Buyer's Guide - Entry Level, October 2004
by Jarred Walton on October 6, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Video Cards
We mentioned earlier on the motherboard selection that you might look for a solution with integrated graphics. We do not recommend it, but you can save about $20 should you choose to go that route. We prefer to go with an add-in graphics card and avoid integrated solutions. Part of the reason for this is drivers, since getting up-to-date drivers for integrated graphics solutions can often be difficult. It is easier to find drivers for Intel, NVIDIA, and ATI solutions, but the ATI and Intel options are currently only available for Pentium 4/Celeron platforms. However, we still prefer the quality and reliability of the discreet graphics cards manufactured by ATI and NVIDIA.
Office Graphics Recommendation: Celestica Radeon 9200SE 64MB DDR
Price: $35 shipped
The Radeon 9200SE continues to provide the best price for anyone looking for a cheap, but reliable, graphics card. Nearly all of the Radeon and GeForce graphics cards use the reference design, so quality and stability are very good. For non-gaming use, it really does not matter too much what type of graphics card you use. So, those who prefer something other than an ATI card might look to the GeForce 4MX cards or even FX5200 - although the latter costs a little more. Reliability of any of these cards is very good, as is the driver support. Just do not expect much in the way of performance should you try to fire up a 3D application.
Gaming Graphics Recommendation: Connect3D ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR, 256-bit
Price: $195 shipped
The price of our suggested "Budget Gamer" graphics card may seem somewhat out of line with the rest of the choices, but you really have to look at the bigger picture. With pretty much any moderate CPU, the bottleneck in games is going to be your graphics card. Personally, we would recommend that you save a bit of money on the CPU in order to upgrade your graphics card rather than the other way around. A P4 560 (3.6 GHz)/3500+ A64 processor will still struggle to run games when paired with a low-end graphics card, while a moderate 2.4 GHz Celeron D/2400+ Sempron will be sufficient for almost any game when paired with a mid-range graphics card. If you cannot afford $200 for a graphics card and you want to be able to play games for at least another year on your PC, you are better off saving up money for a few more months rather than settling for a cheaper alternative.
Within that $200 price range, there are many options for the budget gamer, and several new cards should be available within the next month that are worth waiting for. We are talking about the NVIDIA 6600GT and the ATI X700XT, which we have recently previewed. Unfortunately, you will need to wait for AGP versions if you want to stay with the rest of our budget configuration, which means that it might be two months or more before they are available. Of course, there is always something better coming out in the next few months - by the time the 6600 and X700 arrive, the latest buzz will be about the soon-to-be-released Spring graphics chips.
If you cannot wait that long and you still want a good gaming graphics card, the Radeon 9800 Pro continues to provide great performance for the price. Our initial previews of the 6600GT and X700XT show that while they will be generally faster than the 9800 Pro, the margin is not that great. This is not too surprising, considering that they all have eight pixel rendering pipelines. The 9800 Pro falls behind in core clock speed, but it makes up for it in memory bandwidth, resulting in relative performance that can fluctuate by up to 20% in either direction. Overall, the price is about the same on all the cards, but you can go out and purchase the Radeon 9800 Pro today.
Other options for the budget gamer include the 9600 Pro and 9600 XT, along with the FX5900 XT. Longevity is a pretty major concern with all of those, but they should suffice if you are not too demanding. If you are a more serious gamer and can actually spend the money, there are much faster cards available, which can improve performance further, but their prices do not fit the budget category. We recommend that you take a look at our other Buyer's Guides for further input.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
53 Comments
View All Comments
skittlekiller - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
One thing that may be useful to inform buyers of is Miscrosoft's basic $15 optical mouse. I work with these very often, I find them to almost compete with Mice like my personal MX510. They're very nice, comfortable, and cheap. They'll do everything you want them to do, and will last you forever.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
ksherman - even inexpensive SFF cases can cost $200 or more, and they are usually more difficult to work with (since they're cramped). For first time buyers, it is difficult to recommend a SFF. If you know what you're doing, though, go for it. We're still looking into recommendations for a SFF System. Stay tuned.We could also cut the gaming system down to $750 while sticking with the 9800 Pro if we go with a cheaper case, monitor, 80GB HDD, and socket A. The performance will suffer a lot, though, especially in the most recent games. A 9800 Pro is still 50% faster (or more) than a 9600XT, so the extra $70 is money well spent, especially if you have any interest in gaming. If you get a 9600XT, high detail modes really are not an option for the latest generation games (Doom 3, HL2, Far Cry, etc.) That's just our opinion, though, and we do mention the 9600 Pro/XT as an option.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
I made a few minor tweaks after reading the comments. I remember reading before that the A7N8X-X was single-channel only, but it's easy to forget with the similarity in names. Still, it's not like the single-channel mode really hurts performance, but with the suggestion of dual-channel RAM, we ought to stick with a board that supports the feature. Sorry for the confusion.Regarding case and monitor, I tried to make it clear that there are a LOT of options out there, and I don't think any two components are as personal a choice as those items. If money is an issue - and on a budget sytem, it almost certainly is - check out some local computer shops. You have to pay taxes, but you save on shipping, so it usually equals out. Searching for displays - both CRT and LCD - at local stores is also a good idea, especially if you have any large electronics stores like Fryes, CompUSA, or similar in the area. They often have sales on parts that can beat any online purchase.
ksherman - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
I think that $900 for an entry level gaming system is a little much... why not use a 9600XT (which still kicks, but costs signifigantly less) and an AMD XP 2600, that only costs $75 and still performes well for games. Also, a SFF computer should be considered as an entry level PC, and should have been inluded... but otherwise, i like the review!Ballistics - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
If you are looking for a 17" CRT monitor that can do high rez at high refresh rates look no further than the Viewsonic G75F. 1600 X 1200 @68 Hz and 1280 X 1024 @ 80 Hz. Natch!thebluesgnr - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
This article shows socket A is not quite dead yet - I wonder why AnandTech completely ignored the KT880 chipset.For what it's worth, I'd recommend ASRock's K7V88 instead of the ASUS A7N8X-X. Save almost $20 for a stable board with SATA support, better sound codec.
btw, the A7N8X-X doesn't support dual-channel like page 4 of the article says.
MemberSince97 - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
Very clear and informative Jarred. A concise guide for they noobler and confused first time PC builder...jensend - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
Seagate's recent PATA drives have all been the sucks. See storagereview.com. For PATA, go Samsung P80- same price, 3-year warranty, significantly better performance (25% or greater difference in every DriveMark 2002 test), lower noise (for details on that, see silentpcreview.com). Seagate's SATA drives are considerably better and I'd call them a dead draw with Samsung's (slightly faster than the P80 SATA drives, slightly louder and slightly more expensive).Spacecomber - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
"... the NEC FE771 is the same display [as the NEC 770] only with a beige enclosure."Actually, I believe that the NEC 770 is a shadow mask monitor, and the NEC 771 uses the Diamondtron aperture grill tube. Both models came in different colors.
Just being picky. I enjoyed reading the write-up.
Space
Illissius - Wednesday, October 6, 2004 - link
Solid recommendations. Why, though, do you insist on presenting two completely seperate price guides under the guise of a single one? It would be much simpler to, rather than have two pages for everything within the same guide, seperate it into two.