We've spent a lot of time dissecting boutique gaming desktops, but there's another class of hardware that we only rarely get to discuss. Today that changes with the first in what we hope will be many reviews of workstation-class desktop machines, and we're kicking things off with a mid-range workstation courtesy of Dell: the new Precision T1600. Designed for low power and high performance and equipped with an entry-level workstation graphics card from NVIDIA, we'll run it through our usual desktop gauntlet along with a couple of extra tests and see what Dell brings to the table.

Today's review unit marks our third from Puget Systems in recent history. Thus far they've all been remarkable builds and this one proves to be no exception. Designed expressly for users (including businesses) who need the most reliable machine they can get, Puget has shipped us their Obsidian tower. On paper this machine is reasonable if unexceptional, but the choices behind its design are anything but ordinary.

The last time we checked in with Puget Systems, we came away impressed with their Serenity SPCR Edition. It wasn't the fastest machine we've ever tested, but it was extremely well put together and almost completely inaudible. With Sandy Bridge back on shelves, Puget sent along a custom gaming rig and just like the Serenity SPCR Edition, there's more to the Deluge Mini than appears at first glance.

Now that we've been getting a fairly steady influx of desktop machines from boutiques, Origin PC is stepping into the ring by sending us their go-to flagship model, the Genesis. Origin is a boutique founded by former Alienware executives, and is relatively young compared to some of the other companies we've reviewed towers from. The Genesis is almost more of a brand than a flagship, but Origin is opting to put one of their best feet forward by sending us a configuration they're sure will do them proud against the competition. 

The last time we checked in with iBUYPOWER we reviewed the behemoth that is the iBUYPOWER Paladin XLC, a massive hunk of machine that was generally a solid value but suffered from the same kind of shaky overclocking that afflicted so many boutique builds during the era. This time iBUYPOWER is packing a K-series Sandy Bridge processor (complete with easy overclocking) and one of the most powerful graphics cards on the planet: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590. The 590 may ultimately not have had the performance to beat AMD's Radeon HD 6990, but it's also a much quieter card. iBUYPOWER managed to fit it into a MicroATX case (along with a 92mm water-cooling rig for the processor). Does the beefy LAN Warrior II work, and does it work well, and just how much will this bad boy set you back?

With the recent launch of Sandy Bridge, we had hoped to put together some Buyers' Guides covering the changes in the market. Unfortunately, with the recall/bug of the 6-series chipsets, SNB is now on hold. There will always be newer and faster parts just over the horizon, but while we await SNB and Bulldozer, we felt the time was ripe for a Budget Buyers' Guide update. We have three complete system builds, as well as a variety of potential upgrades, with pricing ranging from $400 just for the main box and components up to nearly $800 for a complete system with some worthwhile upgrades.

We've had the opportunity to look at a few custom builds from different boutiques so far. While most have generally been well-rounded builds using cherry picked off-the-shelf parts and components, so far only AVADirect's Nano Gaming Cube has really emphasized the word "custom." That changes today with the Puget Systems Serenity SPCR Edition tower, a system that proves once and for all that you can have a lot of power in your desktop without it sounding like it's getting ready for takeoff.

Intel's Sandy Bridge processor architecture is upon us, and with it a freshly minted gaming PC courtesy of CyberPowerPC: the Gamer Xtreme 4000. If you read Anand's preview of Sandy Bridge (along with our review), you should already know it's the fastest processor clock-for-clock that money can buy. So what happens when a boutique like CyberPowerPC overclocks it from the shop and ships it to you strapped to 4GB of DDR3 and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570? That's what we're going to show you today.

While most of the desktops we've received so far have been fairly affordable (read: south of two large), we haven't really had a chance to take a run at the cream of the crop. We're talking the big ticket items—the expensive, beastly gaming machines. That all changes today with our review of the DigitalStorm BlackOps. The stock model starts at $1,776, but the demon we have on hand tips the scales at $3,624. That's no small amount of cash to drop on a gaming tower, but the BlackOps Assassin Edition comes with an overclocked Intel Core i7-950 and SLI'd GeForce GTX 580s. The only question that remains: is it worth it?

We haven't updated our various system buyers' guides for a while, and what better time to rectify that oversight than the holiday shopping season? We're going to take a different approach this time, with different builds from most of our staff covering the gamut from pure budget to dream level systems. We have widely ranging tastes and budgets, but we've tried to make sure that someone covers each general category of system, with both AMD and Intel builds. Whether you're in the market for a complete new system or just want to upgrade a component or two, our System Builder's Guide should have what you need.

Boutique gaming systems are usually big, fancy, ornate affairs. They're often totally extreme, marketed to the Mountain Dew set, with massive cases and bright lights. So what happens when a manufacturer goes a little off their rocker, gets a wild hair and decides to see just how much power can be crammed into a Mini-ITX case? See how AVADirect crammed an AMD Radeon HD 5870 and an Intel quad-core into a case so small and light it makes other gaming machines seem like candidates for the next season of The Biggest Loser.

Prohibitively expensive gaming machines are nice to look at but such a nasty hit to the wallet that they can feel impractical. We thought the recently-reviewed iBuyPower Paladin XLC was fairly reasonable for its price, but that price was still north of two large. The Gamer Xtreme 8500 from CyberPower presents an alternative somewhat friendlier to the pocketbook, boasting a formidable overclock from the factory on the processor and two brand new GeForce GTS 450's in SLI. Is it worth your gaming dollar?

Our readership is composed largely of people who prefer to roll their own, but recently we've had the opportunity to take a look at some interesting desktop machines from big name manufacturers. Now we tread on much more challenging terrain: can a hardware boutique like iBUYPOWER make a convincing case for buying a custom built machine instead of learning to build one yourself? That's what we aim to find out in our review of iBUYPOWER's new flagship, the Paladin XLC.

Reviewing the Dell Studio XPS 7100 recently seemed like a reasonable enough move: we felt it was competitive with rolling your own machine at that price, or at least an excellent alternative to building one for friends or family and fielding their tech support questions. But what can you get at a much lower price? Acer has certainly produced solid bargains in the notebook space, but how do they fare in the desktop space? We review their M3400 tower to find out.

The tricked-out Dell Studio XPS 7100 is an interesting beast. It lacks any overclocking extras and exotic cooling, but it comes priced to move. Packing AMD's latest hex-core Phenom II X6 1055T and an HD 5870, it's no slouch in the performance department either. If you're not fond of DIY PCs, the 7100 definitely warrants a look, but even enthusiasts may find plenty to like with this factory system. It's attractive and well built, and the price is less than what you'd spend building an equivalent system on your own. There are some drawbacks, but overall there's a lot to like with Dell's AMD-based XPS 7100.

Many things have changed in the nine months since our last midrange system guide hit the press, some for the worse—a moment of silence, please, for the passing of yesteryear’s RAM bonanza—but most for the better. ATI in particular deserves a nod for raising the bar for single-chip graphics card performance with its Cypress line (and, more recently, NVIDIA for its Fermi parts). All told, a ~$1700 complete system (~$1200 for the base) built around the i5-750 or one of AMD's Phenom II CPUs promises to deliver better performance than last year’s entry in most applications and beat it soundly in gaming and other graphics intensive tasks, all in spite of today’s significantly greater cost per GB of RAM.

As usual, we'll have both AMD and Intel recommendations today, with a common set of shared components. The story hasn't changed much when comparing AMD vs. Intel. You can get more cores at a lower price with AMD, but Intel will give you higher performance at the same clock speed (and generally higher clock speeds) along with lower power consumption. If you're looking to build a new midrange system, our latest Buyer's Guide will provide the help you need.

Several months ago, I wrote about my little experiment with Clarkdale, where I built a small form factor system, based around a Core i5 661 CPU, an Asus H55 motherboard and a Radeon HD 5850 graphics card. That system also used a pricey, 250GB SSD, which was a little over the top for an otherwise modest system, but the idea was to make it small, quiet and low power.

Quite a few people critiqued the article, and most of the critiques revolved around the lack of performance data. After all, the general feeling went, how do we know this is really a good system? It’s pricey, to be sure, but we also have no way of judging performance.

As it happens, I have another small form factor system in the basement lab, which happens to be running a Core i5 750. Ignoring hard drive performance for the moment, all I really needed to do was swap out the graphics card, since the Lynnfield system was running an older Radon HD 4870. So I dropped in a Radeon HD 5850 and took both systems for a spin.