The chaps over at TechSpot have actually built an affordable gaming system based on AMD's AM2 platform, coupled with an Athlon64 3800+ and a GeForce 7900GS, they keep this system's core components below the $600 mark, and then compare it against a top of the line Core 2 Duo E6700 gaming rig costing in excess of $1500.

The performance of our affordable AM2 gaming system was most impressive, especially given that it was two and a half times cheaper than the Core 2 Duo system. The core components cost just $600 which include the processor, motherboard, memory, hard drive and graphics card. In order to complete the system one would need to a case/power supply, keyboard, mouse and a monitor. There are also ways in which you could configure this system to save money. For example, a slower Athlon64 or even Sempron processor will save you money, as will a smaller hard drive or a slower graphics card.

However, if you enjoy playing computer games and wish to play the latest games in all their glory, then the system we went with today is a very good option for the price. All the components complemented one another very well, as it seemed to be the perfect balance between processing power and graphics performance. Also if you consider that the native resolution of most 19" and 17" LCD monitors is 1280x1024, and this system is quite capable of 1600x1200 gaming performance, settings such as FSAA and anisotropic filtering can be turned up quite high at 1280x1024 for extreme visual quality.