Hard Drive(s)
Recommendation: Western Digital 400BB (40GB) 7200RPM (2MB cache)Price: $57 shipped
Western Digital continues to make well priced budget drives that aren't noticeably slower 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 drives. 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.
Runner-up: Western Digital 400JB (40GB) 7200RPM (8MB cache)
Price: $64 shipped
Like the 400BB, the 400JB is a 40GB 7200RPM hard drive. The only difference is in the size of the cache (or buffer) that each drive uses to store data. Basically, the 400JB is going to be faster than the 400BB because it can store more data in its cache (8MB instead of just 2MB) for use later on in a fetch sequence, and overall that gives your system a performance boost. In general, however, the difference isn't huge, but definitely does shave off some time in common everyday tasks like unzipping files or installing an application, for example.
Optical Storage
Recommendation: Sony 52x32x52 CD-RWPrice: $32 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. At $32 shipped, you really can't go wrong with this solution.
Runner-up: Lite-On 52x32x52 CD-RW
Price: $36 shipped
While Lite-On is slightly more expensive than the Sony CD-RW that we recommended, Lite-On's reputation for reliability is just about as good. We've tested and used multiple Lite-On drivers, from 24X to 52X recently and many more before then with great success. Plextor has gained wide acceptance as the gold standard for optical drives (reliability especially), and specifically CD-RWs, but their prohibitive pricing makes it an unrealistic choice for budget users, which is why we're recommending Sony and Lite-On drives instead.
UPDATED February 19th, 2004
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
50 Comments
View All Comments
ITdude - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
Nice System doesn't include a Monitor though.I would have gone with:
AMD XP 2500 Barton (+$30.00)
Nforce 2 IGP built in Video (+$25.00)
Skip the Radeon 9200 (-$58.00)
and if at all possible get 512MB RAM (+$35.00)
taleril - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
How about keyboard and mouse choices? Just go generic and cheap?anilphv - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
I prefer eMachines or HP pre-Configured PCs for this budget. These machines look nice and comparable hard ware and software configurations. There are lot of better deals for these machine in the web also.http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?pr...
Specifications
CPU: AMD Athlon™ XP 3000+ Processor
QuantiSpeed™ Architecture operates at 2.167 GHz
512KB L2 cache & 333MHz FSB
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Chipset: NVIDIA® nForce™2
Memory: 512 MB DDR (PC 2700)
Hard Drive: 160 GB HDD
Optical Drives: 48x Max. CD-RW Drive; 16x Max. DVD Drive; 3.5" 1.44MB FDD; 8-in-1 Media Reader(USB 2.0, Secure Digital (SD), Smart Media, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Micro Drive, Multimedia Card)
Video: NVIDIA® GeForce4™ MX graphics (1 AGP 8x slot available)
Sound: nForce™ 6-channel Audio
Modem: 56K* ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem
Network: 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Peripherals: Premium Plus Multimedia Keyboard, 2-Button Wheel Mouse, Amplified Stereo Speakers
Dimensions: 7.25"w x 14.125"h x 16"d
Internet: AOL 3 month membership included, click here for details
Ports/Other: 5 USB 2.0 ports (4 in back; 1 in Media Reader), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio-In & Out
Pre-Installed Software: Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft Money 2004, Encarta Online, Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™, Microsoft Media Player, Real Player, Power DVD, Internet Explorer, Netscape® Navigator, MSN®, CompuServe®, AOL (with 3 months membership included**), Norton AntiVirus 2004 (90 day complimentary subscription)
NeoGodless - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
Can not view Page 4. Causes IE to crash.Otherwise, similar to budget systems I have built. I used the Shuttle, and prefer putting 512MB systems in Windows XP... which allows for the nForce2 chipset to make use of dual channel memory. I've seen several Radeon 9200SE cards with poor 2D image quality and never recommend them to anyone. Spend the extra $5 to $15...
kuk - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
This takes me back to SharkyExtreme's guides ...shiftomnimega - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
I would hae definitely gone with XP home and heck while you're buying all those parts get the OEM version for around 90 bucks.Ecmaster76 - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
I recommend the Shuttle AN35 series of motherboards. They are a little on the plain side, but they use the nforce2 ultra ($60 single or dual for about $5 more). They also include integrated sound and nteworking.Bonesdad - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
Seems like an alternatie OS is in line too...linux or WinXP Home. Especially if this is budget. I guess if this is destined to be an office PC, XP Pro is good, but if it is a home PC...savings can definately be had.elturco - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
isnt it funny that you are recommending a $270 Os for a $520 computer? if it is a budget system, you should recommend a decent linux OS.KillaKilla - Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - link
Well put.Personally I would have liked to see a performance system buyer's guide, but that's just me.
Also I would have suggested an 80
(or 120GB, it's like ~$10 more, I think) GB WD SE HDD, but that's assuming you're using it as a storage/backup system.
-KillaKilla