Buyer's Guide - Entry Level to Mid-Range, March 2005
by Jarred Walton on March 15, 2005 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Optical Drives
We thought that DVD+RW drives had hit rock bottom, but they continue to drop a few dollars now and then. If you really have no desire to use recordable media - even as a backup device - you could save yourself $40 or so, but the potential uses of a DVDR are just too many to pass up.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $57 shipped
The latest NEC-3520A drives are now down to the prices of the old 3500A, and they have fallen about $10 since our last look. At the current rate of decline, we may actually see DVD-ROM drives disappear, with the DVD+RW models dropping to $30 or less! By then, of course, we'll be looking at the next generation of optical media storage. The only feature that the 3520A is missing is DVD-RAM support, although we've also heard conflicting reports of its Mt. Rainier (Bitsetting) support. LG Electronics offers 16X models with DVD-RAM support, if you require it. The 3520A comes in either black or beige bezels, with the black carrying a slight price premium right now. If you need an aluminum bezel, you'll have to purchase that as an aftermarket part for a few dollars more. If any of you have had serious problems with the 3520A and have a better alternative, drop us a line. As it stands, however, the price of $60 almost makes such devices a throw-away commodity.
Floppy Drive Alternative: 3.5" Floppy Drive
Price: $8 shipped
For these systems, we should finally be at the point where a floppy drive is no longer a necessity. We'd still add it for the small cost, and if you want to install XP to a RAID array, a floppy drive will still be required in most instances. BIOS updates for some boards may also require a floppy disk, although with utilities such as WinFlash, that is becoming less of a concern. We still put a floppy in most of our systems on the odd chance that we'll need it, but it's up to you to decide if you want to try dropping this ancient technology. If you do include a floppy, remember to pay attention to your case colors.
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rivethead - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
The Leadtek GeForce 6600 is $109 at NewEgg. It's only $7 more than your 6200 PCI-E selection.rivethead - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
"what happen to 6600 non-GT?"Man, that's an excellent question. I was wondering the same thing.
rivethead - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
I think you're socket 939 mobo recommendation is incorrect.The Chaintech board that's $91 shipped (actually $89 shipped from NewEgg) is the nForce 4 board, but it's not ULTRA, meaning you don't get the firewall, the SATA2, or NVIDIA nTune software.
I THINK this is the board you're wanting to recommend.
If it really is the Chaintech ULTRA board, please let me know exactly where I can get it for $89 shipped.
BTW, if you do a pricegrabber search on the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra board, the non Ultra board will erroneously be displayed in the results for new egg.
The Chaintech VNF 4 ULTRA board is $101 at ChiefValue....that's the cheapest I can find it.
rivethead - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
bigpow - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
what happen to 6600 non-GT?Jep4444 - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
you beat me to it ChineseDemocracyGNR, the 9600SEs 64bit bus cripples the 9600 far more than the 75mhz core clock reduction on the 9550also the 64MB 6200TCs are even slower than the 32MB ones due to use of slower memory, the X300 would beat either of them anyways
you guys really didn't look enough on the budget GPU recomendations
Booster - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Displays - 'costED a year ago' - is that correct?ChineseDemocracyGNR - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
"AGP Graphics Recommendation: Sapphire Radeon 9600 SE 128MB DDR 64-bit, 325/400 GPU/RAM clock (bulk/OEM)"This is a very, very bad recommendation. The Radeon 9550 128MB ***128-bit*** will give much better performance for the same money.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
"PCIe Graphics Recommendation: Leadtek GeForce 6200TC 64-bit, 64MB (256 shared) PCIe with 350 MHz core"
I also don't agree with the PCI-E recommendation. I don't think $71 is a good price for a 64MB 64-bit 6200 when the X300 (not SE) is only $76.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?desc...
I actually don't mind this though, but the 9600SE is so bad I hope you change the guide before more people read it.
filterxg - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Another great read. Thanks for the guide!