Tom's Holiday Buyer's Guide 2008, Part 4

Introduction

Welcome to the fourth installment of this year’s six-part Tom’s Hardware Holiday Buyer’s Guide, put together by editors from Tom’s Hardware, Tom’s Guide, and Tom’s Games. We’ve all worked together to compile the hottest list of PC components, gadgets, and gaming titles, which we’ll introduce one part at a time throughout the months of November and December.

Here’s the breakdown for what you can expect to see as the series progresses. Each time we publish a new piece, we’ll update those that came before with links to the newest guides. By the time we ring in 2009, we hope you’ll be enjoying at least a couple of gifts from our six stories!

Each guide is organized to center on a slightly different theme. The first hardware guide zeroed in on gifts that you could buy and use right away—they weren’t tied to a particular system build or anything.

This fourth one is all about the power user with a penchant for building his or her own box, so it’s filled with individual components. Some are great for the enthusiast. Others are better for value-seekers.

And by the way, if you’re looking for a little more guidance on builds for specific budgets, check out November’s System Builder Marathon machines. We had one $625 dollar configuration and one $1,250 dollar setup. We wrapped the whole project up with an analysis of performance per dollar spent on Day 3 of the series.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • snotling
    The model is way too skinny. she makes the hardware look cheap.
    Reply
  • snotling
    SnotlingThe model is way too skinny. she makes the hardware look cheap.I did notice there were two girls in there, but even if you add them up you still get too little meat to call that a woman.
    Reply
  • wicko
    Wow, I can't believe I'm reading complaints about these girls. They are skinny, but not anorexic, they look like they're in very good shape. My girlfriend is getting jealous :p
    Reply
  • blackened144
    I personally like the brunette for the articles.. Something about her reminds me of Christmas.. The blonde, not so much..
    Reply
  • LSoares1
    Wait, Did I miss something? What happened to part 2 and 3 of the 2008 Holiday Guide? All I see is part 1 and now this one....
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  • LSoares1
    nevermind - I see the links in this article, but I didn't notice them on the Guide section.
    Reply
  • antiacid
    SnotlingThe model is way too skinny. she makes the hardware look cheap.Were you looking for "fat girls gone wild" when you opened this review? Seriously, this had to be the dumbest complaint of the year.
    Reply
  • WINTERLORD
    Of course, you’ll void your warranty in the process,

    does anyone know if intel really can tell if your CPU has been just mildly overclocked? with no burn marks ect. i wonder about that cause id love to overclock it's fun to tinker with, but could not afford getting a bum chip, and it not be under warranty.
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  • Nice to see the update about the Seagate fix, finally.
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  • WINTERLORD
    That "the Gigabyte’s board with 2 graphics slots" is a sweet looking motherboard. and for anyone who just needs one graphics card slot i bet this be an alswome rig as well. a deffinit choice if i upgrade to the core 2 quad route. prolly go nehalem core i7 though
    Reply