Buyer's Guide - Mid-Range, January 2005
by Jarred Walton on January 21, 2005 11:09 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Optical Drive Recommendations
With the maximum speed of dual and single layer DVDR topping out at 16X and future replacements like BluRay and HD-DVDR in the works, not much has changed with our optical drive recommendations. We strongly recommend to anyone investing this much money in a computer to not skimp on the DVD drive and go with a DVD+RW 16X model. They work well for archiving old data and backups, and the price is low enough that we would recommend every new computer now to incorporate the technology.
Click to enlarge.
DVD+RW Recommendation
NEC DVD+RW 3520APrice: $64 Shipped
Some individuals swear by Plextor drives and will pay more for them, but our pick for price/performance continues to be NEC. The ND-3500A [RTPE: ND-3500A] received our Editor's Choice award in our last DVD+RW roundup based on its overall features, speed, reliability, and media compatibility. The ND-3520A [RTPE: ND-3520A] adds support for 8X DVD+RW and 6X DVD-RW recording, along with some firmware updates. As the price difference between the older 3500A and the new 3520A is only a few dollars, we see no reason to purchase the older drive.
If you actually plan to do a lot of DVD-to-DVD copying - we'll leave the legality of any such endeavors to you - adding in a DVD-ROM drive for $20 or so might also be desirable. For most people, however, a single DVD+RW functions well as a Jack of All Trades. The only real competitor in terms of price/performance is the Pioneer DVR-108 [RTPE: Pioneer DVR-108D] drive, so if you're averse to purchasing an NEC model, go that route.
Another option that a few people have asked about is SATA DVDR. With our talk about how much easier SATA cables are to deal with than the old IDE cables, wouldn't it be great to get an SATA optical drive? When you consider that some motherboards come with a whopping eight SATA connections, what's holding us back? The problem is that you currently have very few options for SATA DVDR, and all of them are from Plextor. The SATA connection will do nothing for actual performance, as even at 16X burn speeds, the maximum data rate is only about 21 MB/s, and compatibility is a bit questionable (check Plextor's compatibility guide before purchasing). Other than those concerns and the price, if you really want an SATA connection on an optical drive, the Plextor PX-716SA and PX-712SA are your two choices.
Floppy Drive Recommendation
NEC, Sony, TEAC, Samsung, or anything elsePrice: $8 Shipped
While we're on the subject of drives, let's not forget the old floppy drive. If you absolutely cannot stand the thought of putting such old technology into your wonderful new computer, that's okay. For us, however, we like to keep it around just in case. BIOS flashes - or in some case recoveries - can make good use of a floppy drive, and sometimes you'll need one with drivers if you want to install Windows XP onto an SATA drive. A driver disk will also be required if you want to install XP onto any sort of RAID array, so keep that in mind if you're considering that option. With such old technology, we haven't noticed any difference in reliability or quality among the various brands of floppy drive, so just get whatever's cheapest.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
^^^ Er, Foxconn is at MonarchComputer.com, not GameVE.JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
44 - This was written by January 18th and published Jan 21st. Things change rapidly, which is why the Buyer's Guides are really just a snapshot in time. There are several NF4 boards now available at Newegg, including the Chaintech and an MSI Neo4 Platinum. Odd that the Chaintech lists "NVIDIA 7.1-channel audio" - is SoundStorm back with NF4? I don't think I had heard about that. The Gigabyte board is also available from quite a few other resellers besides Newegg, of course. There's even a $109 Foxconn NF4 board at GameVE. Interesting! Not that I've had any good Foxconn experiences, but $109 is attractive.jleandro - Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - link
Don't want to be a pain, you guys review whatever boards you think are worthy, but I just checked Newegg and here's what they had IN STOCK:CHAINTECH NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU, Model "VNF4/Ultra" -RETAIL US$ 135
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL US$ 159
GIGABYTE "GA-K8NXP-SLI" NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL US$ 249
ASUS "A8N-SLI Deluxe" nForce4 SLI Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL US$ 265
Interesting that the Gigabyte K8NF-9 was actually not in stock.
hawksballer - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - link
JarredWalton - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
41 - Guide editors changed a few months back. The "alternative" configurations have always been more expensive, and they include *all* the alternatives, usually. If you were to take this Guide's alternative (NF4) and stick with the recommend parts everywhere else, price would drop considerably. I haven't made a point of highlighting this, but I did change the pricing targets a bit on the Guides.For the budget, I typically try for $500, but I usually end up closer to $600. Compromises to drop the price are possible but undesirable, i.e. go with 1x256 MB of RAM. The Budget altenative I generally target slightly below the Mid-Range, so $900 to $1000 is usually where it lands.
The Mid-Range has been bumped to $1250 by default, which generally allows for a very good all-around system with few (if any) compromises. The alternative Mid-Range I try to keep under $2000, although closer to $1750 is desirable.
I haven't done any High-End or OC Guides, but High-End will be in the $2000+ range (maxing out at $4000 or so with *all* the trimmings), and the OC Guide is really just about any of the above price goals. I'm working on one of those.
Hopefully that answers your questions. If you want to trim costs a bit on the Mid-Range, going to a slower CPU and GPU usually cuts close to $200, but then it's no longer an all-around system.
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#40: The Chaintech may very well be available in Hungary, but it is not at all available in the US right now. Newegg is the one of the few sites that even list it, and any boards have disappeared *FAST*. If you picked on up without difficulty where you live, more power to you! Lucky #@$^&*%! ;)
wilburpan - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Is it just me, or have the Mid-Range and Entry Level Buyer's Guides suffered from price inflation? It seems to me that way back when, the price points for these two were a solid $1000 and $500, respectively. Now the Entry Level Guide has a budget of up to $1000, while the Mid-Range Guide is pushing $2000.I can understand that picking price points is an arbitrary process, but I would think that for comparing what your computer dollar buys you over tme, it would be nice to remain consistent.
jleandro - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Can't understand why the Chanitech NF4 Ultra Zenith is not considered to be available.I live in Hungary (not the prime tech spot) and this board has been available for some time, most retailers have it.
In fact I just bought one today for ~110 USD and will pick it up tomorrow.
For instance, check http://www.e-connect.hu under "alaplapok" (motherboard in Hungarian).
JarredWalton - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
38 - Thanks. It's corrected now. The marketing for the drive states "with SATA-II features" and somewhere along the line that got put in as SATA-II. :| Basically, the drive has hot-swap capability and NCQ, which are both SATA-II. It does not support 300MB/s, but then burst transfer rates really matter much. With sustained transfer rates of even the fastest drives maxing out around 70 MB/s, it will be quite some time before SATA-II transfer rates really show real-world benefit.37 - 0dB computing? I'm not sure I'm the one to address that, but it's certainly something to think about. I'll pass that along and see if we can acquire the parts for such a test. They're relatively expensive in comparison to fan-based solutions, unfortunately.
AnnihilatorX - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
JarredWalton:A misleading information I just found and thought would like to point out...
The Maxtor Diamond Max 10 300GB with NCQ 16MB cache (6B300S0) is SATA-I/150 in terms of transfer speed, but not SATA-II/300 as stated in page 6.
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=232...
"Maxtor 300GB SATA-II with NCQ and 16MB cache"
ceefka - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
Again a great guide. I was already interested in the Maxtor 300 GB SATA II. I guess in that case you'll have to go with the Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 or any of the other nForce 4 boards.Would it be a challenge for AT to build a 0dB PC with high end components with Intel and AMD and compare notes. This machine should at least be a mid-range performer or just as high as you can go on 0dB.
I wonder because I'd like to build something really quiet. I have already looked into components like Yesico FL420 and fanless CPU coolers, but I am not sure if all of that will work with also two Maxtor 300GB SATA-II's in http://www.blacknoise.de/shop/de_DE/produkte/id_is...