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Weekly Buyer's Guide: Entry Level System - July 2004

 by Evan Lieb on July 7, 2004 12:05 AM EST
48 Comments | Add A Comment
48 Comments

Index

Currently, we are experimenting with our Buyer's Guides to see if we can improve on meeting the needs of a wider range of users, both in terms of the components that we recommend and the prices of those components. We will continue to produce guides for an Entry Level, Mid-Range, High End, and Overclocking system, and we will be adding SFF guides as well as perhaps some type of mobile-related guide to our arsenal. Let us know what you'd like to see in terms of component picks and price points in future guides by writing to us in our comments section, located at the bottom of the page.

We are still going to continue to evaluate products like we have in all our other guides over the last few months. That is, for every component that goes into a computer, we offer our recommendation for a piece of hardware as well as our alternative on that type of hardware. We've added alternative hardware picks to our guides because it allows AnandTech to recommend a wider variety of hardware (especially for those willing to spend a little more than what we budget for a particular system). To be clear, alternative picks tell you just that - your alternatives, which in some cases will be better suited for your needs, and in other cases, will not be. But at the same time, we can still be assertive enough with a first place recommendation so that new buyers aren't indecisive or confused about what to purchase. Most of the prices listed for the hardware that we recommend can be found in our very own RealTime Pricing Engine. Any prices not found in our engine can be found on pricewatch.com. We list pertinent parts of our RealTime pricing engine at the bottom of every page of our Buyer's Guides so that you can choose the lowest prices from a large variety of vendors all by yourself.

Entry Level

The main concern for our Entry Level (or "Budget") systems is pricing, with reliability as a close second consideration. While we certainly take into account performance, we do not consider it a vital part of building an entry level system; it is merely something that is considered when price and reliability have been established. This is not to say that performance is ignored because that is just not the case. We also believe that you're more than likely going to keep this entry level system for quite a long time without modification (read: at least 1.5 years), so some of our picks may be geared toward that type of mentality. Overall, we like to think that we will end up picking a balanced array of hardware based on price, reliability, performance, and longevity, in that order, for today's Entry Level Buyer's Guide.

CPU and Motherboard Recommendations
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  • Evan Lieb - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    As far as the system you're recommending Tostada....if you really want to go with a bottom of the barrel manufacturer like Biostar, the absolute worst 2D and 3D video performance you can find on the market in the nForce2 IGP, and a 2MB cache 80GB HDD instead of an 8MB cache HDD, then be my guest. ;)

    Oh, and the Apex case comes with a no name 300W PSU. Another huge no no.

  • Evan Lieb - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    Degrador, it has been fixed. :)

    Tostada, no, even at 1024x768 the text quality difference between an nForce2 IGP board and an ATI 9200 board is quite noticeable. It's even fairly noticeable at 800x600. Not sure what IGP boards you have used, but I've used basically all of them. They're OK if you want cheap video with occasional gaming, but 9200 cards are better if you want even better gaming and noticeably better 2D text quality.

    As far as the keyboard/mouse, we explained our reasoning quite clearly. A keyboard/mouse is a much more individualized purchase than, per your example, a set of speakers. You're constantly feeling and touching a keyboard/mouse, so our recommendation would be based purely on opinion, on personal preference. That's really not what we want.

    WD 8MB cache drives are widely considered a bit faster than comparable Seagate/Samsung/Hitachi 8MB cache drives, are on the whole a bit cheaper, and are generally considered very reliable. They really don't run much hotter than comparable drives, and they are only noticeably louder than Seagate drives. The difference is minute, at best, either way you look at it.

    I'm not sure what your definition of crippling is, but 256MB of RAM is hardly crippling for an entry level Windows XP machine. How many times is an entry level user going to notice a boost in performance with more than 256MB of memory? Hardly many times at all, and certainly not enough times that they would actually be compelled to spend $50 or more. And since you mentioned it, exactly where are these "many other places" that you could cut costs in this system?

  • Tostada - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    If I was going to spend $546 on an entry level system (with monitors and speakers), I think this would be a MUCH better system:

    $180 NEC 17" SuperBright Diamondtron
    $57 Athlon XP 2000+ T-bred Retail
    $61 Biostar M7NCG 400 nForce 2 dual-channel IGP
    $64 Samsung 80G
    $90 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 CL2.5 Value Select
    $40 Sony 52x32x52x16 combo DVD / CD-RW drive
    $32 Apex 300W case
    $20 Creative SBS250 speakers

    $544 delivered from newegg.

    A better monitor, twice the RAM, a dual-channel board, and the ability to play DVD's for $4 less.

    I would generally spend the extra $23 to get an Athlon XP 2500+ Barton, though.

  • Tostada - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    I really must (as always) beg to differ on this system. It makes me wonder if the author of the guide has built many entry level systems for average people.

    In this price range, buying a video card is a complete waste of money unless you need the DVI output (which the $40 Radeon listed doesn't have). The nForce2 IGP does very well, and text quality is perfect for the average user (who isn't going over 1024x768 anyway).

    A computer pretty much needs a keyboard. I find it quite odd that the price of speakers is included, but a keyboard/mouse is not. You can use a computer without speakers.

    I also find it odd that the guides are sticking to Western Digital drives, especially the WD800JB. WD's specs for their 80G drives are quite bad -- they reserve the right to give you 40G platters. WD drives (with exception of the Raptor) are generally louder, hotter and slower than most of the competition from Samsung/Hitachi/Seagate.

    And honestly, 256MB is pushing the limits of what is acceptable. There are many other places to cut costs before you cripple a machine with 256MB RAM.

  • Frallan - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    I like this system I find it to be really good value for money since you acctually found good products that are also decent performers.
    But I would really like to se the Overclockers guide as well :0)

  • Degrador - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    I think I pointed this out last time too with the cpu alternative: "All this adds up to noticeably better performance that, depending on what applications are run, you may or may not notice". Please, please, please can you fix this? It really bugs me :)

  • Apologiliac - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    *fond

  • Apologiliac - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link

    I'm particularly found of this weeks budget system.
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