Buyer's Guide - Entry Level to Mid-Range, March 2005
by Jarred Walton on March 15, 2005 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Displays
For our displays, we continue to stick with CRTs due to pricing concerns. However, our favorite 17" CRT continues to go up in price, so we're placed in somewhat of a difficult position. Cheap 17" monitors can be found, but the quality of such options is never that great. Maximum resolution is generally 1280x1024 with refresh rates of 60 Hz. As price is a major concern for the budget sector, we'll still recommend such a display. However, for a minor price jump, the option to purchase a decent 17" LCD is now there.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $145 shipped
In the past, we have recommended the NEC FE771SB as a slightly more expensive alternative to the Samsung display. However, the price of the NEC displays has now shot up about $20 since the last budget Guide, putting it at nearly the same level as a decent 17" LCD. If you can find the FE771SB for less money, by all means go for it. We are unable to do so - at least, not from any place where we feel that there is a reasonable quantity available. As a less expensive alternative, the Samsung 793DF/MB is still good. Some people prefer shadow mask tubes over aperture grilles like the NEC anyway, but we aren't among that group.
The Samsung display is almost perfectly flat on the inside - in reality, the surface is flat externally and slightly curved on the inside. The MB adds the ability to adjust brightness and color temperatures at the press of a button, which can come in handy for certain games - Doom 3 in particular. Movies also benefit at times, assuming that you're watching movies on your 17" display. Overall, picture quality is good, but if you're doing office work primarily, we feel that spending the additional money for an LCD would serve you best.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $210 shipped
You could always go for a large CRT like the Samsung 997DF, but for non-gaming use, an LCD is probably a better choice. We've selected a good LCD, although not necessarily a great one. Missing is support for DVI input, and of course, you're locked into a resolution of 1280x1024 for best results. However, a 17" LCD is actually larger than a 17" CRT, as the viewable diagonal is 17" rather than 16". A 19" CRT would have an 18" viewable diagonal, making it slightly larger, but then you're dealing with a heavier unit and all of the other CRT aspects. Other benefits to LCDs include the fact that refresh rates are no longer as important, as flicker isn't generally noticed even when running 60Hz, and they don't use as much power as a CRT.
DVI input would make such a display ideal, but that does add at least another $20 relative to the Rosewill. The only real problem remaining with LCDs is the potential for dead pixels. If possible, buying an LCD at a local store and checking it out before leaving the premises is a good way around this issue. Unfortunately, prices and features are often not as good when shopping locally. The warranty of the Rosewill LCD is the one item that gives us cause for concern, as their RMA process looks rather questionable. Still, $210 for a good 17" LCD is about half as much as what such a display cost a year ago!
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LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
Note on the Hitachi hard disk drives:Hitachi is the ONLY major company that does not allow advance-exchange RMA of their hard disks. To me, this is huge when looking at a hard disk. Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor all have advanced exchange. After the nightmares I have had with IBM and Hitachi technical support, I could not in all honesty recommend them in a system. Personally, I can't afford that kind of downtime, having an advance replacement makes it easier to try and recover data from a crashed drive if necessary, and you aren't waiting in limbo while someone receives your defective drive, checks it in, diagnoses it bad, then sends you out a replacement, also placing you at the mercy of their stock-on-hand or whomever they choose to ship to you the replacement drive.
neologan - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
There's another buyers guide at http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=9 but it doesn't choose its recommedations due to a really strict budget. Worth a read though i guess.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
26 - Thanks. Identity crisis indeed! I was originally looking at upgraded S754 instead of S939, but decided against it. :)As a side note, RAM prices have suddenly taken a massive cut. The PDP 2-3-2-5 is now $20 less than last week, and it's about $50 less than a couple months ago. Heck, you can even get 1GB (2x512) of Corsair CL2.5 for under $100 now - again, $50 less than last Guide!
chrisd154 - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
"Socket 754 Alternative Motherboard: Chaintech VNF4 Socket 939""Socket 754 CPU: AMD Athlon 64 1.8 GHz 512KB L2 90nm socket 939"
Your socket 754 motherboard and cpu are having a bit of an identity crisis (i.e theyre 939). You might want to correct that mate.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
24 - you want benchmarks of the speakers? Sorry, that's *way* beyond the scope of this Guide. Speakers costing $60 or less aren't being purchased primarily for their quality; they're being selected for price.If you mean benchmarks in general, that's something that would be great to have but not practical to do. Our various hardware reviews are meant to address the theory of what makes a good component/computer. For many of the parts in a budget system, price is a bigger factor than the final performance or quality. Sure, we'd like to have both, but the truth is you're not going to get SLI in a budget system. We do not have all of the parts available in one location for testing, and some of the parts may not even be in AnandTech's possession [anymore]. This is especially true of entry-level Guides, as many of the parts were new a year or more in the past
If you'd like specific information or you have a specific question, feel free to email me.
crimson117 - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
I'd appreciate if you could add some benchmarks to compare "beeps and boops" quality. This guide is pretty much worthless without them.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - link
The MSI uATX is the only ATI Xpress 200 board currently available, and it's basically the same price as the Chaintech. Given that it's still pretty new, I'm a little hesitant to go with that over the "proven" nF4. Oh, and there are *no* overclocking options on the MSI board right now. Is that a BIOS problem or a chipset problem? I don't know. If you really like ATI or if you want a uATX form factor, it's definitely an option.kmmatney - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
I'd consider the MSI ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 motherboard board for a budget system as well. From reviews I've read, using the on-board video doesn't seem to degrade overall 2D performance.Pair it with an Athlon 64 3000+ winchester for $235. A decent system for the non or light gamer, and you have the option of upgrading the video later. Too bad there aren't any budget 939 cpus.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
I haven't had issues with the Chaintech, but that's only one person's experience with a specific RAM/GPU setup. The documentation is pretty lacking, but other than that it works well. Are you speaking from personal experience, and if so, what was the exact configuration (RAM, CPU, PSU, etc.)? It works well in the following configuration, although I had to manually set the RAM timings:Athlon64 3500+
Chaintech nForce4 VNF4
ATI X800 XL 256MB PCIe
1GB (2x512) Corsair DDR400 CAS2.5
Antec True430 PSU
NEC ND-3520A DVD±RW
WD 200GB SATA
SB Audigy 2 ZS
As for the DVD+RW, why save $20 when there won't be anything faster than a 16X burner, and the ability to backup 4.5GB of data rather than 700MB can come in handy? (And if that sounds like too much data, consider that a lot of people take digital pictures these days. A few hundred high quality images will fill a CD.) I mentioned the possibility to downgrade the optical drive, but I'm not going to recommend it.
mostlyprudent - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Are you serious ... recommending a motherboard with compatability and stability problems just to save $10? And why put a DVD-RW drive in a budget system? Optical drives are quite simple to upgrade down the road. You would have to be crazy to skimp on the quality of the motherboard to fit in an upgraded optical drive. You can get a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive for about $20 less than the NEC drive you suggest. I would take that $20 dollars and invest it in a stable/reliable motherboard -- there is nothing worse than a finiky mobo as far as I'm concerned.