Dream Machine 2012: The Future Is Now

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Dream Machine 2012 is the PC utopia we all long for

Conventional wisdom says that PC performance doesn’t matter anymore. That’s because the average consumer, the average gamer, and the average PC jockey can’t tell the difference between a slow POS machine and a fast one. Well guess what, baby? That’s a bunch of crap.

Each part was carefully selected for its ability to kick ass

The truth is, the average gamer can tell the difference between a slide show and 110fps. The average consumer knows that a five-minute boot isn’t good and the average PC jockey really doesn’t like to wait five hours to encode a video. It’s not that they can’t tell the difference, they’ve just resigned themselves to the changing personal computing landscape, buying into the malarkey that portability and “ the cloud ” trump speed and power.

Dream Machine 2012 video preview

Well, not us. As power users our aspirations for an ever-more-capable, barrier-busting desktop rig never falter. For you, for us, and for all the PC enthusiasts who still give a damn, we present a preview of the utopia we envision: Dream Machine 2012 .

This rig is lovingly crafted to be our most elegant Dream Machine yet, without compromising the thing that matters most: performance.

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Category Make/Model URL Price
CPUIntel 3.1GHz Xeon E5-2687W
www.intel.com $1,885
MotherboardAsus P9X79 WS www.asus.com/ $380
RAM

64GB Corsair Dominator

Platinum DRR3/2133

http://www.corsair.com $899
GPUs

2x EVGA Hydro Copper

Geforce GTX690

www.evga.com $2,400
SSDs2x OCZ Vertex 4 512GB www.ocztechnology.com $1,198
HDDs3x 4TB HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 www.hgst.com $1,587
CaseSilverstone TJ11 www.silverstonetek.com $590
Paint JobSmooth Creations www.smoothcreationsonline.com $700
KeyboardCorsair Vengeance K90 http://www.corsair.com $129
SpeakersAudioengine 5+ www.audioengineusea.com $399
MouseCyborg R.A.T. 7 Albino www.cyborggaming.com $99
PSUCorsair AX1200i http://www.corsair.com $350
Monitor2x Dell U3011 www.dell.com $2,800
CoolingVariousRow 13 - Cell 2 $926
OSWindows 7 Professional
www.microsoft.com
$140
Total Cost Row 15 - Cell 1 Row 15 - Cell 2 $14,482
Jimmy Thang
Jimmy Thang has been Maximum PC's Online Managing Editor since 2012, and has been covering PC hardware and games for nearly a decade. His particular interests currently include VR and SFF computers.