Holiday Hardware Buyers Guide

It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of the year again. As we inch closer to the holiday season, there is no time to waste in figuring out what the hot hardware item for the season is. We have done all the legwork for you!

This guide is designed for buyers and givers alike. If you are unsure what the “hot” item is, this guide will help you understand what to purchase, or what to add to your wishlist. Even if you do not celebrate any holidays, this time of the year is still a fun one since a lot of the hot items go on sale. So keep your eyes peeled!

Throughout many of our categories, we have divided them in the order of Ultimate to Stocking Stuffer. AKA, “Uber Hot” or “Budget Gift”. One thing you should bare in mind though, is that even though we may call something a “Stocking Stuffer”, it’s still a quality product that we highly recommend. Anything that we think is crap is not listed here, simple as that. They are listed according to price, with the Ultimate being the most expensive usually, and the Stocking Stuffer being an item that’s affordable by anyone.

Alongside most of our picks are live pricing feeds, so that you can quickly see the best going price for a given product. Since the holidays is one time of the year where your wallet empties at light speed, these feeds help ease the pain.

If you are interested in seeing the list up front, here it is. Clicking on “Jump to Page” will bring you quickly to that page. If you are in no hurry to leave (why would you be?), feel free to casually stroll through the guide starting with the next page.

Word of caution before proceeding! If you are a gift buyer and intend on buying a friend/family/pet a piece of hardware, just make sure first that it will work on their PC by casually bringing it up in a conversation or getting them drunk so that they spill the beans. If you are to purchase a video card for example, chances are it will not work in a PC that’s two years old, since the PCI-E standard was brought on later. Of course if you are in need of any help or advice, you can hit up our forums and post your question there.

Peripherals – Jump To Page
• Saitek Eclipse II
• Razer Copperhead
• Logitech G7
• Logitech VX Notebook Mouse
• Steelseries 5H V2
• OCZ Rally 4GB & Corsair Voyager 8GB
• iPod & Zune

Video Cards – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – NVIDIA 8800GTX
• Great – ATI x1950XTX
• Good – ATI x1950Pro
• Stocking Stuffer – NVIDIA 7600GT

Monitors – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – Dell 3007WFP 30”
• Great – Gateway FPD2485W 24″
• Good – PLANAR PL2011M Black 20.1″
• Stocking Stuffer – Dell UltraSharp 1907FP 19”

Motherboards – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – ASUS Striker Extreme (Intel Core)
• Ultimate – DFI LanParty NF590 M2R/G (AMD AM2)
• Great – Gigabyte DQ6 (Intel Core)
• Great – ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (AMD AM2)
• Good – Gigabyte DS3 (Intel Core)
• Good – ABIT AN9 32x (AMD AM2

Processors & Cases – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700
• Ultimate – AMD Athlon FX-62
• Great – Intel Core 2 E6700
• Great – AMD X2 5200+
• Good – Intel Core 2 E6300
• Good – AMD X2 3800+
• Ultimate – Silverstone TJ07
• Great – NZXT Zero
• Good – Ultra Aluminus
• Good – COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW

Memory & Storage – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – Corsair DOMINATOR 2GB PC2-8888
• Great – OCZ 2GB PC2-7200
• Good – G. Skill 2GB F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ
• Stocking Stuffer – G. Skill 2GB F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
• Ultimate – Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB ES
• Great – Western Digital 500GB RE2
• Good – Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB

Power Supplies & System Cooling – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – PCP&C 1kW S 1000 Watt w/ Single +12v Rail
• Great – Corsair HX620
• Good – Silverstone SST-ST50EF-Plus
• Stocking Stuffer – XCLIO GOODPOWER 500W ATX 500W Power Supply
• Ultimate – Swiftech Apex Ultra 220 WC Kit w/ MCW 60’s & MCW Ramcools
• Great – Zalman Reserator 1 V2
• Good – VANTEC STG-100 All-in-one Water Cooling Kit
• Good – Swiftech MCP655, Danger Den Liang D5 Pump

Digital Cameras – Jump To Page
• Ultimate – Nikon D80 10.2MP D-SLR
• Great – Nikon D50 6.2MP D-SLR
• Good – Canon PowerShot S3 IS 6.2MP
• Stocking Stuffer – Casio Exilim EX-S600

Gadgets – Jump To Page
• Turbo Charge
• USB Sim Card Reader
• Atari 2600 Plug and Play Keychains
• USB Vonage Phone
• CompUSA 145-Piece Computer Tool Kit
• Mister Tipster Desktop RSS Display
• Lapinator
• Walkie Talkie Watches
• TomTom
• Roomba
• + More

If you have a comment you wish to make on the guide, feel free to head on into our forums! There is no need to register in order to reply to our content threads.