Pre-AM2 Mid-Range Buyers' Guide, May 2006
by Jarred Walton on May 9, 2006 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Case and Power Supply
You can choose a case merely for functionality, or your case can make an aesthetic statement. If you don't like our case choice, you're more than welcome to choose something that you do like. The only comment we have is that we like cases that have 120 mm fans, as they tend to be a bit quieter overall. Of course, a high RPM 120mm fan certainly isn't going to be quiet, but you can usually get lower RPM 120mm fans that still move more air than a high RPM 80mm fan.For the power supply, we're going with a separate PSU rather than a case with one included. For the midrange sector, quality takes precedence over price, and bundled power supplies usually are pretty mediocre in terms of quality. They might still be sufficient, especially for a system that's not loaded up with lots of extras, but they will be noisier and less robust. That said, I haven't had a power supply fail in over 18 months, and that includes a couple of junk power supplies that came with $40 cases. If you don't have one, picking up a power meter like the Kill-A-Watt device isn't a bad idea. Even a cheap 400W power supply will often be fine for a long time if your system never draws more than 200W.
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Case Recommendation: Cooler Master Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW
Price: $61 shipped (Retail)
The Cooler Master Centurion 5 is a decent mid-tower ATX case. You get more external 5.25" bays than you need (5), one external 3.5" bay, and 4 internal 3.5" bays. The case is relatively attractive, and it comes with a tool-less drive mounting mechanism for all the drive bays. It also includes a 120mm rear fan, and you can add an optional 80mm front fan. The case is also available with a side window if you want to spend an extra $10. Finally, the case has front USB, FireWire, headphone, and microphone jacks. It's easy to work with, relatively quiet, and well made.
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PSU Recommendation: Enermax Liberty ELT400AWT ATX12V 400W
Price: $86 shipped (Retail)
I'm a big fan of modular power supplies, ever since OCZ released their first ModStream product. (And incidentally, the 450W ModStream is still going strong after a couple years.) Enermax has now joined the crowd of modular power supply manufacturers with their new Liberty line. As with many of the quality power supplies on the market, you might find the 400W rating seems a little low. Realistically, it's difficult to reach anywhere near 400W without multiple ultra high-end graphics cards, multiple hard drives, and a partridge in a pear tree. Unlike generic brand power supplies, the Enermax Liberty should actually be able to sustain 400W of power output, and it's extremely quiet.
I've got a few other modular power supplies around - OCZ, Kingwin, and Sunbeam - and they all work well for my needs. Not surprisingly, they also cost about the same as the Enermax Liberty, and the higher wattage models cost even more. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for, and we would recommend sticking with power supplies that cost at least $60, unless you're trying to build a budget system. If you're looking at SLI/CrossFire as a potential upgrade, you might also want to bump the PSU up to a 500W or higher rating.
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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