Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - August 2004
by Evan Lieb on August 23, 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 - $218 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 applications, 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 applications 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. The fact that they're losing their lead in encoding doesn't help either.
But overall, besides the $49 price delta, the 3.0C is able to offer somewhat near Athlon 64 3000+ (512K L2) performance; though as we said before, it will fall very short in certain applications. 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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Zebo - Saturday, August 28, 2004 - link
Alright, lets just settle in on your orginal statement about different users and uses.:) Overall great guide and I even kept 80% of your recs but some need this Horse power is gaming so mine reflects that.PQI memory is all the rage right now. Check ou this thread:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=322406
JarredWalton - Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - link
Overall, it's a good guide. We still need a "gamer" system for the mid-range and high-end markets, as that seems to be what most people are having problems with. "Get a 6800 vanilla!" Well, if you game, go for it, but at $300, that's a waste for a lot of people. Personally, I couldn't see building a system without 1 GB of RAM, but 512MB in one stick is the only possible alternative. Even on P4, start with a 512 MB DIMM (at reduced performance) and go to 2x512 in the future. 256 MB DIMMs are just *so* 2002. :)My one complaint (sort of) is the Antec 2650-BQE case. I suppose some might differ on this, but I believe that case only has a 120 mm fan in the rear and an 80 mm in the front. The drive cage is also "old-style" Antec. For anyone that hasn't used the "sideways" drive setup in the Sonata and 3700-BQE Antec cases, I think they're head and shoulders above the 2650 design. Shipped, they cost $89 at Newegg, so I think it's worth the extra $10. Still, maybe some people like the old style HDD cage? I don't, but to each his own....
jensend - Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - link
For a mid-range system, I was surprised to see the A64 3000 and the P4 3.0C being recommended. The Paris core Sempron and P4 2.8C offer practically equivalent performance for roughly $30 less in either case (and the 2.8C uses up to 13W less juice than the 3.0C as well). 64-bit capability is not really much of an advantage in the midrange, where the amount of memory addressed will never force a 32-bit processor into PAE mode.Evan Lieb - Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - link
Zebo, look up the differences between the Chaintech and MSI boards. You aren't paying $50 more for just GbE, you're paying $50 more for GbE, 3 FireWire 400 ports, twice the SATA connectors, two extra USB 2.0 ports, 7.1 sound instead of 5.1, and additional RAID functionality (0 + 1). Yeah, kind of important stuff, wouldn’t you say?And no, I’d say there isn’t that much difference between the 955DF and Diamondtron (I’ve owned both). Also, if you’re going to use PQI memory you might as well buy a PC Chips board powered by a Codegen PSU.
Oh, forgot to mention, the lowest price I was able to find on an NEC FE991SB-BK was $279 shipped, not the $249 you listed. Where’d you find your price?
Zebo - Wednesday, August 25, 2004 - link
I already said the chaintech was inferior, question is gigabit which no one has in my house worth $50? Nope. The chaintech, overclocking and stabiliy wise was every bit as good as MSI in the 754 mobo roundup done here at anandtech and it's fiddy bucks less. You forgot the additional cost of the diamondtron which is just way better than any shadow mask samsung, use both side by side, you'll never suggest a samsung monitor again. Nothing wrong with PQI and it's half the price.Yup getting double video performance and being able to play all high res games on that beautiful NEC is pretty importatnt to me..Who were you targeting?
8NP4iN - Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - link
i want to see how an overclocked sempron performs...Evan Lieb - Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - link
thebluesgnr, thanks, I fixed that.zebo, you system comes out to $996, not $923. You're also using a clearly inferior motherboard and the cheapest of cheap RAM, and all just to upgrade your video card, which some users may not want to do if they don't game heavily. Again, think about it, different users have different needs.
Milkman95, we’re thinking of upgrading the memory, but are still trying to figure out how many users in this category really need a gig of memory. That said, with newer games coming out and heavy multitasking becoming more common in this segment, I’d say 1GB will be necessary in the near future. Only mid-range users who are on the cusp of high-end would need a gigabyte of memory.
Evan Lieb - Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - link
thebluesgnr, thanks, I fixed that.zebo, you system comes out to $996, not $923. You're also using a clearly inferior motherboard and the cheapest of cheap RAM, and all just to upgrade your video card, which some users may not want to do if they don't game heavily. Again, think about it, different users have different needs.
Milkman95, we’re thinking of upgrading the memory, but are still trying to figure out how many users in this category really need a gig of memory. That said, with newer games coming out and heavy multitasking becoming more common in this segment, I’d say 1GB will be necessary in the near future. Only mid-range users who are on the cusp of high-end would need a gigabyte of memory.
Milkman95 - Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - link
Good guide as always. My only comment is that i think its time to move the mid-range ram to 1 gig. 512 is nice, but gamers will notice performance limitations on newer games such as UT2k4, D3, HL2. I would say currently the ram is the limiting factor on this PC not the video card.mino - Tuesday, August 24, 2004 - link
#12: 4.) that was the reason a wrote IMHO there ...You made a point there.