While Elitegroup screams "Performance!" in its Extreme series, the company quietly continues chipping away at market share with its lower cost lines. Moderately priced components may not see many headlines, but SysOpt has a history of adding these to the mix, separating high-value from low-quality parts.

Once in a while a company actually surprises us with a midrange product that's priced comparably to lesser-featured competition. Elitegroup Computer Systems has been there before, but its attempts have sometimes ended in mixed results. The P965T-A marks the company's latest attempt to amaze value seekers.

The box reveals enough information to get a buyer’s attention, proclaiming support for Core 2 Duo at FSB1066, in a pizza-box package style also screams out that this is a budget part. This makes it direct competition for our previously-reviewed Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H, hereafter referred to as “the competition”. Regular readers will already see a head-to-head comparison coming up, so lets get down to the nitty-gritty of which product provides better value!

(Is it just me, or ECS here deciding, oddly, to pay tribute to that icon of the Midwest rust belt -- the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am -- with the letters “T-A” and the impossible-to-miss golden bird of prey?)?