Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - July 2004
by Evan Lieb on July 16, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
CPU and Motherboard Alternatives
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0C 800MHz FSB (512K L2 cache) NorthwoodMotherboard: ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (865PE chipset)
Price: CPU - $219 shipped (retail heatsink and fan). Motherboard - $112 shipped
Knowing just how much Athlon 64 processors trump current Pentium 4 processors in games, it would only be fair to point out the Pentium 4's advantages in other programs, like encoding or specialized apps, such as Lightwave. Certain 3D rendering apps, like Maya, will go back and forth between the Athlon 64 and Pentium 4, though the P4 does eventually win out in that area. Business apps are no contest, though, and AMD continues to dominate this area of life. This annually "weak" area of performance for Intel and their consistently higher prices are keeping them from mid-range and entry level CPU recommendations.
But overall, besides the $38 price delta, the 3.0C offers nearly the same performance as an Athlon 64 2800+ (512K L2). Certain steppings of the 3.0C are even available online that overclock extraordinarily well, and so that may be a major reason to go with this particular processor. We wouldn't bank on finding the perfect 3.0C stepping of your dreams, though. Search our forums for more information.
This pick continues to be a tough one, since ABIT, Gigabyte, DFI, MSI and other motherboard manufacturers offer excellent mid-range 865PE offerings. In the end, ASUS had just enough features and performance with their P4P800 Deluxe to edge out the other contenders, not to mention the fact that we've personally tested and approved this motherboard for reliability and thoroughly enjoy it. The P4P800 Deluxe is one of the best, currently available Intel motherboards that you can pair with an 800MHz FSB processor, and therefore, a 3.0C processor is perfect. The P4P800-D has an excellent balance of great features (SATA and IDE RAID, Gigabit LAN, IEEE1394 FireWire, etc.), 865PE performance, and a very good "mid-range" price at $112 shipped. Most online vendors sell this board for more like $112-$118, but as you can see, you will be able to find it for less at a few reputable online vendors. If you were so inclined to enter into more experienced user territory, the P4P800 Deluxe is also an excellent motherboard for FSB overclocking. Otherwise, we suggest that you stick to stock, and not overclocked speeds, if you are a beginning builder.
For a more in-depth look at the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, we suggest you take a look at our Intel motherboard roundup from last year.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on the Intel CPUs and motherboards 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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Pollock - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
Unless I'm mistaken, that's not a picture of the Antec BQE, but rather a slightly different Antec case.http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
Of course, Newegg could also have the pictures wrong, I just don't feel like looking anywhere else.
jediknight - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
#4:Chances are, if you upgrade to a dual channel (I'll assume within 2 years):
a) Your DDR memory will be obsolete - everything will be DDR2 or it's successor
b) 512MB of RAM will not be enough, even for an entry level system
Best to recommend a single 512MB stick, IMO.. gives you room to upgrade.
nullpointerus - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
Just got done building a new PC to act as a home video server + console emulator, and I have a few recommendations:NewEgg.com
-- Aspire cases ~$55 shipped, very nice for the price
-- Geil 512MB PC3200 6-3-3-2.5 for ~$82 shipped
eBay
-- Radeon 9700 Pro $132 shipped (have to be somewhat lucky)
Also, why recommend a PATA drive when SATA drives tend to create less clutter and perform a bit better? I really wouldn't recommend a raptor for a new mid-range system - games have multigigabyte installs these days, and then you need space for music, CDs, movies. IMO it's better for load times to rip your game CDs to a ~3x larger hard drive.
crimson117 - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
The Casedge TS1 is NOT $40 shipped at pcclub. It's $20 shipping to New York and $11 tax/shipping to California.ir0nw0lf - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
PrinceGaz, this is a mid-range system, 1 GB of RAM is overkill for this. 512 MB in a single stick would be ideal here.PrinceGaz - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
Generally very good recommendations I'd agree with, and the first choice of hard-drive (120GB Seagate) is an improvement over a noisy 80GB WD.However, the choice of memory is still poor. 512MB isn't enough for this sort of system so you have to go for 1GB (2x 512MB modules). Only the high-end system should be using considerably more expensive low-latency modules as they don't offer enough extra performance to justify the increase in price over regular memory. I know it must be tempting after reading all the memory reviews on AT to go with the best memory available, but it offers only a very small real-world performance increase that doesn't justify the much higher price. Go with 2x 512MB sticks of regular brand-name memory (not cheap and nasty no-name memory).
Even if you do only want 512MB for some reason, you should get a single 512MB stick if you're building the AMD system as the K8N Neo Platinum (like most S754 AMD boards) only has three DIMM slots. You certainly don't want to limit your future upgrade options by filling two of them with 256MB sticks.
Apart from the memory suggestions, an excellent guide.
kherman - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
I hope that 3D card you recomended can play Doom!Then again, people can always upgrade on their own.
Degrador - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
I'd have to agree with the memory thing. Time and time again we're shown that the benefit of low latency memory is relatively little, especially considering the premium you pay for it. I always suggest to people buying computers that for the extra cost of low latency, you'd be better off either doubling the ram to 1GB, or upgrading the video card, or getting a faster processor - whatever, all of these will give better performance than low latency memory ever will.Also getting 2 sticks of 256MB is as mentioned relatively pointless. A mid-range user is not likely to upgrade anytime soon, meaning either they'll want DDR2 when they do, or they'll want more than 512MB memory. Perhaps if this was an overclocking system, or a high-end, then you could consider them upgrading in future, and what will benefit then. But certainly not for midrange.
StormGod - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
I will continue to ask AT to assemble these systems and run some benchmarks on them.mino - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
#4 Evan,You are wrong with that assumption about memory.
If anyone wanted to upgrade, from this setup to dual, then it makes much more sense to buy another 512 module also, since anyway CPU and MB will have to be replaced.
256 module as it stands now, are just for office comps (w/256M) or when someone doesn't have left money for 512 module and plans to buy one in the near future.
For Combo I will also opt for Toshiba parts rather than LiteOn's.
Overal, except this little nonsense, pretty good guide.