Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - August 2004
by Evan Lieb on August 23, 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: $56 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: $157 shipped
The Z-5300 is, more or less, the more powerful version of Logitech's 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 $101 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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
29 Comments
View All Comments
KristopherKubicki - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
The 2510 is junk for dual layer burning. I think quality has gone up a bit in the last 4 months, but when it first came out it burned coaster after coaster.But then again, same for the QSI/Nutech stuff.
Kristopher
ceefka - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
BTW, I like these guides. They have proven to be helpful in understanding what vendors are offering.Most vendors keep their total set price low with crappy mobo's, slow and/or <512MB RAM, el cheapo AGP-cards etc. Very different from what happens here.
I've been reading these guides and comparing them with fixed offerings. I know now I will build my own machine. 2 years ago I knew next to nothing of PC's and I would have bought a Dell blindfolded... Thank you AT!
Booty - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
I was happy to see the Antec case recommended in this article. I think it's a much better case than some of the ones you've been recommending in the low-end and mid-range guides.ceefka - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
So let's say1. I'll replace the DVD-burner with the NEC 2510 2. put in 2x512MB of RAM
3. stick to my old Dell 17" CRT monitor that can easily handle 1248 x 1028
4. stick to the rest of the summary. Would I be happy with a system like this editing my Mini DV tapes?
I especially wonder if someone would recommend another graphics card. I liked the connectivity of the Asus V9520 Home Theater, Geforce FX 5200, 128Mb,TV because it featured S-VHS in. That way I could also commit things from VHS-tapes to DVD. There is also de Studio 9 DV/AV from Pinnacle that you could add on later, but of course that will cost you extra.
Illissius - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
I agree with most picks, but would have put the 9800 Pro as the default video card and perhaps a 6800 non Ultra as the alternative. An A64 3000+ coupled with a lowly 9600 Pro is among the more unbalanced gaming systems I've seen.RobertMcDonald - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
What about the nVidia 5900XT? Its predecessor (the 5900SE) did remarkably well for bang-for-the-buck back on the Q4 2003 graphics roundup. It's a bit more expensive than the 9600 Pro, but I believe the performance difference justifies it. Granted, it can't keep up with the *really* high-end cards, but in the mid-range, its bang-for-the-buck seems hard to beat.CeilingHoles - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
I agree with paxnot. Many people, including myself, have bought the NuTech DVD burner because of your recommendation. So far, all I've had is problems with this drive, and I'm not the only one.. The NEC 2150A is clearly the superior drive for the price range.paxnot - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
I generally believe that AT does a great job at putting forth excellent recommendation, but there is one recommendation in this article that is simply ridiculuos. I am talking about recommendation of the NuTech DDW-082 burner. This burner has been recommended month on month in this guide. But quite honestly, it's a piece of crap. I purchase this drive based mainly on AT's recommendation and I have regretted it ever since. I have tried several different media with this drive and the performance is still awful. If I burn movies faster than 1x, the movies come out with pixelated scenes. Further, the drive has abysmal read speeds. My year old vanilla-flavored dvd consistently outperforms the Nutech drive by a 20-50 margin. I believe that the NEC ND-2510A burner is superior to the NuTEch burner. Not only does it support Dual Layer media, but it has better media support. NuTech is a second rate company. It's website support is awful and limited. Furthermore, AT's recommendation rest on a $6 dollar price differential. 6 bucks!. You lose DL support, (yes, dl media is rare) but for 6 lousy bucks you get a resonable future proof drive from a trusted company. Shame on AT for recommending this inferior burner.thebluesgnr - Monday, August 23, 2004 - link
Nice article Evan - well done. I really enjoyed this one.I have one small comment though (of course ;)
"We should also mention that you don't have to get two pairs of 256MB modules if you think you'll be making big memory upgrades in the future. That is, you can opt for a 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL stick in order to save an additional DIMM slot for future memory expansion. "
It should be made clear that this comment is specific to the main mobo/cpu pick (Athlon 64), and if you go with the alternative (Pentium 4) two sticks is highly recommended.
There's also a small typo there - it says "two pairs" instead of one.
Thanks,