It's that time of the year: time to update everyone with the absolute hands-down best performing gaming computer. We're throwing any semblance of a budget out of the window here. There will be no nit-picking on price for performance, no arguing about the economics of a component. This is simply the best system you can build, period.

Processor

Hands down, this goes to the Intel Core i7-975 Extreme. A quad-core 3.33GHz processor with 8MB of cache, it's simply the fastest consumer processor out on the market today. Nothing from AMD even comes close to its performance. Of course, the performance crown comes with a cost: at over $1,000, it's the most expensive consumer processor you can buy today.

Motherboard

When you need a motherboard that has it all and supports only the best, then the EVGA X58 SLI Classified Motherboard is the one you want to get your hands on. with support for Intel's Core i7-975 processor, this motherboard comes packed with a multitude of features, including support for 3xSLI, on-board Raid, Hyperthreading, and 24GB of DDR3 RAM. If you're going to spend big money on your processor, you might as well spend big money on the motherboard - and at $410, it's quite expensive.

RAM

Go fast or go home. The world of a gaming computer is all about how fast you can push your bits around, and with 6GBs of OCZ Blade PC15000 1866MHz DDR3 Memory, you'll be pushing bits around quite a bit faster than your average desktop computer.

Hard Drives

Instead of going with just pure speed or just storage capacity, we've decided to go with two drives.

For your main system and memory swap file, we recommend the OCZ Vertex EX Series Solid State Drive. It's fast - really fast. It's so fast that this drive will actually use almost all of the available SATA II bandwidth when it's accessed, and that's a good thing - you don't want your operating system slowing to a crawl just because your system had to swap a few program out of main memory, do you? If you're really looking to spend a lot of money, you could get two of three of these 120GB beauties and load all of your games on them - now THAT is fast.

For general storage needs, you're going to need something with a bit more capacity than 120GB. The Seagate ST32000542AS Barracuda LP Hard Drive fits the bill nicely. With 2TB of storage in a single drive, you're going to save electricity by not packing as many hard drives in your case as you might if you had bought lower capacity disks. Of course, the failure rate is a tad higher with these ultra-high-density disks - so remember to back up your data!

Optical Drive

Even in this world of digital content delivery you still need to be able to read discs - heck, all of your favorite movies are on Blu-Ray, so the Pioneer BDR-203 Blu-ray Disc Burner is the logical choice. with 8X BD-R, 2X BD-RE, 8X BD-ROM, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 16X DVD-R capabilities, it's all you'll need for the foreseeable future - at least until holographic discs make their way into the home (for what it's worth, this drive also burns CDs)

Video Cards

Now we come to the meat of the matter. The video card is what is going to give your gaming computer serious performance power. Oh, I'm sorry - video cards ... you didn't think we'd recommend just one video card for this beast of a machine, did you?

We're not recommending one or two, but three BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Card - OC2 Edition cards. With 1GB of memory on each card, having three of these reigning performance champions in your gaming computer will smoke the competition.

OK, truth be told, you don't need three of these cards - the card will work just fine by itself, but having three of them will help your gaming machine (and I believe this qualifies as a "machine") consume any game you throw at it.

Power Supply

With all of the power you're packing into this machine, you're going to need a lot of juice to run it all (that also means you're going to need a 240amp outlet, the same one your washing machine or dryer uses to power their motors). The Thermaltake Toughpower 1200-Watt Power Supply fits the bill nicely. It has enogh 12V rails and ATA power connectors to keep any gamer happy - and enough power to keep this beast of a machine running.

Computer Case

Well, honestly, if you're going to be spending this much money on a gaming computer, you might as well go ahead and get a custom computer case built for it. If you're not willing to go through that trouble, we recommend the Silverstone TJ10B-WESA Temjin Full-Tower ATX Case. It's not as sleek or stylish as other cases, but it's very functional and has a ton of space - which you're going to need with all of these video cards crammed in there!

Everything Else

For the keyboard, we continue to recommend the Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard. It has all of the features you need in a gaming keyboard: backlit keys, macro keys, and a small LCD screen to show you the time/weather/music. It's just simply the best gaming keyboard we've ever used.

For the mouse, we still like the Microsoft SideWinder USB Gaming Mouse. While we've used the various other gaming devices on the market, this mouse still edges out the Logitech gaming mouse. While it's not wireless, we don't mind not having to remember to recharge the unit every 6 hours.

As for the monitors, we've shaved off four inches and went with two Samsung T260HD Touch of Color 26" Widescreen LCD Monitor. With full 1080p HDTV support built into each monitor, you'll be able to game on one monitor while you have your favorite movie or TV show playing on the other one. to be fair, 30" was a nice idea, but it turns out to be a real pain in the neck (literally) for any extensive amount of gaming. Hopefully, by shaving down the size - but maintaining the resolution - we'll be able to save our necks but still enjoy top of the line visuals.

Do you have a question you need answered? E-mail me! lordkat@gmail.com

Click here to check out How to Build a Gaming Computer for Under $1000.

Be safe,

Jason