The Velocity Micro Edge M40 ($2,980 direct) wants to bring hard-core gaming down to a more earthly price. As such, the M40 uses a relatively modest (but still quad-core) AMD Phenom 9600 processor instead of the overclocked Core 2 Extreme CPU found in many $5K boxes these days. Other pluses are a pair of ATI's Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards in a CrossFire configuration, dual 750GB hard drives, and a Blu-ray reader. On paper, this is a great system, but because of a flaw that's not really Velocity Micro's fault, the Edge is a bit underwhelming.