Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - March 2004
by Evan Lieb on March 24, 2004 2:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Mid-Range System Summary
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| CPU & Cooling | AMD Athlon XP 2800+ | $120 |
| Motherboard | ABIT AN7 (nForce2 Ultra 400) | $102 |
| Memory | 2 X 256MB Mushkin Basic Green PC3200 (DDR400) | $90 |
| Video Card | 128MB PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro | $129 |
| Monitor | Samsung 955DF DynaFlat CRT | $200 |
| Computer Case | CaseEdge TS1 (plus $30 360W PSU) | $70 |
| Sound Card | Onboard | $0 |
| Speakers | Creative Labs SBS270 | $20 |
| Networking | Onboard | $0 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital 800JB (80GB) | $70 |
| CD-RW | Sony 52x32x52 CD-RW | $32 |
| Bottom Line | - | $833 |
$833 is the final price of our mid-range system this week, not including any money that you'll spend on software (Windows XP Home or Professional, Office, etc.) or a keyboard and mouse.
It's great to see how little you can spend on a system these days while still being able to wring great performance from it. For $833, you'd be hard pressed to find a faster system.
Now go build your system and let us know what you think in our comments section.
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Ballistics - Friday, July 2, 2004 - link
Test2Ballistics - Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - link
TestEtacovda - Sunday, April 18, 2004 - link
another vote for the 5900XT ;)jzimo - Saturday, March 27, 2004 - link
I would swap out the 9600 pro for a MSI 5900 XT. The card is $180 and in benchmarks is right with the 9800 pro. This is the card has the best performance/price ratio.wjh - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Thanks for the great guides-- We are really enjoying and benefiting from these as we are about to build our first computer-- for gaming, mostly.We really like the cutting edge and overclocking guides the best. Thanks and please keep 'em coming.
Ballistics - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Here's a link:http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/msi_59...
Ballistics - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
Pathetic!!Not even a mention of the nVidia FX5900XT. $180 videocard that smokes 9600XT's
For those who have not heard about this card, google it and look up the reviews.
greendonuts3 - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
"being able to ring great performance from it"n.b.:
That should be "wring" instead of "ring," as the metaphor is more like "wringing more water out of your towel" than "ringing a bell."
Keep up the good work and thanks for the guides.
jcromano - Friday, March 26, 2004 - link
First, let me say that I'm enjoying these buyer's guides very much.I wonder, however, if it would be possible to list all the alternates and their prices in the final summary table side-by-side with the primary recommendations? Would it be possible to highlight or otherwise flag the recommendations that have changed since the last time around? (Even better would be to tell what they changed from, as well.)
Yes, I am very, very lazy.
Thanks for the excellent series of articles. Keep them coming!
Jim
kherman - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I'm not really going to nit-pick, but it would have been nice to see a second monitor recomendation that is a 21" or 22" monitor. For a mid-range system, recomend a low end 21". A 21" to go with a high end system will probably cost to much, so it's not like we can wait for next week....