Let's face it; buying a gaming machine with today's latest components is anything but inexpensive. iBuyPower's Gamer Paladin F970, which is designed to make the most of its powerful Core i7 processor and other high-end components, is proof of that fact. When the Gamer Paladin F970 was first released, the standard configuration initially had a price tag of $3,799. Recently, iBuyPower dropped the price on the standard configuration of the Gamer Paladin F970 to $3,395. Even at that price, however, the Gamer Paladin F970 is still considerably more than its less expensive cousin, the F950, which has an MSRP of $2,319. Of course, the Gamer Paladin F950 also uses cheaper components throughout.

What's important is that you get what you pay for--the overall value proposition. With the iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F970, you'll get a 3.2GHz Intel Core-i7 965 Extreme processor, 12GB of DDR3-1333 memory, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295, a 128GB RiDATA SATA MLC SSD, and a 1TB SATA-II 7,200-rpm hard drive. If you've ever configured a system on iBuyPower's website, you know the company generally offers a boatload of configuration options which can increase or decrease the price accordingly. And this holds true with the Gamer Paladin F970, so you're free to customize the system to your heart's content. In the pages ahead, we'll take a closer look at the iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F970's features and performance so you can be the judge of what this PC has to offer...