The powerful iBUYPOWER Paladin F875 has everything you need to take full advantage of the most demanding video games. Its high and mid-range hardware help it compete in the world of gaming computers. While it has somewhat fewer upgrade options, it still offers a respectable selection of options you can add to the basic model, which will turn it into a blazing fast gaming computer.

The standard CoolerMaster Storm Enforcer gaming tower is a simple black design with a small angled panel at the top to accommodate USB interfaces, headphone and microphone jacks and on/off and reset switches. There are transparent or screened panels located in several locations around the tower that, when the internal cold cathode neon lights are on, give the device an appealing glow. This optional lighting is available in red, blue or green.

Extreme gamers place extraordinary demands on a gaming computer’s video card. All but the most avid users will be well pleased with the dramatic display and fluid motion afforded by the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 video card and its 1.5GB of video memory. For those who need even more, or perhaps for gamers who find multitasking with the real world a necessity, that can be doubled to two such cards configured in CrossFire Mode. iBUYPOWER offers a wide array of lesser video cards as well; they can be kind on your budget, but only at the expense of performance.

3D Premium Surround Sound is the standard for this gaming computer and is more than adequate for gamers. You can upgrade to ASUS and Creative Labs Sound Blaster cards if you're looking to have the best surround sound possible.

The blazingly fast Intel Core i7 980 processor ensures that long load times and slow multitasking speeds are a thing of the past. It features six cores running at 3.46GHz and 12MB L3 cache. Heat is the enemy of electronics, both from a durability standpoint and in terms of performance. We’re pleased that iBUYPOWER includes a liquid CPU cooling system in the unit’s base price.

The remaining piece of the performance puzzle is memory, or RAM, and high-end gaming computers require a lot of it. The Paladin F875 comes with an impressive 12GB of DDR3 RAM, and iBUYPOWER offers the faster 1,600Mhz speed in their base model, a step up from the more mainstream 1,333MHz. If you want to customize your computer's memory, they offer a huge array of memory options for more (or even less) RAM. While options pretty much cover the spectrum, the maximum is a staggering 24GB.

The included hard disc drive is a substantial 1TB drive with a 16MB cache, and it runs at 7,200 rpm. Depending on what you plan to use your computer for besides gaming, the 1TB hard drive might be somewhat lacking, but it should offer plenty of storage space. However, HDD upgrades up to 2TB capacity are available at the 7,200 RPM access speed. For faster data access, a solid-state drive is also an option. They come in sizes ranging from 40GB to 512GB.

The included optical drive is a 24x DVD player/burner that can record to double layer DVD±R/±RW and CD-R/RW discs. The 800-watt SLI ready power supply will provide enough power to keep you gaming for at least the next few years. The unit comes with an ASUS Sabertooth X58 motherboard, though numerous other boards are also available. This gaming computer also comes with an iBUYPOWER USB keyboard and internet mouse. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium is the included OS.

iBUYPOWER offers a standard three-year limited warranty and lifetime technical support. Customer and technical support hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Pacific Time, Monday through Friday. There is also a contact form on their website. Sales support is available via live chat.