Cost
An enthusiast PC implies the early adoption of new hardware, which is sold at a premium price. As an example, the video card ATI Radeon 9700 Pro was released at US$399 in 2002. Many gaming PCs support the use of multiple video cards in SLI or CrossFire, making it possible to spend thousands of dollars in graphics cards alone.
Intel and AMD both offer CPU models designed for overclocking. These products are denoted as "Extreme Edition" (Intel; Pentium, Pentium 4, Core 2, and i7 series), "K" Series (Intel; Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge), "FX" (previously used by AMD, and now resurrected as a brand name applied to the "Bulldozer" series of processors) and "Black Edition" (currently used by AMD). Similar to the ultra-high end video cards, these CPUs are not commonly used, and in many cases will not provide a large performance benefit in games. However, they typically do reach higher numbers on synthetic benchmarks, which serves the same purpose for a performance competition.
Read more about this topic: Enthusiast Computing
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“To become a token woman—whether you win the Nobel Prize or merely get tenure at the cost of denying your sisters—is to become something less than a man ... since men are loyal at least to their own world-view, their laws of brotherhood and self-interest.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“To call a posit a posit is not to patronize it. A posit can be unavoidable except at the cost of other no less artificial expedients. Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“It breedeth no small offence and scandal to see and consider upon the one part the curiosity and cost bestowed by all sorts of men upon their private houses; and on the other part the unclean and negligent order and spare keeping of the houses of prayer by permitting open decays and ruins of coverings of walls and windows, and by appointing unmeet and unseemly tables with foul cloths for the communion of the sacrament.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)