Midrange Buyer's Guide - September 2006
by Jarred Walton on September 26, 2006 8:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Display Selections
You have already seen our Display selections for the various system configurations, but we haven't discussed the details. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that we would encourage people to buy a better display if at all possible. Many people are more than happy with a 19" LCD, but with their fixed resolutions LCDs are not quite as flexible as CRTs. If you want more pixel real estate, generally that means you need to purchase a larger LCD. Prices do begin to increase rapidly with increased display sizes, but LCD prices have also dropped quite significantly during the past year or two. Here's a brief selection of several LCDs we would recommend, and we will briefly discuss each one.
There are quite a few options at around a $200 price point. We could choose to go with a 19" standard aspect ratio LCD with an 8ms response time for slightly less than $200, or for about the same price you can upgrade to a 19" widescreen display with an advertised 5ms response time. Which is "better" is going to be based somewhat on individual opinion, but widescreen displays are becoming increasingly popular, and with video content continuing to move into the high-definition realm most of us at AnandTech prefer the format. The Acer AL1916WAbd is the first of several Acer LCDs in our list, mostly because they offer extremely competitive prices with very good overall performance and quality. BenQ, ViewSonic, Dell, Samsung, and others are reasonable alternatives if you can find them for a lower price or if you feel they have some extra feature(s) that you would like. For overall value, the Acer 19" widescreen display gets our pick.
The next step up in terms of price is a standard aspect ratio 19" LCD, again from Acer, only instead of a 5ms response time it features a 2ms response time. Some people have more issues with slow pixel response times and others, but the 2ms LCDs are among the fastest displays currently on the market and few people should notice any pixel smearing. The total amount of pixels is actually slightly more on the 19" standard aspect ratio display compared to the 19" widescreen display, and games are generally far better at supporting 1280x1024 resolution as opposed to 1440x900. Many games can now be configured to work properly with widescreen resolutions, but not everyone wants to go through the effort.
Sticking with Acer once more, we have a 20" standard aspect ratio display. For a long time, 20" LCDs had a native resolution of 1600x1200. Recently, several manufacturers have begun releasing 20" displays with a native resolution of 1400x1050. The pixel response time is up to 8ms, but for a slight increase in screen resolution some people will be willing to spend the extra $30.
Moving to 20" widescreen displays, the least expensive model we could find is the BenQ FP202W 8ms LCD. The native resolution is now 1680x1050, which means you can display 1280x1024 content without any vertical compression -- something that is not possible with the 1440x900 display. Gaming support is still going to require a bit of effort depending on the title, but after you've played some games at 1680x1050 resolution you may find it difficult to return to standard aspect ratio gaming. Last year, displays similar to this BenQ (like the Dell 2005FPW) would typically cost close to $500, although they were periodically on sale for less money. With the price now down to $300, it is becoming increasingly easy to recommend 20" widescreen displays as a great all-around solution.
Recently, however, Acer released their 22" widescreen display with the same 1680x1050 native resolution. Small increases in display sizes have often come with a price premium, but for once that is not the case. Some people might not like the slightly larger pixel size of the 22" Acer display, while those with less than stellar eyesight will likely disagree. If you like to play games but you don't have a top-end graphics configuration, the larger display size while maintaining the same resolution might also be preferable. 24" LCDs may look great, but a lot of GPUs are going to struggle to run games at the native resolution of 1920x1200, and the Acer 22" LCD strikes a nice middle ground. For this reason, it gets our upgrade recommendation.
The final option we list is a 20.1" standard aspect ratio LCD from Samsung. Compared to the 20" Acer LCD mentioned above, you get the reverse of what we just talked about with the 22" widescreen display. This time you get a higher resolution in roughly the same screen size, which means smaller pixels. Whether that's good or bad will again very by individual, but unfortunately you do have to pay more for the Samsung LCD, although there is currently a $60 mail in rebate available. Considering that similar displays cost well over $600 a year ago, the current price is very attractive, although we would still give the edge to the Acer 22" widescreen display.
The final option that we haven't bothered to list outright is to upgrade to a 23/24" display. With a price that's roughly double the cost of the Acer 22" LCD, it is anything but a cheap upgrade. Such large displays are definitely nice to use, and they have the added benefit of being able to display native 1080i/1080p video content without any stretching/squishing. They are definitely a high-end option still, and with the way display prices have been dropping today's $700 LCDs may end up costing under $300 in another year or two. At least, we can hope that will be the case. In the meantime, the 19"-22" is definitely the sweet spot in terms of price/performance. Don't be afraid to spend a bit more to increase the quality of your display however, as you will likely be staring at it far more than any other part of the computer.
Conclusion
Hopefully you have enjoyed this abbreviated look at the current midrange price segment. Since most of our readers seem to skip directly to the final component lists anyway, we thought this might be a better way of presenting our recommendations. We do understand that there's still a lot of room for variation in component selections, and by no means are these configurations the only ones we would currently recommend. Spending more or less money on any individual component is almost always justifiable depending on the intended use. A lot of people can't even dream of filling up a 250 Gigabyte hard drive, for example, but dropping to anything smaller usually results in purchasing an older model and you don't save more than $20. The motherboard, memory, and graphics card selections are all areas where there are many good alternatives that we didn't have the time to list, but we do feel confident in our recommendations and believe that the majority of users will be more than happy with the performance offered.
We'll be back with another buyer's guide in a couple weeks, and next time we will take a look at the high-end segment which we haven't specifically covered in quite a while. If you are looking for other alternatives, you can also check out our recently expanded system reviews section, where you can get someone else to do the assembly and testing for you so you can concentrate on the important stuff like actually using the computer.
You have already seen our Display selections for the various system configurations, but we haven't discussed the details. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that we would encourage people to buy a better display if at all possible. Many people are more than happy with a 19" LCD, but with their fixed resolutions LCDs are not quite as flexible as CRTs. If you want more pixel real estate, generally that means you need to purchase a larger LCD. Prices do begin to increase rapidly with increased display sizes, but LCD prices have also dropped quite significantly during the past year or two. Here's a brief selection of several LCDs we would recommend, and we will briefly discuss each one.
| LCD Summary | ||
| 19" Widescreen 16:10 | Acer AL1916WAbd 19" 5ms 1440x900 | $202.00 |
| 19" Standard 4:3 | Acer AL1916Fbd 19" 2ms 1280x1024 | $229.00 |
| 20" Standard 4:3 | Acer AL2017BMD 20" 8ms 1400x1050 | $253.00 |
| 20" Widescreen 16:10 | BenQ FP202W 20.1" 8ms 1680x1050 | $304.00 |
| 22" Widescreen 16:10 | Acer AL2216Wbd 22" 5ms 1680x1050 | $341.00 |
| 20.1" Standard 4:3 | Samsung 204B-BK 20.1" 5ms 1600x1200 $60 Mail-in Rebate Available |
$366.00 |
 |
The next step up in terms of price is a standard aspect ratio 19" LCD, again from Acer, only instead of a 5ms response time it features a 2ms response time. Some people have more issues with slow pixel response times and others, but the 2ms LCDs are among the fastest displays currently on the market and few people should notice any pixel smearing. The total amount of pixels is actually slightly more on the 19" standard aspect ratio display compared to the 19" widescreen display, and games are generally far better at supporting 1280x1024 resolution as opposed to 1440x900. Many games can now be configured to work properly with widescreen resolutions, but not everyone wants to go through the effort.
Sticking with Acer once more, we have a 20" standard aspect ratio display. For a long time, 20" LCDs had a native resolution of 1600x1200. Recently, several manufacturers have begun releasing 20" displays with a native resolution of 1400x1050. The pixel response time is up to 8ms, but for a slight increase in screen resolution some people will be willing to spend the extra $30.
Moving to 20" widescreen displays, the least expensive model we could find is the BenQ FP202W 8ms LCD. The native resolution is now 1680x1050, which means you can display 1280x1024 content without any vertical compression -- something that is not possible with the 1440x900 display. Gaming support is still going to require a bit of effort depending on the title, but after you've played some games at 1680x1050 resolution you may find it difficult to return to standard aspect ratio gaming. Last year, displays similar to this BenQ (like the Dell 2005FPW) would typically cost close to $500, although they were periodically on sale for less money. With the price now down to $300, it is becoming increasingly easy to recommend 20" widescreen displays as a great all-around solution.
 |
The final option we list is a 20.1" standard aspect ratio LCD from Samsung. Compared to the 20" Acer LCD mentioned above, you get the reverse of what we just talked about with the 22" widescreen display. This time you get a higher resolution in roughly the same screen size, which means smaller pixels. Whether that's good or bad will again very by individual, but unfortunately you do have to pay more for the Samsung LCD, although there is currently a $60 mail in rebate available. Considering that similar displays cost well over $600 a year ago, the current price is very attractive, although we would still give the edge to the Acer 22" widescreen display.
The final option that we haven't bothered to list outright is to upgrade to a 23/24" display. With a price that's roughly double the cost of the Acer 22" LCD, it is anything but a cheap upgrade. Such large displays are definitely nice to use, and they have the added benefit of being able to display native 1080i/1080p video content without any stretching/squishing. They are definitely a high-end option still, and with the way display prices have been dropping today's $700 LCDs may end up costing under $300 in another year or two. At least, we can hope that will be the case. In the meantime, the 19"-22" is definitely the sweet spot in terms of price/performance. Don't be afraid to spend a bit more to increase the quality of your display however, as you will likely be staring at it far more than any other part of the computer.
Conclusion
Hopefully you have enjoyed this abbreviated look at the current midrange price segment. Since most of our readers seem to skip directly to the final component lists anyway, we thought this might be a better way of presenting our recommendations. We do understand that there's still a lot of room for variation in component selections, and by no means are these configurations the only ones we would currently recommend. Spending more or less money on any individual component is almost always justifiable depending on the intended use. A lot of people can't even dream of filling up a 250 Gigabyte hard drive, for example, but dropping to anything smaller usually results in purchasing an older model and you don't save more than $20. The motherboard, memory, and graphics card selections are all areas where there are many good alternatives that we didn't have the time to list, but we do feel confident in our recommendations and believe that the majority of users will be more than happy with the performance offered.
We'll be back with another buyer's guide in a couple weeks, and next time we will take a look at the high-end segment which we haven't specifically covered in quite a while. If you are looking for other alternatives, you can also check out our recently expanded system reviews section, where you can get someone else to do the assembly and testing for you so you can concentrate on the important stuff like actually using the computer.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
1600x1200 is nice, but it's about the same total pixel number as 1680x1050 (a bit more) and it costs more. I would personally take the Acer 22" WS over 1600x1200 - widescreen looks awesome. If you prefer not to have to deal with getting WS resolutions to work, though, 1600x1200 is probably the best way to go for LCDs.Revolutionary - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
Having just built a system based on the 965P-S3, I want to make 2 comments:First, OCZ Platinum 6400 DOES NOT WORK in this motherboard. Its a known conflict not fixed by the F4 Bios. Do some searching in the forums and on Google.
As for the difference between the S3 and the DS3: the singular difference is solid-state vs. fluid capacitors. There is no difference in overclocking performance; the solid state capacitors have a longer life-expectancy. Not even Gigabyte claims that the DS3 will OC better. Again, Google around a bit to see for yourself.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
I have talked with to Gary Key, and the following is information from him as well as my own comments:The DS3 is doing around 510 in our testing, while we got around 460 stable on the S3. We've seen reports of up to 480 on it. The caps make a huge difference in overclocking as they run cooler, allowing higher clocks and additional stability.
And he has had no issues with running the OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 DDR2-800. There is a big difference between RAM not working, and RAM not working when you simply run everything at default settings. The OCZ RAM does like more voltage than stock. It is rated at 4-4-4-15 2.2V DDR2-800, and while it may run fine at 1.8V 4-4-4-15 in some circumstances, it is designed to run with higher voltages.
Unfortunately, just doing a Google on information doesn't mean the information is accurate. Any monkey with a keyboard and an internet connection can post content to the internet, but we don't know if they really have a clue what they're doing. A beginner that can't get OCZ + S3 to run properly because they assume "Auto/SPD" should just work fine will blast both products. High-end enthusiast RAM often requires special considerations like bumping the voltage level up to 2.0-2.2V. We even posted appropriate settings, though:
"The OCZ 2x1024MB PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 ran at 4-4-3-10 with 2.2V at up to DDR2-900, 5-4-4-12 at DDR2-1000 with 2.3V, and topped out at about DDR2-1033 at 5-5-5-12 with 2.3V."
And the OCZ RAM is generally out of stock right now. You can try the G.Skill RAM which performs about the same. It costs a bit more, however:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">G.Skill DDR2-800 Note that the G.Skill will also require more voltage than 1.8V (or even 1.9V), and in testing it will generally run about the same as the OCZ Platinum 2.
Sunrise089 - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
Although the Anandtech forums can be usefull for this sort of info, I always enjoy seeing a new system price guide, and find them one of the most usefull parts of the site. I'm not sure how sustainable one guide every two weeks will be (are you guys going to stop making the individual part guides since system guides will come out so often?) but if you can make it work then great. One thing I would love to see however is budget, midrange, high-end, and overclocking guides. I think the fourth category has at least as many followers as the high-end segment, and it might make your midrance guide quicker to write, since you could ignore overclocking performance.JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I find it difficult *not* to talk about OC'ing, but I suppose I could try and then move that into a separate guide. Hmmm.... If we have the price guides up and running again, I may cut it down a bit, but for now system component prices are changing enough that every other week is pretty sustainable.Sunrise089 - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
One of the specific reasons I would prefer a seperate OC'ing guide is because while I might build a PC exactly as described in the midrange guide if I were building it for a family member, I would have to make several additional decisions if I were buying it for myself and wanted to overclock. In an overclocking PC I would want to add an aftermarket HSF, maybe consider a different PSU, and be much more interested in specific OC'ing performance in the memory and motherboard. Although it's nice to see that at X23800+ or a Core2Duo6600 can overclock, if the guide doesn't tell me what additional choices I need to make in order to take advantage of the overclocking headroom then it isn't really serving as a "buyer's guide" to the overclocking user. Therefore it seems a good idea to me to add the specific guide for overclocking in order to allow for overclocking specific reccomendations.yacoub - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
Most of us can do a LOT better for the money because we won't need to buy a new case, keyboard, mouse, display, harddrive, optical dive, etc. Most folks will only need to upgrade the motherboard, RAM, and CPU. Some also their GPU.So if you estimate $200 for a CPU, $200 for a motherboard, and $250 for RAM, you're looking at under $700 for an upgrade to the latest and greatest.
Murst - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I think you miss the point of this review.Chances are, if you're upgrading your system, then yes, you will be upgrading certain parts. However, even if you're upgrading certain parts, your post seems rather strange. Most people will probably consider upgrading the gfx card before upgrading the cpu/mb/ram. Also, if you upgrade your mb, chances are that it is not pci-e so you will have to upgrade your sound card as well. But I guess that all depends on how often you upgrade (I'm thinking of a 2 year cycle from what I do)
But anyways, this review is about what type of system you can build for 1-1.5k. It is not about what part Joe can put into his own computer to make it faster, althogh some of us certainly look at their recomendations when we do choose to upgrade specific parts.
yacoub - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I guess you missed my point. I wasn't critiquing the review, just adding a note related to it. A lot of folks probably run s939 boards right now, and may have even already picked up a cheap X2 dual-core CPU recently so they are obviously going to focus their next upgrade on GPU.Other folks here are running s754 or similar generation Intel setups that were 1st gen PCI-E and not dual-core compatible, and probably have recently upgraded to a good GPU but are looking to upgrade their system core (cpu, mobo, and RAM) soon since that will be significant for them.
The second group is who I was talking about.
As far as audio cards, my X-Plosion 7.1 DTS should work fine for a while, as most boards have at least one PCI slot.
RamIt - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
"The Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 first showed up in our labs as a pretty mediocre offering, but with the latest BIOS updates it has turned into a real gem. The Gigabyte DS3 will still overclock a bit better in terms of maximum bus speed"What gives? The s3 and the ds3 are the basicly the same motherboard with almost identical bioses with the exclusion of the caps. How could the ds3 clock better than the s3?