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 Recommendations
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 2800+ 512K L2 1.8GHz retail (heatsink and fan included)Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo Platinum (nForce3 250Gb)
Price: CPU - $185 shipped. Motherboard - $125 shipped
This month, we continue to recommend Athlon 64 processors after switching our mid-range CPU recommendation from Athlon XP processors to Athlon 64 processors last month because of the reduced prices on "low-end" Athlon 64 processors as well as better Socket 754 motherboard support (with VIA K8T800 Pro and nForce3 250Gb chipsets becoming available). AMD's Athlon 64 2800+ running at 1.8GHz and with a 512K L2 cache is a very fast mid-range processor. It has a distinct advantage over Intel's mid-range processors due to its ability to run 64-bit operating systems and 64-bit applications, if the need were to ever arise. Microsoft has officially and unofficially supported AMD's move to 64-bit desktop computing for years now, and even Intel themselves said they would make their future Prescott processors compatible with AMD's 64-bit technology (dubbed x86-64). So, as we've stated before, as a mid-range processor, you simply cannot beat the value of an Athlon 64 2800+ or thereabouts.
Over the next few weeks, look for Socket 939 processors and motherboards to become available in massive quantities with Socket 939 processors coming down into the mid-range territory in about 6-8 weeks.
As was the case last month, this choice was difficult to make. Epox offers a similarly great motherboard to MSI, and so to us, it was indeed almost a toss up between the two. However, MSI's K8N Neo Platinum was ultimately chosen because it offered a few extra BIOS features and a slightly lower price. Anyway, offering the nForce3 250Gb chipset itself is easily the biggest feature that the K8N Neo Platinum motherboard carries. This one-chip solution offers native Firewall capability, 4-drive SATA/IDE RAID, and native GbE (Gigabit Ethernet). MSI adds in features like IEEE 1394 FireWire support, 8-channel sound and superb BIOS features and overclocking ability, making this, simply put, an awesome motherboard. MSI plans on using this type of blueprint for their Socket 939 motherboards too, as well as for the nForce3 250Gb Ultra (which adds official 1GHz HT support). This can only mean more good news for MSI's Athlon 64 market from top to bottom. For more information on MSI's K8N Neo Platinum and Socket 754 motherboards, take a look at Wesley's MSI K8N Neo Platinum review and Wesley's Socket 754 roundup.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on the AMD 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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KnightOwl - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
I have to disagree with a couple of the recommendations. I don't think you've really identified what the target user is for the mid-level system.There are only 3 home user apps that really require an upgrade from an entry level system: 1) games, 2) video editing and 3) lots of MP3 encoding.
For the most part this means that users shopping for a mid-level system are really looking for a low end gaming rig and the components recommended should not be ones that will cause regrets in the future.
With this in mind there are 2 areas where the recommendations fall short:
1. Memory - IMO 1 GB is the minimum for a gaming PC today. There are games on the market now that use more than 512 MB, and most likely most in the future will. As everybody knows nothing kills performance more than when Windows starts swapping pages. For just a little more than you've spent on the 512 MB low latency RAM you can get 1 GB of regular latency RAM. Low latency will give you a modest performance gain when the 512 MB is sufficient, but running out of memory will cause an enormous performance loss.
2. Video card - while the 9800 Pro is listed as an alternative it really should be the primary (and only) choice. While the $75 increase is a 60% increase in video card cost it only amounts to about a 6% increase in total system price. A user will easily see more than a 6% increase in game performance. That alone should justify the higher price of the 9800 Pro but you should also know that some (many, most?) of the 9800 Pros on the market today actually have the R360 core and users have had good success overclocking them to 9800XT speeds. IMO that makes the 9800 Pro the card of choice for anything but high end gaming rigs
MemberSince97 - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
Excellent job guys,keep up the good work...Evan Lieb - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
rgreen83 and DigitalDivine, we've fixed the price, thanks.gherald, we recommended two 256MB modules because if you're a mid-range user, you may be the type of person that'll upgrade to dual channel systems in the future. Buying one 512MB makes the least sense, you have no way of taking advantage of the proliferation of dual channel technology in the future, if that's what that particular user has in mind. So, I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say 256MB modules will be useless in 2-3 years.
gherald - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
For once a decent hard drive recommendation, but getting the picture wrong is a pretty sad mistake. Myself, I'd be inclined to go with the Hitachi 160gb SATA for around $100 from newegg.comNice alternative case recommendation! I was begining to think you'd stick with that CaseEdge nonsense forever.
Superb motherboard recommendation! (I own two K8N, it's the best for the money right now, hands down.)
Why do recommend 2x256mb of RAM when socket 754 AMD64s have a single channel memory interface? Go with a 512mb folks... same exact price/performance. 256mb sticks will be next-to-useless 2-3 years from now.
DigitalDivine - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
on the hard drive part, you guys put up a western digital 120GB picture instead of a seagate one.rgreen83 - Friday, July 16, 2004 - link
The raptor shown is 36.7gb with a price of $214, are you suggesting the 74gb raptor or should the price be about half that?