Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - March 2004
by Evan Lieb on March 24, 2004 2:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Networking
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 P4P800 Deluxe brings in terms of networking is its onboard 3COM Gigabit controller, capable of 10/100/1000 transfer speeds. This 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 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: $70 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: $92 shipped
For an extra $22, 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, the 800JB and 1200JB aren't any different in anything that you need to concern yourself about, 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.
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. 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. We recommended this same optical drive in our Entry Level Guide last week, but it is equally useable for Mid-Range systems.
Alternative: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive
Price: $52 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. The price difference isn't all that huge ($10-$15) if you were to buy a separate drive, plus that second drive allows you to watch DVDs while your burn CDs, which isn't possible with this combo drive. In the end, the decision is up to you as to how you want to configure optical storage.
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reep - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
i would save ~50$ by going for the 2500+ instead of the 2800+ - the difference in performance is hardly worth it. instead, that money could be brought to much better use by spending it on 2x512mb of ram.NeoGodless - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I agree with #10... this is really the mid range buyers guide. In addition, the dual channel motherboards I've had experience with simply need at least memory slots filled to enable dual channel, and adding additional memory does not disable it.magratton - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I think many of you are missing the point here. If you want to do the AXPM 2500 and overclock it then that is the "Overclockers" Guide. This guide is for folks who don't know much (a little more than the average joe per se) and want a good system for their needs. To that end these recommendations are pretty decent to me and will certainly make the average gamer around town looking to save a few bucks plenty happy for a while. Either way, people will be much happier with the cost and effectiveness of this system in the long run than the stuff they can pick up at their local (and online) mass-market dealer.As to the TogdorJW's comments on RAM, yes, 512MB is really the MINIMUM nowadays, and some note should be given that if you are using this for gaming spending a few more dollars to get to 1GB RAM should be looked into.
Myrandex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I would get the <$145 Radein 9800se 256bit 128MB from newegg and softmod it to a full blown 9800, and ditto with previous posts about the 2500+ CPUs instead of the 2800, and on the alternative choice I would put the new Athlon64 2800+ instead of that P4.Jason
mlsaxx - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Oh, one other thing. I know this is the mid-range, and an extra $100 on RAM is a lot of money. However, it really has to be recommended for anyone that does a lot of gaming, especially on the Athlon XP system. Since you lose dual-channel if you occupy all three memory slots, the 512 MB configurations you recommend are going to be lower performing if they are later upgraded. (I would love for you to do some benchmarks on this, incidentally!) This isn't a real problem for the P4 alternative, since you can upgrade to 4x256 for 1 GB of RAM when it suits you.Anyway, for gamers looking at spending the extra money on the Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, they really need to be aware of how many games are starting to break the 512 MB threshhold. I have 1 GB of RAM and a Ti4200 graphics card, and Battlefield: Vietnam and UT2K4 both run perfectly fine for me at 1024x768 and moderate detail. Others running faster graphics cards (9800 Pro) with 512 MB of RAM are posting a lot of complaints in the BF:V and UT2K4 forums. It might bump the price up another $100, but spending $90 on 2x256 MB of RAM for an Athlon XP and then ditching that to go up to 2x512 in a few months would not be cool.
TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Sounds like the new Athlon 64 2800+ will probably become the alternative CPU/mobo next time the mid-range system comes around. Not sure about the longevity of that solution, but then, nothing lasts forever. Highly mature and stable PCI/AGP is probably better than version 1.0 PCIe and DDR2 for the next 18 months.For the rest, this is the mid-range system *without* overclocking. In that segment, the 2800+ is a pretty good choice, although the 2600+ is also an option. Can't complain too much about the choices, although I'm certainly itching to see what sort of overclocks can be achieved with the new A64 2800+. :)
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
You could pay more for an XP3000+, or spend just $80 on an XP2500+ and overclock it a bit but thats not what I'd get.I'd spend $95 on an XP-M 2500+ (still saving over twenty dollars compared to the recommended XP2800+), set the voltage to the normal 1.65V of an XP2500+ (non-mobile), set the FSB to 200MHz and the multiplier to 11, and bingo -- you've got an XP3200+ :)
gofor55 - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Unless you have RAID 0 test results on the ITE based GigaRAID onboard controller, you need to STOP touting this feature. I own a 7N400 Pro 2 and the GigaRAID performance is terrible. It's even a crummy when used as an IDE interface. I had to disable it and add a RocketRAID controller.wassup4u2 - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Why the AXP 2800+ instead of the 2500+? The 2500 is tons cheaper ($81 retail, shipped on newegg), and is only 250MHz slower. It still offers the 333MHz FSB and 512Kb L2 cache. Plus, it's very easily overclockable to the 2.08GHz that the 2800+ offers, even with the retail cooler. Get a better cooler and, presto, you can have yourself a nice little $81 Athlon XP 3200+.