The Grand Experiment
The sweet spot for the budget-conscious

Our Econobox is suitable for budding enthusiasts, but its budget only allows for so many goodies. That budget gets doubled for our mid-range build, allowing us to assemble a pretty powerful box while keeping the total cost close to a grand.

Processor
The Core 2 Duo E8400 remains our weapon of choice for the Grand Experiment thanks to its strong performance and power-efficient Penryn core. Compared to 65nm Core 2 offerings, Penryn brings 45nm process technology, architectural enhancements that deliver improved clock-for-clock performance, and incredible overclocking headroom. We've seen numerous reports of users overclocking the E8400 from its default speed of 3GHz to in the neighborhood of 4GHz with modest air cooling.

Some might say the Core 2 Quad Q6600 would be a more sensible choice, since it packs two extra cores for roughly the same price. However, the E8400 has a 600MHz clock speed edge and a clock-for-clock performance advantage over the Q6600, making it considerably faster in all but a handful of tasks optimized to take full advantage of more than two processor cores. Such applicationos are few and far between at the moment, but if you value parallelism over single-threaded performance, check out our alternatives section.

Motherboard
Gigabyte's EP35C-DS3R takes the place of the aging SLI motherboard we last recommended for this build. Save for its lack of SLI support, the P35 chipset is a much better option, and we doubt folks shopping for a $1,000 PC are going to be all that interested in running dual graphics cards. The EP35-DS3R seems to have a good reputation among overclockers, too, which makes it a nice match for the Core 2 Duo E8400. With DDR2 and DDR3 memory slots, eight 300MB/s Serial ATA ports with RAID capability, a flurry of USB ports, and a five-star rating in 76% of its Newegg user reviews, there's little not to like.

Memory
As it was in February, Mushkin's 4GB DDR2-800 kit remains our staple memory recommendation throughout much of this guide. A quick look at the kit's price tag should be reason enough: $75.99 is a steal for four gigs of DDR2-800 RAM, especially since it comes from a reputable manufacturer and packs a lifetime warranty. With Windows Vista and most newer games guzzling memory like there's no tomorrow, 4GB of RAM is by no means over-indulgent, either.

Naturally, you'll need a 64-bit operating system to take full advantage of this amount of memory. 32-bit OSes do have enough address space for 4GB of memory, but that figure is an upper limit for all memory in a system, including video RAM. In practice, 32-bit versions of Windows will only be able to use 3 to 3.5GB of actual system RAM, and they'll normally restrict each application's RAM budget to 2GB. That's not quite the end of the world, and there are potential workarounds. However, Microsoft says those workarounds hurt compatibility and recommends that folks run a 64-bit version of Windows instead. Vista x64 is quite mature, and we recommend it for this system. You'll find more details in the operating system section on the second-to-last page of this guide.

Graphics
Much like the Core 2 Duo E8400, the GeForce 8800 GT is a pretty straightforward choice for this system. With plenty of room in the budget, we've picked one of the Editor's Choice award winners from our 16-card mid-range roundup: Zotac's GeForce 8800 GT Amp! Edition. The Amp is "factory overclocked" to core and memory speeds of 700MHz and 1000MHz, respectively—well beyond the 8800 GT's default 600MHz core and 900MHz memory clocks. Zotac outfits this card with an excellent single-slot cooler that we found makes less noise than many of its competitors.

Astute observers will no doubt point out that the GeForce 9600 GT is much cheaper than the 8800 GT and almost as fast in today's games, and they'd be (mostly) right. However, the 9600 GT has only 64 shader processors to the 8800 GT's 112, a disadvantage that could turn out to be a major hindrance with future titles. We don't feel like cutting corners for this system, but if you think the 9600 GT is good enough for your needs, see our alternatives list on the next page.

Storage
Western Digital's new 640GB Caviar SE16 hard drive is an ideal companion for a system in this price range. The drive offers excellent performance, very low noise levels, and an ample 640GB capacity at a tantalizing 20 cents per gigabyte. Samsung offers a 750GB SpinPoint F1 hard drive for only about $10 more, but there have been numerous reports of compatibility problems associated with the F1. The Caviar also offers more consistent performance across a wider range of applications, making it the better choice.

On the optical front, we're sticking with the Samsung SH-S203B; it's a decent DVD burner that should be a good match for this system.

Audio
Creative's X-Fi XtremeGamer has been relieved of duty in the Grand Experiment, replaced by Asus' Xonar DX. The Xonar is a much better all-around sound card, and its EAX 5.0 emulation capabilities largely blunt the one advantage X-Fi cards had for gamers.

Enclosure and power
Our recommended Antec Sonata III delivers everything we need for this system: a beefy 500W power supply with an 80% efficiency rating, a clean layout with sideways-mounted hard drive bays, and a host of noise reduction features, including a speed-adjustable, rubber-damped 120mm exhaust fan. This case even has an eSATA port on its front bezel, should you wish to plug in a speedy external hard drive.

The Sonata III may seem a little expensive for a $1,000 system, but it's actually a pretty sweet deal. The bundled power supply is worth around $70 on its own, and you'd be hard pressed to find a stand-alone case with the same noise reduction features and finish for much less than $60.