If you are concerned about power and heat, for $135 you can get the i3-2120T with a max TDP of 35W.

This month offers a bit of a conundrum as the Biostar board has increased in price by $15.  The ASRock Z68M/USB board is only $85 but possess only a single PCIe 16x slot.  That is why the BIOSTAR TZ68A+ is still preferred as it has two PCIe x16 slots, though one runs at x4.  Four SATA ports and a pair of SATA 6Gps ports give you flexibility in your storage and eight USB 2.0 and a pair of USB 3.0 ports should handle your peripherals.  HDMI and VGA outputs round off the board and give you access to Virtu.

There is lots of movement in the low end of the GPU spectrum; while the GPU its self remains the same we have been seeing a different vendor each month thanks to changing MIRs.  This month XFX gets the nod as when you include the MIR the card will only cost you $65 and it comes with free software from AMD.  This card won't win a benchmarking competition for you but it will get you good enough performance for moderate gaming.

A pair of 2GB Corsair XMS3 Xtreme Performance DIMMs would run you $33 right now for DDR3 1333MHz @ 9-9-9-24. That is impressive, but what if you could pick up a pair of Corsair Vengeance 2GB DDR3-1600 DIMMs @ 9-9-9-24 for $25?

Hard drive prices are falling again, but not terribly quickly.  Two months ago for $110 you could purchase a 500GB drive, last month it wsa 750GB and this month you can get a full terabyte for $120. The Hitachi Deskstar 750GB is $100 even, which should still be enough for you to store everything you need and save $20 as well.

With the 7.1 surround Realtek ALC892 audio chipset onboard you don't need to pick up a sound card, something that helps bring the price of the budget build down. The quality of sound reproduction is perfect for watching movies or listening to music and while it won't be terribly effective at sound editing, that really is not the purpose of this build.

The Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450W Active Power Supply impressed Lee when first he encountered it, receiving an Editors Choice Award. That makes it rather sad that it does not show up for sale. If you can find it at a reasonable price then you should pick it up, or you could go for a ridiculously good deal with the Builder CX430 V2.  It is $45 to pick up, but with the $20 mail in rebate it ends up only costing you $25!