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:
“I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Fountaine of parents duties is Love....Great reason there is why this affection should be fast fixed towards their children. For great is that paine, cost, and care, which parents must undergoe for their children. But if love be in them, no paine, paines, cost or care will seeme too much.”
—William Gouge (20th century)
“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)