What would a 2002 high end gaming PC look like?

When I built my first gaming PC in 2002, I had to choose components that fit my limited budget. That meant two of the most exciting components had to be left out. One – the most memorable technology achievement of the year – the formidable Ati Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, which for the first time in history gave Ati a massive performance and feature lead over the rival Nvidia, while Nvidia stumbled with their product design and launch. The other – a no expenses spared Intel Pentium 4 Northwood B processor running on the new 533MHz front side bus, using DDR 333 memory. OK, there had to be a little expense spared because top of the line Intel chips commanded an unholy price premium. But the 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 was just below the top end 2.8 GHz, while still offering a decisive performance advantage over AMD processors at the time. But now, with the luxury of 16 years worth of technological progress, I get to finally build myself the high end gaming PC that I really wanted back in 2002.

Video: the build and game play footage.