Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - June 2004
by Evan Lieb on June 18, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Networking
Recommendation: Onboard networkingPrice: $0
Nothing more than onboard networking is needed for a mid-range system like the one we're building today. However, a nice additional feature that the MSI K8N Neo Platinum and ASUS P4P800 Deluxe brings (in case you want to purchase our alternative), in terms of networking is its onboard Gigabit controller, capable of 10/100/1000 transfer speeds. The K8N Neo Platinum's use of the nForce3 250Gb allows it to perform especially well in these GbE situations. GbE isn't going to change your experience on the Internet, but Gigabit is very useful for transferring large amounts of data to and from multiple networked computers in, for example, an office or within a family of computers. Some will find the addition of Gigabit very useful for this purpose, while most will just stick to utilizing just the 10/100 capability.
Storage
Recommendation: Western Digital 800JB (80GB) 7200RPM (8MB cache)Price: $67 shipped
Western Digital's Caviar series of drives are still the best price/performance drives on the market, and literally the best in terms of price and performance. The "JB" in 800JB indicates that your WD drive has an 8MB buffer, which means that your drive is able to store more frequently-accessed data than a 2MB drive, vastly increasing performance. Thankfully, if you buy from the right manufacturer, you will receive a 3-year warranty with your drive, which is very useful if you're the unfortunate victim of hard drive death (usually identifiable by the "click of death" sound).
Alternative: Western Digital 1200JB 120GB 7200RPM (8MB cache) ATA
Price: $87 shipped
For an extra $20, you can upgrade your WD 800JB drive to 120GB, which, as you've probably guessed by now, offers an additional 40GB or so in storage capacity. This type of additional capacity can be exceedingly useful if you're someone who stores endless emails in Outlook, plays lots of games, listens to lots of MP3's, or simply needs additional space for the next 12 or more months down the road. Overall, there aren't that many differences of which you need to concern yourself between the 800JB and 1200JB, as they both come with the same 8MB buffer and both perform almost identically. Be wary of WD drives that emit the infamous "WD whine" that continues to annoy users to this day. Depending on your vendor, you may be able to return your drive for a quieter version. If this potential flaw is a major cause for concern to you, we suggest taking a look at Seagate's Barracuda series of hard drives, in the ATA or SATA form. Barracuda's are most renown for their quiet operation.
Optical Storage
Recommendation: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drivePrice: $47 shipped
If you want to be able to watch DVDs, 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. However, the price difference isn't all that huge ($15 at most) if you were to buy a separate drive, plus that second drive would allow you to watch DVDs while your 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 optical storage.
Alternative: NuTech DDW-082 8X DVD+/-RW
Price: $70 shipped
For a few months there, NEC's 2500A was a pretty hot buy for those who wanted a sort of cheap stopgap between today's 8X DVD+/-RW technology and tomorrow's 16X DVD+/-RW technology. No worries, simple, cheap. But the DDW-082 has sort of taken over that spot, especially at the tender price of just $70. So, today, we choose NuTech's DDW-082 8X DVD burner. We did an extensive roundup of 8X DVD burners just a few weeks ago, and concluded that the DDW-082 was the best burner of the bunch. We suggest that you read up on this roundup to learn more about modern day DVD burners. Here's an excerpt regarding the DDW-082:
Incredibly, this drive went from one of our worst performers to our best performer with simple firmware upgrades. Another great feature of this drive is the supported 8X write strategies on 4X media. The fact that this drive is also the cheapest drive in our roundup makes NuTech's DDW-082 a true underdog champion. The DDW-082 deserves our editor's choice award for this roundup.
You won't be seeing higher end DVD burners for quite some time (read: mid-summer), so this drive will last you many months. We'd also suggest reading this article.
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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SKiller - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
"Bottom Line $1592Ouch... a little expensive for a mid-range system, isn't it?"
How so? Most people I know who have what could be considered a high-end system, have at least $2k worth of components (usually more). $1600 is well within what could be considered mid-range.
TrogdorJW - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
If you keep everything but the CL2 RAM recomendation, you could further reduce the price to under $1000. On the "upgraded" version, going with the OCZ 3500 and a more moderate Antec SLK3700-BQE case would drop the price under $1500, and the monitor and speaker upgrades could probably also go to get you a very good gaming system for $1265. In case anyone out there wanted a suggestion from me on that point. :)TrogdorJW - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
And since you keep neglecting to put this in the guide, I'll keep posting it here. The Alternative system summary:P4 3.0C $224
Asus P4P800-E Deluxe $112
2x512 Mushkin Level One RAM $306
128MB Radeon 9800 Pro $204
NEC 19" Diamondtron $326
Kingwin K11 plus 360W PSU $116
Onboard sound $0
Logitech Z-5300 $147
Onboard Gigabit Ethernet $0
Western Digital 1200JB (120GB) $87
NuTech DVD+RW $70
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Bottom Line $1592
Ouch... a little expensive for a mid-range system, isn't it? And since the CPU/motherboard could really still go either way, it's worth mentioning that the alternative system with the Athlon 64 2800+ would cost $15 less: $1577.
TrogdorJW - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
You made some really great improvements in a lot of areas with this version of the guide - congratulations! I like the mention of the WD whine in the hard drive section, as well as the suggestion of upgrading to 1 GB. Still, the memory choices are really quite odd, as the above posts agree.$120 for two 256 MB DIMMs on a single-channel RAM setup? WTF? How will the vaunted 64-bit of Athlon 64 CPUs be of any real use when you've filled two of your three DIMM slots and only have half a gig of RAM? (64-bit isn't all that great right now, and I don't think it will be for at least another year.) Once 512 MB DIMM would have been better, or even two 512 MB Mushkin 2.5-4-4-8 DIMMs for only $156.
As for the recommended 1 GB of Mushkin on the alternative list, that's great RAM - I have it in one of my systems. I also paid $230 for it back in February and wouldn't dream of spending $306 on it now! You could get 1GB of PC4000 RAM for that prices - granted, not low timings, but if you're thinking of overclocking a P4, you would want better RAM than PC3500. I would suggest OCZ's PC4000 as the alternative for P4 systems at that price: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
For the Athlon 64, getting PC4000 RAM is overkill, as good PC3500 will likely perform just as well if not better. In that case, on the high-end, the Mushkin Level One is a nice pick. But that's really too expensive for any mid-range system, so why not stick with PC3500 but get lower timings while knocking off $76? http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
abravo01 - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
Well, I was playing my klipsch promedia 5.1 on a sb live 5.1. Just got an audigy2 upon reading your may high-end guide and the difference is incredible: now I am truly in love with my sound!Thanks for the information.
glennpratt - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
Well I would disagree... I prefer the higher end Logitechs over Creative no matter what the material. And the price makes me forget about Klipsch.GokieKS - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
"Why do they always recommend Creative speakers for "audiophiles"? Any "audiophile" would know that they are pure crap and would either use an HT setup with their PC or some Klipsch Ultra 5.1s."Most of them are, but the SoundWorks MegaWorks/GigaWorks speakers are excellent, and are really a better choice for music (as opposed to gaming/movies) than Logitech and Klipsch's high-end offerings.
~KS
WarmAndSCSI - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
Why do they always recommend Creative speakers for "audiophiles"? Any "audiophile" would know that they are pure crap and would either use an HT setup with their PC or some Klipsch Ultra 5.1s.PrinceGaz - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
Overall a very good recommendation and in line with what I'd go along with today for my next system, but with two important differences.Memory. A gigabyte is a must for this class of system but theres no way I'd spend over $300 on those 2x512MB PC3500 CAS2 sticks, when you could get some PC3200 CAS2.5 for little over half the price. The amount saved would be more than enough to up the processor from an A64 2800+ to a 3200+, giving you performance out the box equivalent to a decent overclock of the 2800+ with low latency memory. And you'll still have some left over to spend elsewhere.
Hard Drive. The most GB/$ now lies in the 160GB to 200GB region, and 200GB SATA drives are only $129 from Maxtor and WD which is a reasonable price component to include in this kind of system (especially if you had been considering spending over $300 on memory). The Maxtor drive is the obvious choice as it has no whine thanks to its fluid-bearings, is of similar speed to the WD, and comes with a three year warranty. As to whether you need 200GB, its always nice to have the extra space and sooner or later you'll probably be glad of it. In the meantime the drive will be faster as all the data is towards the outside keeping seek-times short and transfer-rates high. The rest of the money saved on the memory will pretty much cover the additional cost of a 200GB drive over an 80GB one.
So for the same cost, you could stick an A64 3200+ in and a 200GB drive, just by using 2x512MB PC3200 CAS2.5 modules instead of PC3500 CAS2. It may not have the same overclocking headroom, but this isn't the overclocking system guide anyway. And a larger (or faster if only partially used) hard-drive is always nice.
Apart from those two very minor quibbles, an excellent article in a series which always makes me consider alternatives for my next box.
zyzzix - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link
Excellent article, Evan. My question is about the strength of the MSI mobo recommendation. While it's no doubt feature packed, the ABIT/VIA Pro offers an interesting alternative for OCers. Curious that some high profile names like Abit and Asus have passed on the 250, to date.