Pre-AM2 Mid-Range Buyers' Guide, May 2006
by Jarred Walton on May 9, 2006 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Storage Recommendations
There hasn't been a lot of excitement in the area of computer storage lately - unless you follow the flame wars being waged online between the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD marketing departments? I've used quite a few hard drives over the past year, from every major manufacturer. Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi, and Samsung all make reasonable hard drives, at least as far as performance is concerned. Without running benchmarks, I certainly can't tell the difference between any of the hard drives. A second area of performance is noise levels, and while most of the hard drive manufacturers are pretty close together, Maxtor drives are definitely among the loudest on the market. (A friend described them as "bongo drums" recently.) Older model drives can also be louder, so we would recommend sticking to the latest models if at all possible. Samsung and Seagate are the quietest drives, with Samsung having a slight lead, but depending on the rest of your computer it may not matter too much. Hard drive noise levels only become a factor if you have a relatively silent system. If you plan on having three or more case fans (counting the PSU), it's unlikely that you will notice hard drive noise. |
| Click to enlarge |
Hard Drive Recommendation: Western Digital SATA3.0Gbps 250GB 7200RPM 16MB Caviar SE16
Price: $95 shipped (OEM)
Since performance isn't the overriding concern, we're mostly left with looking at price perGB. It's also reasonable to state that most people don't need more than 250GB of hard drive space - and probably not even that much. The 250GB models continue to offer the best price perGB of storage, and for a couple dollars extra you can get 16MB of cache on certain models. Coming in at $.38 perGB, the Western Digital 250GB SE16 SATA2 gets our pick. I've purchased four of these drives in the last six months, and I haven't had any problems. (I haven't had problems with my Hitachi, Samsung, or Seagate drives either.) If you're looking for a bit more storage capacity, the Seagate 300GB 7200.9 and the Western Digital 320GB SE16 both have a similar cost perGB and also come with 16MB of cache. Seagate also carries a standard five-year warranty, but of course if you ever need to use the warranty you'll be really unhappy with the loss of your data. The best way to avoid data loss is to back up your hard drive, which brings us to our optical drive recommendation.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
DVDR Recommendation: NEC 3550A (OEM)
Price: $37 shipped (OEM)
With prices under $40, we once again reiterate the statement that there's no point in getting anything other than a DVD burner these days. If you've already got several DVD burners in other computers, you might want to go with a 16X DVD-ROM, but that's about the only case where we wouldn't spend the extra money. BenQ, Pioneer, LG, Plextor, and Lite On also make reasonable burners, but in terms of price/performance we would take the NEC 3550A. Plextor also has an 18X burner out, but with a price of $100 not to mention reported media incompatibilities, you should save your money for now.
| Hard Drive Alternatives | |
| Western Digital 3.0Gbps 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Caviar SE16 | 125 |
| Seagate 3.0Gbps 300GB 7200RPM 16MB Barracuda 7200.9 | 122 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
56 Comments
View All Comments
toyota - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
it make more sense just to get the 7900gt now or get a 19inch lcd. no point in waiting a year for Vista to utilise a DX10 card. thats a long time suffer.gersson - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
Makes perfect sense to me.JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
Not everyone plays a lot of games, and I basically mention that the 7600/X1600 are what I consider the minimum for a current system. They should be able to run Windows Vista without any trouble, and even play some games. For $50 more, getting the GT with the much higher clock speeds was a reasonable upgrade. If you're serious about gaming, of course you can get a better GPU. I tried to make that clear by stating it at least two or three times. For non-gaming purposes, I like to have as big of a monitor as I can possibly get. Using stuff like Photoshop in widescreen mode is really nice, since all of the tool windows can fit on the sides while I edit regular aspect ratio images in the middle.Iscabis - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
It is not actually a couple hundred more.It is only 769.95 shipped at the moment. Plus it has height adjustment (not sure how many care about that). I will be getting one this summer, unless the 2407 is the same price. Hopefully the 2407 makes the 2405 go even lower on price.
Iscabis - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
Sorry my mistake. That site deceived and advertised free shipping. It is still 782 shipped from a different site though.neutralizer - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
I'd have to say that the LanParty is probably a better choice since I have a NF4 SLI Infinity and the support that DFI provides for it isn't very good considering its been so long since its release they still cannot fix the temperature sensor to display properly in Windows.cozappz - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
I am a little confused why AnandTech keeps saying AM2 will not bring a significant increase in performance over S939. AMD _clearly_ stated the change to AM2 is due to DDR2 adoption and unification of high, middle and low-end processors on the same socket, and it is expected to run on NF4 until NF5xx is released. But, if you want to buy an AM2 mobo, wait a couple of monts after release! Childhood ilnesses are inevitable both for AM2 and NF5xx.One43637 - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
while i agree that the WD250KS is a great value for performance, there is something that i think buyers should know about that drive. it runs hot.i don't know why, but that drive runs on average 18C higher then my WD 74GB Raptor that's 2 slots away from it. i have a good case in the P180, and i have good airflow. 3xPanaflow 120x38, and 1 Nexus 120x25 in the fan slot behind the HD in the bottom enclosures. it's just odd that Speedfan constantly shows that drive between 48-55C depending on use while my Raptor is around 32-38C.
SonicIce - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
True, mine runs hot as well. When my computer is idle, its hotter than both my CPU and videocard. It's usually in the mid 40's while my 80gb WD was in the mid 30's. I thought there was something wrong with it at first, but if you're having the same temps then maybe its meant to be like that.BigLan - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - link
"It also sports two X16 slots (with X8 bandwidth in SLI mode)" - The board runs both slots at 8x bandwidth all the time, not just when in sli mode. AFAIK it doesn't have any performance impact, but I spent a long time looking for the setting to change my board to x16/x1