Weekly Buyer's Guide: Entry Level System - July 2004
by Evan Lieb on July 7, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Networking
Recommendation: Onboard networkingPrice: $0
Nothing more than onboard networking is needed for an entry level system like the one that we're building today. Pretty much every onboard network controller is the same nowadays, so there's usually no need to worry about Internet speed/download issues. This is why a 10/100 solution like the one onboard the A7N8X-X (and NF7-S Rev.2 if you so choose) will suffice for your Internet needs. Gigabit or 802.11a/b networking just isn't necessary unless you have a home network that transfers a lot of data to and from multiple computers, or if you already have an AP (Access Point) set-up in your home for wireless Internet. Though, if you're interesting in setting up some sort of home gateway, you may want to look into dual Ethernet and GbE.
Storage
Recommendation: Western Digital 800JB (80GB) 7200RPM (8MB cache)Price: $69 shipped
Western Digital's Caviar series of drives are still the best price/performance drives on the market. 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: Seagate 120GB 7200RPM (8MB cache) ATA
Price: $85 shipped
For an extra $16, you can upgrade your WD 800JB drive to the 120GB of Seagate's Barracuda IV series of HDDs. Seagate's Barracuda series is renown for their quiet operation and silent seeking (that grinding sound coming from your case). We are finally recommending Seagate drives because we've seen continued requests for emphasis on silent operation from entry level users over the last few months, and have now finally been convinced that there is enough demand for this type of feature.
Anyway, the additional capacity that you get with a 120GB drive over the 80GB drive, which we recommended as our first choice, 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. Though, 120GB is mostly excessive if you're the only person using your computer. This may not be the case if you have family or friends consistently storing information on this system.
Optical Storage
Recommendation: Sony 52x32x52 CD-RWPrice: $31 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 the type of files that you're burning. At $31 shipped, you really can't go wrong with this solution.
Alternative: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive
Price: $43 shipped
If you want to be able to watch DVDs in addition to having burning capability, then 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. On the other hand, 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 you 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 your optical storage.
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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Z80 - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Watch the Hot Deals forum and you can probably shave another $100 off the cost of this system as long as you don't mind hassling with rebates. I agree with Cocophone on using the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra instead of the Asus MB. It's $10 cheaper, supports dual channel memory and overclocks very well. Take that $10 and upgrade from an XP 2000 to an XP 2100, a proven overclocker's CPU.Cocophone - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
For a budget system why should I pick the Asus motherboard over a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra.Neither board has firewire.
I don't think a budget system would be overclocked, so alot of bios setting would not be used. I plan on dropping a 2000XP CPU and either 256 or 512 of ram and run with that.
computerfan - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I can't wait for the overclocking and SFF guides. I just bought an Antec Aria, but haven't been able to find an amazing microATX mobo. I am very curious what you'd suggest. Something more high end that supports 400/400 MHz fsb dual channel.I'm actually thinking that with the SFF buyers guide, you'll need to make it low/mid range and then have the alternatives be for a high end SFF PC.
Keep up the good work
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
canadianfbiYou read our minds :) We will eventually have a SFF buyer's guide, but we're waiting to build up a few more SFF reviews before introducing it.
Take care,
Anand
canadianfbi - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I'd like to add a vote for an SFF guide. The SFF system I want to build (with TV-out and possibly TV capture, using it as kind of a video/audio server for a home theater) is too specific to be in a guide I believe, but I'm sure there are plenty of people building SFF systems in general, and a guide would probably be especially helpful here given the relative newness of that area.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
The overclocker's guide is coming, but it won't be published until the end of July. We wanted to get to it sooner but we've got a couple of big motherboard roundups that have to be published first which unfortunately pushed that buyer's guide back to the end of the month.On the bright side, since it'll be published at the end of the month the overclocker's guide will be able to be even more up to date with its recommendations as more parts should be available by then.
Take care,
Anand
lazerasa - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I vote we need another overclocker system guide ASAP!StormGod - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I agree that these guides (especially the entry-level) are an excellent addition to AT but there is one very obvious omission from them. Specifically, a lack of actual benchmarking. We all know that AT has these parts being recommended on hand from previous reviews. Why not take the extra time to assemble both the primary and alternative recommended machines and run at least a small battery of benchmarks? Let us see first hand what spending $546 instead of the mid-level price means to real-world performance. At the very least, try it for a month and see what kind of response you get. I suspect that AT readers will overwhelmingly prefer to see actual performance data than to make a pick basically blindly.gimper48 - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
WHERE IS OUR OVERCLOCKER GUIDESU4EA - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I built a system based on this guide a few months ago (interestingly enough, barely anything has changed in the guide) and am very happy with it... barring the borked WD harddrive which I had to get changed for a Seagate.
I love these guides btw .. I think Anandtech is doing a terriffic job on them. My only gripe is that we keep hearing about the new guides that will be included once the schedule is finalized etc, but for the past 2 months or so, all we've seen are the high-end, mid-range and entry-level guides.