As with our Econobox, we have a few alternative component suggestions for our mid-range build, should you wish to move the system up- or down-market a little.
| Component | Item | Price |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 | $269.99 |
| Motherboard | Asus P5Q Pro | $149.99 |
| Graphics | PNY GeForce 9800 GTX | $199.99 |
| Storage | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB | $129.99 |
Processor
The Core 2 Duo E8400's exceptional single- and dual-threaded performance is fine for most users, but we recognize that some may prefer the greater parallelism provided by today's quad-core processors. That's why we've picked Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9300 as our alternative processor recommendation for the Grand Experiment. The Q9300 is a more expensive proposition than the Core 2 Quad Q6600, which also has four cores. However, the Q9300 has a higher clock speed and a 45nm Penryn core that offers improved clock-for-clock performance with lower power consumption. Those perks allow the Q9300 to largely keep up with the E8400 even in single-threaded tasks—a feat the Q6600 can't match.
Motherboard
We selected the Gigabyte GA-P45-DS3R on the previous page because of its well-rounded set of features and our own first-hand experience with the board, but users who like cramming their PCs full of hard drives may prefer the Asus P5Q Pro. The P5Q has eight 300MB/s Serial ATA ports to the DS3R's six, although it doesn't have a second Gigabit Ethernet port, a secondary FireWire port, or as many USB ports.
Graphics
Why would you go with the GeForce 9800 GTX over the faster Radeon HD 4850? Good question. Perhaps you prefer the GeForce's dual-slot cooler or Nvidia's driver control panel. Maybe you're giddy about the potential of PhysX and CUDA, or you could have a thing for the often-better warranty coverage that Nvidia's graphics card partners offer. Whatever your reason, PNY's GeForce 9800 GTX is a decent alternative to the Radeon on the previous page.
Storage
Western Digital is the only hard drive manufacturer with a 640GB desktop hard drive, which made our alternative selection tricky. We eventually settled on Seagate's 750GB Barracuda 7200.11, which offsets its lower performance, higher noise levels, and higher price with greater storage capacity and a longer warranty.
