If you're willing to spend a bit more, this desktop from Falcon Northwest packs NVIDIA's TITAN graphics card into an impressively small case. The Tiki, which also boasts an Intel Haswell-E CPU and three Nvidia GTX 980 graphics cards, will give you a power-to-size ratio that blows every major gaming console out of the water. It also comes with a large 1TB SSD and a 3TB hard drive for plenty of storage. And despite being built on an Intel X99 motherboard, it has an 80PLUS Gold rating and six PCI Express connectors (two 6-pin and four 6+2-pin) for those wanting to add SLI or Crossfire later on.
Boutique gaming computer maker Origin PC offers a number of excellent custom-built PCs. One of the best is this Millennium model, which packs a host of cutting-edge components into a stylish brushed black chassis with understated green accent lighting. The specs are impressive, too: an i3-10100F processor, a GTX 1660 Super GPU, and 16GB of RAM. This system can easily handle games at 1080p with high settings.
Unless the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 pull some real magic out of their sleeves with regards to digital game distribution soon, a PC will remain the way to go for many gamers. And while the initial investment can be a bit steep, long-term savings can make it more affordable than consoles. For instance, the latest releases on Steam are usually around PS10 cheaper than their counterparts on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Marketplace. And with an extensive back-catalogue of brilliant titles available for next to nothing, that saving really starts to add up.