Buyer's Guide: High End System - July 2004
by Wesley Fink on June 30, 2004 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Networking
Recommendation: Onboard networkingPrice: $0
The two onboard Gigabit ports that you will find on-board our recommended motherboard is all that you will need for a high end system. One of the gigabit LAN ports on MSI K8N Neo2 is the on-chip nVidia gigabit LAN that removes at least one of the Gigabit LAN options from the PCI bus. Our Intel alternate, DFI 875B LAN Party, uses Intel's CSA bus, which also moves the LAN off the confines of the PCI bus. This makes both recommended motherboards capable of the best performance that you can achieve with Gigabit LAN - with no confines of a PCI bus. The practical reality is that you will likely find no real difference between PCI bus Gigabit LAN and the Gigabit LAN provided by either the MSI K8N Neo2 or the DFI 875B LAN Party unless you have specialized networking needs. Broadband won't be any faster than the 10/100 solution found on almost any motherboard these days, but on-chip Gigabit can be useful when transferring large amounts of data to and from multiple networked computers in an office or within a home network.
Keyboard and Mouse
While not a major item, it's still important that you purchase the right keyboard and mouse. Reality is that different people have different preferences for a keyboard's look and feel, and the same goes for a mouse. Therefore, we suggest that you personally try out a keyboard and mouse. Recommending purchasing these items on-line is misleading, as there are too many users with different preferences for this type of thing. Visit your nearest PC outlet to try out a keyboard and mouse yourself; a PC Club, Best Buy, CompUSA, or Circuit City store will do. We suggest that you start with Microsoft and Logitech keyboards and mice. Make sure that you also check out optical mice from Microsoft and Logitech as well. A good solid optical mouse from either manufacturer should run about $20, but in some cases, can run as little as $10 if you can find the right deal.There are also some great wireless optical mice out there, but it really depends on whether you care at all about a wireless mouse and are willing to spend the money to acquire it. It is also no value to buy a cheaper wireless mouse or keyboard just to find that you hate the feel of it. Wired or wireless, make sure you like to type on the keyboard or you like the feel of the mouse before you buy it. Most will be satisfied with a standard optical mouse from Microsoft or Logitech for gaming, as it offers similar or better precision and feel compared to most wireless mice. Whichever you decide to get - wired or wireless - stick with what makes you most comfortable. It is no fun to fight a keyboard or mouse that you hate every time you use your computer
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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
View All Comments
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
#6 - We will likely upgrade the DVD burner in our next guide to one of the new 12X (or 16X?) versions. Since I am still having a hard time finding 8X media or a 12X drive it seemed a little too soon to take the plunge in the guide.While I personally think the Audiophile 24/96 is an incredible sound card, and a great card for a home studio, I think it is most useful to a buyer who wants to do some recording on his computer system. It is clearly superior to my ears than either the Creative or lower-priced Revolution as a card for recording. The pro-grade converters made a real difference there.
My concern was whether most high-end buyers were really first concerned about recording quality, so I decided picking it would be too large a leap of assumption. The Audiophile is also 5.1 which is not a problem in my book, but might be for some. Frankly the Audiophile 24/96 coupled with the Klipsch Pro Media Ultra is an incredible computer listening experience - but you already know that.
mcveigh - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
audigy resamples everything, some people say they notice a difference. some say they don't.both cards are great and have ther own pluses and minuses.
9/10.....how bout a 12x dvd burner....and maybe a better sound card (i'm just playing devils advocate)
m-audio Audiophile 2496 perhaps?????
starmonkey - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
Enjoyed the article. Good choices. The only one that surprised me was the case; I was expecting you guys to recommend the Lian Li PC-V1000 that everyone seems to be so crazy about these days.RyanVM - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
The Audigy2 ZS' SnR is just as good (if not a bit better) than the M-Audio Revolution (108dB). It also supports 24/192. Where are the quality advantages of the Revolution?Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
#2 - It WAS changed in the last guide after posting, and slipped through again this time. We apologize. The 0 is changed to the correct 1.ir0nw0lf - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
Nice changes to the guide this time, although suggesting a video card that is harder than hell to currently aquire might be considered by some a bit questionable, but is still a good candidate for this level of system to be sure. But not to be too overly rude, do you guys actually proof read your articles? Yet again (was this way last high end buyers guide as well), you have on page 9, "Those concerned more about data security than ultimate speed can configure the drives as RAID 0, or mirroring." Can you puh-lease change that to RAID 1? It's killing me!GokieKS - Wednesday, June 30, 2004 - link
Much improved choices over previous weeks. Good job. =)That said, still need to nitpick... though the only thing that I would change and isn't a matter of personal taste (as things like choice for a case are) is the DVD burner. Sony's DL drive and Plextor's 12x models are already both available, and though neither are as good a value, but this is the high-end system, and you're still a far ways off from your $5000 limit. It would also be useful to have a seperate DVD-ROM, for on-the-fly copying of discs. (And a good CD-RW for DAE purposes? 3 optical drives may be a bit overboard though. =P)
Once again, good improvement over previous editions.
~KS
SameOldJames - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
Can't wait to buy this so I can play Half Life 2 at max settings! I already have my 6800 GT on me and now all I need is this! So excited.SameOldJames - Friday, April 2, 2021 - link
I'm just having a hard time finding some at MSRP....