It’s that time of the year again when all the good little girls and boys draw up wish lists of items they want from Santa. In my case, Santa would need to win the lottery or rob a bank to buy all of the following items:

Intel Core i7 3960X + Asus Rampage IV Extreme

When Intel released the Sandy Bridge platform and P67/Z67 chipset, many users jumped to the new technology, and no one could blame them. Sandy Bridge offered impressive performance gains over the old high end X58 chipset and CPUs at competitive prices, and was the logical choice for gamers.

However, power users decided to hang back and wait to see what 2011 would bring, whether Bulldozer from AMD or Sandy Bridge-E chips from Intel would retake the performance crown.

Bulldozer turned out to be mildly disappointing, but Sandy Bridge-E and the X79 platform arrived with boatloads of performance. It’s expensive and far too powerful for most users, but I want it; I want it now.

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

MDPC sleeving

I’ve run out of the famed MDPC sleeving and still have many projects to finish, so a fresh batch of cable sleeving would do nicely. For those of you who are unfamiliar with MDPC sleeving, PC modders cover cables (normally on their PSU) with the sleeve for a sleek, professional or creative look. It’s well priced and great quality, but being based in Germany means shipping pushes prices up.

MDPC sleeving

Fractal Design Define XL

We don’t get fractal computer cases here in South Africa, and we’re worse off for it. Good quality, fairly priced and native support for 10 3.5 inch hard drives makes the Define XL desirable enough to consider importing privately.

It may not be as flashy as a HAF series case from Coolermaster, but the subtle air of refinement surrounding the Define XL is enough to justify getting the case. Also, having a rare unique case that stands out against the flood of “normal” cases is pretty cool.

Fractal Design Define XL

Alienware M18x

Alienware gaming laptops are in a class of their own. They’re vulgar, incredibly expensive and seriously heavy.

The M18X has dual GTX580m GPUs, an Intel Core i7 2960XM with turbo boost (up to 4Ghz), two 256GB hard drives and 32GB of RAM.

It might set me back around $6,720 (R56,590.90) before shipping and customs, but I don’t care, I’ll be homeless and happy.

Dell Alienware M18x Laptop

HP ZR30W

As impressive as the specifications of the ZR30W are, it is a bit of a compromise.

My ideal monitor would be a 30-inch display running a 2560 x 1600 resolution (because 16:10 aspect ratio is just better than 16:9), have no scalar or OSD to reduce input lag, feature an IPS panel for greater colour accuracy, and the panel would have to be 120Hz capable for smoother gaming and 3D capability.

While such a monitor doesn’t exist yet, the ZR30W has all of the above features minus the 120Hz panel capability, which is alright I suppose. Also, it’s over R17,500 locally, just thought I’d mention that.

HP ZR30W

What’s on your Christmas wish list?