Now that we've examined operating system choices in detail, let's have a look at some accessories, such as displays and peripherals. We don't have a full set of recommendations at multiple price levels in each of these categories, but we can make some general observations and point out a few specific products that are worthy of your consideration. What you ultimately choose in these areas will probably depend heavily on your own personal preferences.

Displays
The world of monitors has enough scope and variety that we can't keep track of it all, especially because we don't often review monitors around here. However, we do appreciate a good display—or two or three of them, since several of us are multi-monitor fanatics—so we can offer a few pieces of advice.

First, CRTs are dead, and LCDs are the new king. This may be obvious to most folks, but in case you've been frozen in stasis since 1995, we thought we'd mention it outright.

Next, like many PC enthusiasts, we have become fans of Dell's LCD monitors. They're typically quite nice, and several models have been especially popular around here. If you're looking for a standard-issue 4:3 aspect ratio at a decent size and resolution, have a look at the Dell UltraSharp 2007FP 20" monitor. The 2007FP is the successor to the widely heralded 2001FP, and the new model offers even more brightness and better color reproduction. It pivots on its stand to become a 1200x1600 display, if you'd like, too. With two or three of these babies side by side, you'd really have something. We haven't tried this one ourselves, but if you prefer a wider angle on the world, the wide-aspect version of the same display is the UltraSharp 2007WFP. With a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1680x1050 resolution, this screen should be excellent for watching DVDs and for widescreen gaming. Both of these 20" monitors can be had for just under $400. Dell also offers more expensive wide-aspect models at 24" and above.

If you're building one of our high-end rigs like the Double Stuff Workstation, you're going to want to up the ante to the big momma, Dell's glorious UltraSharp 3007WFP 30" monitor. We've already sung its praises from the rooftops here, so we won't rehash things. But we will say that this four-megapixel, 2560x1600 beauty is worth every cent of its prodigious $1200-ish price tag. You can't really make use of the Double Stuff's dual GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards if you're not driving a display like this one. And even if you're not plunking down that kind of cash on a new system, you may want to reconsider how you spend your PC budget in order to accommodate this thing. We'd gladly skimp a bit on the CPU and hard drive if it meant we could have one of these on our desk.

Oh, and avoid Dell's cheaper E-series monitors, which have lower color precision than Dell's other LCDs.

We should also mention that a number of our forum readers have taken a liking to the Westinghouse LVM-37W3 37" LCD TV for use as a computer monitor. As a 1080p display, it has a native resolution 1920x1080, about half that of the Dell 3007WFP, but it has two big advantages: being versatile enough to serve as a high-def television or game console display, and being fricking huge. We'd rather have the 3007WFP ourselves, but we can't argue with this puppy's virtues.

Keyboards and mice
In order to beef up our mouse and keyboard recs, we recently started trying out some different mice and keyboards around here. As part of that effort, we outfitted the latest iteration of the Kitchen PC with the Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser keyboard and mouse combo. The keyboard won praise for its sturdy feel, medium key travel distance, and soft but accurate positive feedback. However, we found that the goofy auxiliary buttons on the edges of the keyboard were way too easy to bump inadvertently—not the best placement. We had a split over the included wireless laser mouse. Its tilt scroll wheel and laser sensor were excellent, all agreed. But Scott found the mouse's shape to be too narrow to grip comfortably, while it fit his wife's smaller hands much better than her previous Logitech MX500.

Scott also tried out the corded version of the same mouse, the LX3 Optical. Predictably, he found it to be too narrow for his average-sized-guy hands, though he did appreciate the fact that the shape is ambidextrous.

As TR's resident Neanderthal, Geoff tends to have a different opinion on input peripherals than some of our other staffers. His hands are like giant paddles—large palms with short, stubby fingers—so getting peripherals that feel right can be a challenge. He's one of probably only a, er, handful of people who actually prefers the original Xbox's bear-sized controller to the smaller "S" unit that eventually replaced it.

For years, Geoff has found Microsoft's mice to be the most comfortable under massive palms. Their shape just works for him, and the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 is no exception. There's more to the mouse than just its shape, though. The 6000 has all-important horizontal scrolling for those with massive Excel spreadsheets, and the wheel's vertical scrolling is silky smooth. That almost lubricated smoothness is great for web pages and zooming, but the lack of tactile "clicks" does make it less suitable for gamers looking to scroll precisely through available weapons. Wireless mice tend not to be the most responsive options for gamers, either, although the 6000 is plenty precise for age-impaired reflexes.

The Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 is often bundled with Microsoft's Comfort Curve keyboards, and the combo's usually pretty cheap. We like the idea behind the Comfort Curve, too: just enough shape to allow your hands to sit at a more comfortable angle while typing without completely separating the keyboard into a "natural" design that feels anything but. Unfortunately, the Comfort Curve isn't the sturdiest keyboard we've used; the keys have a little too much play for those who prefer a more solid feel, and you certainly don't get much in the way of clickety clack. But there are plenty of extra buttons, including a few programmable ones, and Geoff's been using one for a while now with few complaints.

Of course, both Microsoft and Logitech have a host of laser optical mice available at relatively low prices, so you can pick one to suit your tastes. On the wireless side, Logitech's MX1000 is a popular choice, offering a laser optical engine, tilt wheel, charging dock, and responsiveness that's virtually indistinguishable from wired models. For hard-core gamers, the Logitech G5 uses a good old-fashioned mouse cord and packs a couple of unique features, including two buttons near the wheel to change tracking precision in real-time, and adjustable weighted cartridges.

Incidentally, if you're buying a mouse to play games, you might want to have a look at the following article on ESReality. Old-school Quake star Sujoy Roy has fashioned a benchmarking system for mice, and his resulting analysis should give you a good idea of which mouse is likely to get you the most kills in fast-paced action shooters.

There are at least two major schools of thought on keyboards. Some users will prefer the latest and fanciest offerings from Logitech and Microsoft, with their smorgasbord of media keys, sliders, knobs, scroll wheels, and even built-in LCD displays. Other users like their keyboards loud, clicky, and heavy enough to beat a man to death with. If you're one of the old-school types, you may want to try a Unicomp Customizer 101/104 or an original vintage-dated IBM Model M. Fifty bucks is a lot to put down for a keyboard, but these beasts can easily last a couple of decades.

Floppy drive/card reader combo
Since the advent of cheap USB drive keys and broadband internet access, floppy drives have essentially been rendered obsolete. They can still come in handy in a few instances, though, like when you're installing Windows to a system with an unsupported Serial ATA controller. You could just spend $10 on a run-of-the-mill internal floppy drive, but we prefer to opt for a floppy/7-in-1 flash card reader combo like this Mitsumi model instead. You're still getting a floppy drive, but the added flash card reading functionality will probably prove more useful over the long run, and it only ups the price another $10.

Cooling
We're recommending retail processors in all of our configs because they come with longer warranties. Those CPUs also come bundled with stock cooling units that, these days, are usually reasonably good in terms of cooling capability and noise levels. However, if you want to have an even quieter system or to buy yourself a bit of overclocking headroom (or both), you may want to look into an aftermarket CPU cooler. Our slam-dunk favorite is Zalman's CNPS9500 LED (and the CNPS9500 AM2 for AMD Socket AM2 processors.) As we noted in our review, the CNPS9500 offers excellent cooling performance and is whisper-quiet at its lowest fan setting. This cooler is a particularly good match for our Sweet Spot system, which already features a quiet graphics card, a quiet case, and a quiet power supply.

Conclusions
With the exception of the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, we haven't seen many new products introduced since our last system guide. However, price fluctuations alone forced us to do some serious re-thinking with some of our builds. In the end, we've managed to put together cheaper systems with either equivalent or better performance than ever before. The LAN Box was also an interesting exercise, although the need for a lightweight case and a PSU that didn't come out of a bargain bin did inflate that system's price a little.

Looking ahead, we keep hearing rumors that Nvidia will introduce mainstream derivatives of its GeForce 8800 graphics cards in April. Also in the second quarter, AMD says it will finally debut its next-gen flagship Radeon X2900 XTX graphics card (a.k.a. R600) as well as some cheaper derivatives. On the processor front, we've heard rumors that Intel plans to cut chip prices in April and follow up with yet another round of price cuts in the third quarter. And of course, AMD plans to roll out its next-generation quad-core processors some time around the middle of the year. As always, we intend to put together new system guides at regular intervals along the way.

In the meantime, feel free to take a stroll down to the System Builders Anonymous section of our forums if you're in need of further assistance. That forum is teeming with users asking for help either building new machines or upgrading old ones, so you'll find plenty of company—and assistance—if you're not feeling particularly confident about a new build.