As Ryan said in his review of the new i7-3770, "It only falls behind the 3960X in raw performance", but raw performance is what the dream machine is about.  That means that for yet another month the i7-3960X with its stock speeds of 3.3GHz/3.9GHz Turbo remains in the Dream System on the Hardware Leaderboard.  The part is unlocked which will see many overclockers over the 4GHz mark, though possibly not on air cooling.

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 $656 each for a 800MHz speed bump and nothing else?

The 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 $20 (after MIR) you can get the Frio Adv version which comes with a $50 Thermaltake Frio cooler.

For the Xeon X5650s, it is still the $530 EVGA Classified SR-2 ($480 after MIR) until the SR-X arrives, with dual LGA1366 sockets for Xeons. 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 $2538 and we haven't even touched the GPUs yet.

If you see a GTX 680 for sale, by all means pick it up as it is the most powerful gaming GPU you can get ... if you can get it.  That's why AMD's HD 7970 remains the GPU of choice for the dream system as the earlier availability problems have evapourated.  This month sees the price come down as well as the addition of DiRT 3 for free.  This months model is the overclocked Gigabyte GV-R797OC-3GD, 1GHz core and 1375MHz for the memory along with three cooling fans and Gigabyte's Ultra Durable Technology to help overclock the card further if you so desire.

The dual CPU machine obviously deserves dual GPUs, now bringing that system total to $3538 ... unless you go triple or quad Crossfire.

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 $80 after rebate (thank Kyle) and a free micro SDHC card. 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 thought SSDs were fast you owe it to yourself to spend some time playing around with that tweak.

The Extreme system stays with a pair of Corsair's 12GB DDR3 2000 kits for $120 at NewEgg and makes up in speed what you are missing in channels and is the kit with the tightest timings.  That takes the price to $3788 after giving your system 24GB of RAM to play with.

At the end of Al's review of the Samsung 830 SSD roundup he congratulated Samsung on becoming the new standard others must now aspire to reach.  With praise like that the Extreme Machine must have a 256GB Samsung drive powering its storage.  Since this is paired with a SATA3 motherboard you can expect to spend a lot less time waiting for Windows to boot or for programs to load. 

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 $4668.

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.  In fact with that pre-amp, high end cans are a must!

One of Lee's most recently reviewed PSUs also has to be one of the best he has seen in the kilowatt class, Kingwin's Lazer Platinum Series 1000W.  In fact the only negative thing that the PSU displayed was a slight difficulty staying at Platinum levels if it was running hotter than 40C on 115VAC so you might have to settle for high Gold occasionally.  A 5 year warranty and rock sold power from its single 12V rail will keep your system running fine.

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 also reviewed.  It provides rock solid performance, snazzy modular cabling and dual 12V rails.  That brings the price of the Wonder Twin Dream System to $5203, which has dropped from last updates price.

If you see an i7-3770k for sale it is certainly worth picking up, regardless of what you have heard about high heat when overclocking as it is a great architecture. Once they become widely available it will take its place on the high end system but as only the non-K version of the i7-3770 is available SandyB gets a bit more time in the spotlight. The i7-2700K is the about same price as the 2600K was last month so there seems no reason not to recommend it for the last hurrah of SandyB. Perhaps the extra base frequency indicates an ability to overclock higher on some processors?

Since the move to Ivy Bridge is inevitable it seems to make sense to move to a Z77 motherboard even if the current processor cannot support PCIe 3.0.  The ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE offers a pair of 16x PCIe slots, up to 32GB of seriously overclocked DDR3, native SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0, even dual band Wi-Fi.  HDMI and DisplayPort out are available for those tasks which do not require your discrete GPU and there are many other features available for those who are willing to upgrade to Panther Point.

Unlike its bigger brothers, the GTX 670 remains in stock and gets NVIDIA back on the Leaderboard.  For the same price as the HD 7950 you get performance that is often on par with the more expensive HD 7970.  You can also expect thermals and energy consumption on par with the HD 7950 so you don't have to worry about a 1000W+ PSU in order to power it.  The overclocking Ryan did in his review proved just how much fun the new Boost Clock implementation can be for overclockers and Adaptive VSync and Frame Rate Target options and even more to this impressive card.

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.

If you must, then simply ignore the name of the Creative Labs Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional sound card, as it offers benefits above and beyond onboard audio.  5.1 channels of 24-bit audio at a sample rate 96KHz are a good start but it is the optical in port which makes this stand out from the audio features built into your motherboard.

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.

Yet another $10 MIR, but at $80 this is a great board.

While AMD did release Pitcairn you are unlikely to find the Radeon HD 7850 for sale anyhere but at an expected $250 it is the card that will end up powering the Mid Range system build in the near future.  That is not to say that the ZOTAC AMP! ZT-50702-10M GeForce GTX 560 Ti Edition is a bad card to choose.  The MIR reduces the price to $270 and NVIDIA tossed in a free copy of BattleField 3 so until the GTX670 is readily available check out this card.

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 $150 with the OCZ Octane series.  That statement is cheating a little, since only with the MIR is the price $145, but the bundled $30 MIR 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 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!