Weekly Buyer's Guide: Entry Level System - June 2004
by Evan Lieb on June 9, 2004 12:02 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Networking
Recommendation: Onboard networkingPrice: $0
Nothing more than onboard networking is needed for an entry level system like the one that we're building today. Pretty much every onboard network controller is the same nowadays, so there's usually no need to worry about Internet speed/download issues. This is why a 10/100 solution like the one onboard the A7N8X-X (and NF7-S Rev.2 if you so choose) will suffice for your Internet needs. Gigabit or 802.11a/b networking just isn't necessary unless you have a home network that transfers a lot of data to and from multiple computers, or if you already have an AP (Access Point) set-up in your home for wireless Internet.
Storage
Recommendation: Western Digital 400BB (40GB) 7200RPM (2MB cache)Price: $57 shipped
Western Digital continues to make well priced budget drives that are noticeably faster than the 5400RPM variety. Depending on what type of office tasks you perform, a 7200RPM drive like the Western Digital 400BB is going to be faster than pretty much any 5400RPM hard drive on the market, and for not much more money. 40GB should be more than enough if you're just storing mostly Outlook or Word/Excel/PowerPoint documents, a few games, and some MP3's. Of course, as we preached at the beginning of this guide, reliability is always a big deal when you're talking about important data, and luckily, this particular series of Western Digital drives has gained wide acceptance around the industry as extremely reliable. We, here at AnandTech, share this same sentiment, as we have used several WD drives (Caviar series) not only for our personal systems, but our test systems as well.
Alternative: Western Digital 800JB (80GB) 7200RPM (8MB cache)
Price: $67 shipped
A very nice upgrade for $10 can be had with a WD 800JB hard drive. The 8MB cache and additional 40GB of space are both excellent reasons to upgrade to this hard drive. We've been lucky enough to receive several quiet versions of the 800JB, and in our research, we have found that it's one of the quieter WD Caviar hard drives. In other words, you may have less of a chance of encountering the infamous WD "whine" sound from your hard drive if you purchase this model and not, say, a 1200JB. If you're sensitive to noise, a very good alternative to the 800JB is Seagate's 80GB (8MB cache) Barracuda hard drive. Performs almost as well as WD's 800JB and is usually quite a bit quieter.
Optical Storage
Recommendation: Sony 52x32x52 CD-RWPrice: $31 shipped
There aren't too many differences between CD-RW's nowadays, save for reliability among various manufacturers. For the most part, Sony has done a good job with their high-end CD-RW drives and we have had great success with them in the past, which is why we decided to recommend them today. You can burn music CD's in mere minutes, and even a full 700MB or 800MB (with the appropriate media) can be burned in a matter of 15-20 minutes depending on exactly what type of files you're burning. At $32 shipped, you really can't go wrong with this solution.
Alternative: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive
Price: $48 shipped
If you want to be able to watch DVDs, then you can always opt for a combo drive. Its function essentially integrates CD burning and DVD watching into one drive. The added benefit is that you're getting a better price for this combo drive versus purchasing an additional drive. On the other hand, the price difference isn't all that huge ($10-$15) if you were to buy a separate drive, plus that second drive allows you to watch DVDs while you burn CDs, which isn't possible with the combo drive. In the end, the decision is up to you as to how you want to configure your optical storage.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on storage from many different reputable vendors:
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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Duker - Thursday, June 10, 2004 - link
Better card for a few more $$$.http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Duker - Thursday, June 10, 2004 - link
Why don't you recommend a 128 bit 128 meg GeForce FX5200 for $63.00? Far Cry would laugh at that 64 Meg 64 bit ATI 9200SE and Doom 3 is closing fast. I don't think ATI is a good choice for this system and I use ATI in 3 out of 4 of my personal machines. Is ATI paying you?http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
White Widow - Thursday, June 10, 2004 - link
Ditto on the support for the 80GB drive. If a company is really going to buy 1000 PC's, then they could probably negotiate some volume pricing anyway.As for overall system pricing, I think the budget system should be kept as close to $500 as possible. If you are building an internet/MS Office machine for someone, that $500 price point stands out.
I also agree that the Overclocking System (is there still an Overclocking System Guide??) should NOT be the most expensive, but rather the most bang-for-the-buck. I see such a system pricing out toward the top end of a Mid-Range system.
Finally, AT has GOT to fix the Price Guide. I'm not ure how it is coded, but most sections of the Buyers Guide discuss two compnents, but onlylist prices for one. How hard can it be to list prices for both CPU's and Motherboards together?
Apologiliac - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
CC had a sale for a 120 GB WD 7200rpm for $60!nastyemu25 - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
i'm starting to hate that casekristof007 - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
Is it jst me or there is no overclocking system anymore ?TrogdorJW - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
Two major issues that continue to plague the low-end system. First is that hard drive recommendation. If a large corporation is buying a bunch of computers, $10 times 1000 is going to be noticeable. For anyone else, you might as well just go with the 80GB drive and be done with it. Volume levels of the WD drives leave something to be desired, though.The other issue is the RAM. You increase the CPU and motherboard costs $40 in the alternative recommendations, mostly for people that want decent gaming performance. You increase the graphics $9, again mostly for low-end gamers. You increase the RAM costs $15, but the difference between CAS 2.5 and CAS2.0 RAM with a low-end system sporting 256 MB of RAM is going to be virtually non-existent. How about something more useful like bumping the price up $37 and recommending a 512 MB Mushkin DIMM like this one: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc... Anyone trying even moderate gaming under Windows XP is going to start encountering severe problems with the more recent games running on 256 MB of RAM.
Finally, that Foxconn case is just fugly. If you're going to recommend that people buy the extra $20 Sparkle power supply for a total of $61 on the case, there are a lot of other options. $72 for the Antec SLK2650-BQE is one option that would only add $11, and you get an Antec 350W PSU instead of a generic 300W PSU. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?desc...
Since you didn't provide this, let's put it in the comments (and I'll throw in my RAM and case suggestions):
Alternative Low-to-midrange System:
Athlon XP 2500+ CPU: $80
Abit NF7-S: $86
512 MB PC3200 Mushkin: $87
Radeon 9200: $52
17" NEC Monitor: $166
Antec SLK2650-BQE w/ 350W: $72
WD 800JB 80GB hard drive: $67
Lite-On CD-RW/DVD combo: $48
Creative Speakers: $20
Integrated audio and network: $0
--------------------------------
Total for slightly more expensive - but overall better performing - Low/Mid system: $678
That took me all of 10 minutes to put those prices together, including finding my alternative RAM and case information. For office use, there's no real need for the alternative, but for low-end gaming, the extra $140 would go a long way toward making the system perform better.
gherald - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
#1 I have to agree $10 more for the WD800JB is definately a better deal.The article suggests that "Pushing SATA into the low end mainstream is very important for the development of that technology" so the alternative HD should be the WD800JD or perhaps this equivalent Hitachi:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Of course, you'd need the NF7 motherboard for that.
#6: The reason is 2D graphics quality; Radeons are much better than onboard Geforces. At work half the stations I administer have Geforce 4 MX's directly on the northbridge and the other half have either a radeon 9x00 or ATI Rage pro 128 card. The differences in quality are clearly noticeable.
As for prices, #4 is right on the money though I would suggest these approximate price ranges:
Entry-level: $600 +/- $100
Mid-range: $1100 +/- $200
High-end: $2000 +/- $500
#9 your high end limit is way to high. I'd call more than $2500-3000 an 'uber' system.
#11 the absolute low limit for high-end is clearly $1500; below is most assuredly in upper-mid-range territory. Also, you are misssing the point of overclocking. Yes many high-end and "luxury" systems (as you call them) can be effectively overclocked, but this does not define an "Overclocking System" per se.
In my opinion an Overclocking System should be roughly 5 to 15% more expensive than a mid-range one, because they'll need a few quality components like a better PSU, quality motherboard, excellent HSF and PC3500+ memory but their goal is often to get the most bang for the buck. This attitude is clearly exemplified these days by the Mobile Barton / NF7r2 crowd.
Pumpkinierre - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
Suprised to see those Prescott prices:2.4E at $123- $35 below 2.4c. making it a low to mid level system chip
2.8E 533FSB - ~$30 higher than 2.8E 800MHz FSB or 2.8c - crazy, must be the enthusiast/upgrader/o'clocker's P4 of choice.
the 3.0 and 3.2 are about the same (but with the 533 P4E ahead in price in the 3.0 rank again!). The 3.4E is still $60 ahead of the 3.4c (why? beyond yields, I dont know) and the EEs are'nt coming down in price unfortunately.
MDE - Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - link
You mention that the NF7-S is a.k.a. the AN7, that's not really true, they're different boards, there's a reason Abit didn't name the AN7 the NF7-S 3.0.