Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - July 2004
by Evan Lieb on July 16, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Sound Card
For a mid-range system, you most likely aren't going to need a lot of audio processing power unless you're an audiophile. If you are an audiophile, then you probably already have a pretty good idea of what kind of programs you run that would require the power of, say, an Audigy 2 sound card and a Gigaworks surround sound speaker system. But if you're just looking for basic sound that is of good quality (most onboard sound solutions sound identical) that will play music, games, etc., then the onboard sound on either your MSI K8N Neo Platinum motherboard or your ASUS P4P800 Deluxe motherboard will more than suffice. If you're looking for something more potent, we suggest that you peruse our High End Buyer's Guide from a few weeks ago.Speakers
Recommendation: Logitech Z640 5.1 speakersPrice: $55 shipped
While totally unnecessary if you're not a gamer or audiophile, the Z640s are nonetheless a very popular and low cost set of high quality speakers. Whether you talk about the 45.5W satellite output/25.7W subwoofer output or the very effective magnetic shielding that protects your speakers from interference from other devices, you can't help but love these speakers. They have a great reputation for reliability and longevity in general, and our extensive personal use of these speakers only backs up that claim. If you want surround sound on the cheap, it's hard to beat the Z640. If you're a big gamer, we suggest the Audigy 2, if you can afford to spend the money. Personally, we find the immersive gaming experience of the Z640s and an Audigy 2 to be truly great, but others may not be so impressed and will opt for the cheaper variant.
Alternative: Logitech Z-5300 THX Certified 5.1 speaker
Price: $144 shipped
The Z-5300 is, more or less, the more powerful version of Logitech's more successful brother, the Z-640. Besides obviously supporting 5.1 channels of sound, the Z-5300 is able to boast such features as a 100W subwoofer and a greater than 85 dB signal to noise ratio. The surround sound gaming and movie experience is tremendous, paired with a good Audigy 2 sound card. These speakers can get impressively loud and best of all, we didn't encounter any sort of crackling or distortion as volume was turned up to excruciating levels. For the price, these speakers are almost as unbeatable as the Z-640's, though not quite the bargain considering the $89 price delta in favor of the Z-640. Still, the Z-5300's are a good "power" upgrade, so to speak.
If, for whatever reason, you're not interested in high end sound and will be gaming or watching movies mostly with your headphones, obviously an expensive surround sound system will be pretty useless. If that's the case, you may just want to opt for 2.0 or 2.1 speakers, such as the ones recommended in last week's Entry Level Guide. But, if you have to choose between a good sound card and a good speaker system, we suggest that you go with the speaker system.
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?