HP Pavilion Elite h8xt

The ; offers an edgier design than we're used to from mainstream desktop vendors, along with HP's unique Beats Audio software, and a fair asking price for its do-it-all features.

You can get better gaming performance for the dollar from boutique PC vendors, and upgrading or adding hard drives to this system will be frustrating.

We'd recommend the HP Pavilion Elite h8xt to anyone in the market for a well-rounded, higher-end desktop, and for headphone users especially; the included Beats Audio software will provide a marginal boost to audio output.