Intel has dominated the midrange and high-end segments of the desktop processor market since the release of its Sandy Bridge architecture in early 2011. A few months ago we saw the release of Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture—the tick to Sandy Bridge's tock. It's only recently however that we have seen the release of motherboards based on Intel's B75 chipset, which is aimed at rounding out the lower-end of the Ivy Bridge motherboard market. Also recently, Intel has released lower-mid range Ivy Bridge CPUs: the Core i3-3220 and Pentium Dual Core G2120.
Along with these new releases, new parts and price cuts in video cards have also introduced more options into the midrange market. SSDs likewise continue to fall in price; whereas just a year ago the midrange system included only budget SSDs, today's midrange budgets can comfortably accommodate performance SSDs. Finally, there are many new, nice cases for buyers looking to build a system that hits the sweet spot for desktop computing. In this guide, we'll discuss gaming and productivity machines that cost anywhere from $800 up to around $1,200.
