Buyer's Guide - Entry Level, October 2004
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
CPU and Motherboard: Budget Gaming
Very few applications can stress a processor as much as a game, so we recommend that anyone with an interest in the hobby plan to spend more money. Some might even go so far as to say that the words "budget" and "gaming" do not belong in the same sentence, but we feel that budget gaming is possible - you just have to increase funding by a little. If you can cut down on those fast food trips and eat ramen noodles for a month, you should be able to afford a decent gaming system.
Gaming CPU: AMD Sempron 3100+ 256K 1.8 GHz 400 MHz bus
Price: $120 shipped (Retail)
In order to help you get your gaming fix, we have moved from socket A to socket 754 for our CPU and motherboard recommendation, and the Athlon XP has finally been replaced by the Sempron 3100+. For a price increase of roughly 25% over the Athlon XP 2500+, performance is increased by a similar amount. In addition to the increased performance, the newer socket 754 platform should allow for more upgrades in the future as they become necessary.
Socket 754 was previously the domain of the 64-bit Athlon 64. However, in order to cut costs and avoid cannibalizing sales of their premium processors, AMD has reduced the amount of cache to 256K and disabled the 64-bit extensions. These omissions do not affect performance as much as they might on another platform, though, since the integrated memory controller remains and 64-bit application and operating system support continues to be delayed. Right now, it is difficult to find a gaming processor that can match the price of the Sempron 3100+ while still providing sufficient horsepower to run current and upcoming games well.
Should you wish to gain even more CPU performance, you could always opt for an Athlon 64 2800+ or 3000+. Again, the naming conventions may cause some confusion, but remember that the Sempron competes against the Celeron line of Intel and not the Pentium 4. The 3100+ is equivalent in speed to the Athlon 64 2800+ (1.8 GHz) only without the additional cache and without 64-bit support. Our benchmarks of the processor show that, on average, the 2800+ is about 5% to 10% faster, making the additional 20% increase in price a losing proposition for the budget gamer.
Gaming Motherboard: Chaintech VNF-250
Price: $77 shipped
By moving to socket 754, we increase the price of the motherboard slightly as well, but the feature list is also improved. In addition to sound and network, two SATA connections with RAID 0/1 support are included. Those may not be important features for anyone on a tight budget, but it is difficult to complain about their inclusion when the price and performance are so good. The Chaintech VNF-250 also uses the latest NVIDIA Nforce3-250 chipset, which is currently the top choice for socket 754 and 939 motherboards.
You might notice that the same CPU and motherboard recommended here matches our value overclocking configuration. This is simply one more perk that comes along with the package. We will defer to the Overclocking Guide for those seeking more detail on this subject. Even without overclocking, the performance of the Sempron 3100+ and Chaintech VNF-250 remains very good.
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JarredWalton - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link
52 - ??? If you have such a high-end graphics card, are you actually thinking about pairing it with a budget systesm? Anyway, yes, it should work, unless it's an AGP Pro graphics card and your motherboard doesn't have a Pro slot. A 550W PSU should be sufficient, regardless. Anyway, you ought to look into getting an Opteron, Athlon 64, or Pentium 4 to go with that card. :pnurazlanshah - Sunday, October 10, 2004 - link
can i use 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 200 8x AGP 512MB G-DDR3 ($1500) with my NF2 8xagp motherboard even if i have 550w power supply?MasterFlash - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Nice article. I like your choice of components. My comp is similar to your recommendations: Antec SLQ-3700, Biostar MN7CD Pro mobo, Athlon XP 2500+, 2x512Mb DDR400 Crucial RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 160Gb Seagate HDD, Toshiba DVD drive, generic 19" CRT.JarredWalton - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#49 - Foxconn and CasEdge have been suggested in our past budget guides, so I wanted to branch out a bit. :) I'm not too keen on their look, either, but that's just me.Bulldog66209 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
I've found that Foxconn/Supercase/CasEdge toolless cases offer good value, are easy to work with, and many are available with truly usable 400 watt power supplies. The local Micro-Center recently had a CasEdge TU-155 on sale for $31. The included power supply rated as capable of supplying 28 amps of 3.3V, 40 amps of 5V, and 17 amps at 12V at a nominal 400 watts. This compares favorably to the Antec which, although only rated at 350 watts, provides 28 , 35, and 16 amps.spartacvs - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
To #41What the hell do you put on those HD? I have a 40Gb: few games, few applications, few videos, few mp3 and some small softwares (k9, avant browser, etc). It's only 2/3 full. And when it's 3/4 full, it just mean it's time for a little cleanup. Sure you can easily overload 2 x 120 Gb but your need are certainly not what most of the peoples needs.
mino - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
#45 Nicely said.I completely agree,
It just seems to me it's very important to explicitly say what you mentioned here in your post.
It's beacause there is a HUGE amount of people who save those $20 or so, just because they have no idea what the result may be. The worst(not rare) case is, when such a person is a white-box builder...
Other than that I forgot to mention in my previous post that this guide is MUCH better then last one(not saying that was bad).
Keep good work Jarred.
And one suggestion for case to consider - since I think for value machine reliability is FAR more important than look - I recommend this YeongYang Cetus YY-5601 as an alternative with PSU I mentioned before.
We have been buying only these cases for a year now on and they ones of the best in $50-60 range.
they're available for inastance here http://store.yahoo.com/directron/yy5601.html
Ivo - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
The review is very nice and useful but several additional aspects could be addressed too:1. The Video/Audio performance for 'Home entertainment' (without gaming - for older buyers :-).
2. The Cool & Quite (Eco) features of the components and systems.
3. The micro-ATX SFF systems (not barebones) for LAN-parties, Home-PCs etc.
4. The LCD-displays.
5. The long-term price (future software compatibility) of the systems.
In that sense, possibly, only systems with Athlon64 CPUs (with good cooler) are really interesting.
JarredWalton - Thursday, October 7, 2004 - link
Regarding several of the case comments, that's pretty much what I had in mind. I've built quite a few PCs for friends, family, and even myself. The downsides to the cheaper cases often more than outweigh the $20 or so you might save. Heck, if it were me, I would even try to get up to the SLK-3700 or Sonata cases by Antec (although oddly enough I prefer the 3700 over the Sonata - other than the PSU, of course). They're *so* much nicer to work with than a lot of the other sub-$100 cases.Really, cases are a personal choice. What I often consider gawdy or ugly, some people think is "l33t". Conversely, what I think is simple and elegant others will say is boring and dull. Buy what makes you happy, but if you get a cheap, generic PSU and it fails after a few months, don't say we didn't warn you!
Anyway, thanks to all for the kind comments. I'll look at including some other miscellaneous recommendations in the future. I do have to say that after reading Kris' MythTV articles, I've been itching to build a TiVo-esque PC. I just keep repeating to myselft, "You do NOT need another PC... you do NOT need another PC..." Heheh.
Neurorelay - Thursday, October 7, 2004 - link
Whoops, I see the 6600...okay, mistook the number. :)