It is no surprise that the Core i7-3960X still powers the Dream Machine since Intel has not released a faster processor.  The CPU marks a return to Intel's flagship CPU costing $1000 so it does raise the price but that is the premium you pay to get the best.  Its stock speed is 3.3GHz or 3.9GHz Turbo can be pushed higher as this part is unlocked.

Still no sign of EVGA's newly announced the Classified SR-X so no X79 chipset for the duallie machine.  The Extreme Machine still sports a pair of Xeon X5650s @ 2.66 GHz for $1004 each.  There are faster Westmere Xeons, but do you really want to pay a premuim of $655 each for a 800MHz speed bump and nothing else?

A new CPU socket needs a new motherboard and MSI has a great one on offer.  The new Socket 2011 MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) board sports three PCIe 3.0 slots, a pair of x16 and a single x8 as well as a pair of PCIe 2.0 1x slots.  For peripherals you get 4 SATA 6Gb/s and 4 SATA 3Gb/s ports, a PS/2 combo port, 8 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0 ports and even a IEEE 1394 port.  For an extra $30 you can get the Frio Adv version which comes with a $50 Thermaltake Frio cooler.

For the Xeon X5650s, it is still the $580 EVGA Classified SR-2 until the SR-X arrives, with dual LGA1366 sockets for Xeons only, not Core i7's don't work in multiples nor will their coolers fit over these sockets. You can have up to 4 PCIe graphics cards all running at 16x, if you slap in a fifth then they all cut back to 8x and getting that 5th card to work, even as a PhysX processor is probably going to be difficult.  Total cost of motherboard and CPUs for that option has now hit $2588 and we haven't even touched the GPUs yet.

The brand new AMD HD 7970 is taking the world by storm, offering performance far above the GTX580 for about the same price, which makes it an obvious choice.  This month sees only one reseller who still has stock at NewEgg, which puts Sapphire on the Dream leaderboard.  As you can see from Ryan's review, the card is very impressive and does represent the fastest GPU on the planet.

The dual CPU machine obviously deserves dual GPUs, now bringing that system total to $3708.

Welcome to the world of quad channel memory support on the X79 chipset, a benchmarkers dream but not quite so effective in the real world. Patriot is offering an incredible deal this month where you can get 16GB of their Extreme Performance DDR3 1600MHz DIMMs with 9-9-9-24 timings for $65 after rebate. With two of these kits you have 32GB of system RAM and can think of turning some of it into a RAM drive.  If you though SSDs were fast you owe it to yourself to spend some time playing around with that tweak.

The Extreme system stays with Corsair's 12GB DDR3 2000 kit for $150 at NewEgg and makes up in speed what you are missing in channels.  That takes the price to $4008 after giving your system 24GB of RAM to play with.

The brand new Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSD family has arrived and much to Allyn's delight it is Sandforce on steroids!  Intel has managed to not only push Sandforce harder than anyone else, but they are offering a 5 year warantee on their drives which implies they also worked out the kinks that plagued some of the other drives using the same controller.  You do pay a premium, but dreams don't come cheap.

For the Extreme Machine we shall simply go a bit bigger, with the 512GB model of the same drive.  That ups the running price to $4780.

Since we lose out on the bundled soundcard from last month it is the ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 which appears for this month. Not only can it handle 7.1 speakers it has a built in headphone amp for you audiophiles with high end cans.

If you need solid power with independent +12V rails @ up to 80A combined load along with six PCI-E connectors, consider Corsair's HX1050W. It has an 80+ Silver rating which should keep your power bills reasonably under control and still have no trouble powering your Dream Rig.  The $10 MIR has been going on for months and should be taken advantage of.

You will need to go even bigger if you are looking at the ultimate in ridiculously powerful systems, perhaps the Thermaltake Toughpower TP-1350M that Lee recently reviewed.  It provides rock solid performance, snazzy modular cabling and dual 12V rails.  That brings the price of the Wonder Twin Dream System to $5378, a bit more that last month but also improved.

It would have been nice to be able to replace the i7-2600K a new chip but nothing has come onto the market which offers better price and performance.  It is a slightly better deal than the 2700K, which will cost you $370 to pick up.  The 2600K is capable of hitting 4.5GHz without much effort, so the small frequency difference between the two chips can be ignored for anyone willing to spend a few minutes to overclock the chip.

It seems that while there are certain tricks to make Intel's SRT truly shine, testing has shown that a good SSD is simply a better choice.  That makes SATA 6Gbs more important than an mSATA slot which is why the Silver Award winning ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 hits the High End system.  It sports a half dozen SATA 6Gps ports split between two controllers and five PCI Express x16 slots, one of which can operate in PCIe 3.0 mode with an (unreleased) Ivy Bridge chip present.  There is a beautiful array of outputs on the backplate which ought to keep your peripherals sitting pretty and have room to spare.

The EVGA GTX 560 Ti 448 Core Classified Limited Edition lived up to its name and is no longer easily found, which means the price of the High End System is going up. You could go with a decently priced GTX 580 but that would be so last generation so instead the brand new HD 7950 hits the High End Leaderboard.  The Gigabyte model costs $20 more than the next card but sports a bit of a factory overclock and more importantly a custom triple fan cooler.  This card is faster than a GTX580 at stock so with a bit of work you should be able to make this card a "GHz Edition".

Check out the deal Corsair has for you right now, a pair of 4GB DDR-1600 @ 9-9-9-24 for $48, with a $10 MIR that makes this RAM an incredible value.  It doesn't sport fins or a fancy colour scheme, what it does provide is a huge pool of memory for your 64bit OS to allocate without any pain to your wallet.   Feel crazy?  Pick up a pair of these kits!

Now this might sting a little until you see just how fast a 6Gbps SSD with a triple ARM9 based controller can read.  So far this family of drives have avoided any of the stigma attached to Sandforce based drives and can meet or beat their performance.  It is expensive, especially if you do not have an existing HDD to demote to a storage drive but if you do, the copy of Norton Ghost that comes with this drive could be very handy for you.

This month has seen some serious increases in the price of components so to trim the costs back we are changing the sound card to the ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 which will cost you $70 after claiming your MIR.  You could forgo the card completely but there are some instances where onboard sound could interrupt your gaming. Don't underestimate the Xonar DX, it will still provide wonderful surround sound for your gaming pleasure.

Lee reviewed the OCZ ZS Series 750W 80PLUS Bronze unit a while ago and it still stands as a great example of what a PSU should be. Decent efficiency and rock solid output will keep your system stable and your ears will appreciate the low decibels produced by this PSU.  You don't get modular cabling but in this build most of your money is dedicated to your graphics and storage which is why at $75 after MIR this PSU represents a great deal.

The Intel Core i5 2500K is still pretty much the best buy in CPUs going.  The default clock is 3.3GHz but with a little work you can get this unlocked CPU even higher if you want to put in the work or take advantage of the built in overclocking options on the motherboard.  The onboard HD3000 will let you jump back and forth between your discreet GPU and the one onboard your 2500K, handy for those who do video encoding and game at the same time.  The next step up, the Core i7-2600, will cost you another $80 or $100 for the unlocked model.

It is sad to see so many of the lower cost X68 boards expire, as we need a new motherboard again this month since the Gigabyte GA-Z68M-D2H has gone out of stock.  We will stick with Gigabyte again this month with the introduction of the GIGABYTE GA-Z68AP-D3 Rev. 2, which has two PCIe 16x slots, though one can only operate at 4x, along with four 1x slots a pair of SATA 6Gbps ports and HDMI out on the backplate.  Altogether it adds up to a capable basing for a good Mid Range system.

While AMD did release the high and low end models of the Southern Islands family we still haven't seen Pitcairn which is the most likely to fit in the Mid Range system build.  Take heart gaming fans, the ZOTAC AMP! ZT-50702-10M GeForce GTX 560 is back and so is it Ti Edition brother!  With the exact same overclocks on these cards it seems worth the extra $30 for another 48 processor cores especially when the MIR reduces the price difference to a mere $5. 

With the price savings from some of the other components you can splurge a bit on your RAM.  1600MHz is a decent speed, paying for a higher end kit on the Mid-Range machine is not the best investement of your money.  Insteak pick up the Corsair Vengeance 4GB PC3-12800 kit which has timings of 9-9-9-24, which runs at 1.5V.  That means the the overclocker in you has some headroom to play with.

The Mid Range storage is getting an Emeril-like Bam! on its storage subsystem as it moves to an SSD.  Now being Mid Range there are cost concerns but you can still get 128GB of SATA 6Gbps speed for under $200 with the OCZ Octane series.  That statement is cheating a little, since only with the MIR is the price $180, but the bundled $15 Newegg coupon has to count for something as well.  Hopefully you have an external drive or an old HDD to use for storage as space is limited but what you can fit on that drive will fly!

You can still find a decently priced X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 PCIe card if you feel the need.  It might not have a snazzy black PCB but it does have quite a few of the features of more expensive audio cards without bringing the price of the system up as much.

At $80 after MIR the Corsair TX550M is a bargain to provide power to this months Mid Range machine.  Every test that Lee ran showed this to be a shining example of a low cost PSU, providing solid and efficient power without ever coming close to straying out of spec.  A 5 year warranty certainly speaks to their confidence in this PSU.

If you are building a machine that needs to be inexpensive to the point where you can't spend even $80 on a GPU but plan on gaming then you could consider an A8-3850 and motherboard.  However you'd likely be better served with a Llano based notebook for the same price and have portability to boot.

Do not let the cheaper price of the i3 2120 fool you, it is only the Core i3 2105 with HD3000 graphics.  The performance benefit over HD2000 is significant and well worth the extra $5 and megahertz sacrifice.  Intel gets the win in this category for general computing as well as Virtu and the possiblity of using Intel`s SRT to see the systems performance increase across the board using an inexpensive SSD.  If you are concerned about power and heat, for $135 you can get the i3-2120T with a max TDP of 35W.

This month offers a bit of a conundrum as the Biostar board has increased in price by $15.  The ASRock Z68M/USB board is only $85 but possess only a single PCIe 16x slot.  That is why the BIOSTAR TZ68A+ is still preferred as it has two PCIe x16 slots, though one runs at x4.  Four SATA ports and a pair of SATA 6Gps ports give you flexibility in your storage and eight USB 2.0 and a pair of USB 3.0 ports should handle your peripherals.  HDMI and VGA outputs round off the board and give you access to Virtu.

The least expensive HD7750 will still set you back $110 which is perhaps a bit out of budget for this build, just as the HD6750 was. That means that the XFX Radeon HD 6670 retains its position on the Leaderboard at $65 including MIR though they do force you to take a copy of a Sonic game.  This card is not going to handle handle just basic tasks, it will provide 1080p HD playback of videos and gaming as well.

A pair of 2GB Corsair XMS3 Xtreme Performance DIMMs would run you $33 right now for DDR3 1333MHz @ 9-9-9-24. That is impressive, but what if you could pick up a pair of Corsair Vengeance 2GB DDR3-1600 DIMMs @ 9-9-9-24 for $25?

Hard drive prices are falling again, but not terribly quickly.  Two months ago for $110 you could purchase a 500GB drive, last month it wsa 750GB and this month you can get a full terabyte for $120. The Hitachi Deskstar 750GB is $100 even, which should still be enough for you to store everything you need and save $20 as well.

With the 7.1 surround Realtek ALC892 audio chipset onboard you don't need to pick up a sound card, something that helps bring the price of the budget build down. The quality of sound reproduction is perfect for watching movies or listening to music and while it won't be terribly effective at sound editing, that really is not the purpose of this build.

The Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450W Active Power Supply impressed Lee when first he encountered it, receiving an Editors Choice Award. That makes it rather sad that it does not show up for sale. If you can find it at a reasonable price then you should pick it up, or you could go for a ridiculously good deal with the Builder CX430 V2.  It is $45 to pick up, but with the $10 mail in rebate it ends up only costing you $35!