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 - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
Caps are often one of the most critical factors in overclocking. Obviously, the difference isn't huge, and neither is the difference in price (about $20 more for the DS3). "A bit better" means that you will really have to be pushing hard to reach that point; RAM is likely to give out before either motherboard.RamarC - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
IMHO, the upgraded Intel config can be improved quite a bit for $82 more ($37 more w/available rebates). I'd move up to an E6600, select ASUS P5B-E mobo, and use dual hard drives in matrixRAID. An Antec Sonata II w/450W PS would be subbed in for the case. This config will be plenty fast in 'stock' form and still has some OC headroom.Core2Duo E6600 . . . . . 319
ASUS P5B-E . . . . . . . 164
OCZ 2GB Gold Gamer DDR2-800 . 260
GeForce 7900GS
or Radeon x1900gt . . .. 206
2 WD 1600JS 160GB . . . . 124
LiteOn 165H6S retail . . . 42
Acer AL2216WBD 22" WS . . . 337
Antec Sonata II w/450W PS . 110
Logitech Premium . . . . 30
Windows XP MCE . . . . . 120
Total . . . . . . . . .. . $1,712
rjm55 - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I'm in total ageement with your idea. I was more than a little surprised to see the lowest 2MB cache Core 2 Duo as the choice in the first Intel, but I figured it would be fixed in the the upgrade choice with a 4MB cache model. It wasn't. The 4MB cache does make a performance diffence and is always faster at the same speed. I would pick a E6600 for my own midrange system.I would also choose a lowend 975 for the true dual x8 Crossfire. Abit has a decent 975 board for $159. This would actually be $5 less than your setup with a 965 board.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
I added some clarification on the "upgraded" Core 2 page for you guys. :)Basically, your selections are perfectly acceptable alternatives, but if I were to put up my upgraded build with overclocking agains your upgraded builds, I would wager I can get better overall performance. Not everyone wants to overclock, and that's fine, but my picks were made with a bit more of an overclocking bias.
The $260 OCZ DDR2-800 doesn't OC very well at all, while the $280 RAM does much better. In fact, the $260 RAM you link has had some compatibility issues with some motherboards (it wants to POST with higher voltages for the listed timings, IIRC), so you would be better off getting the $220 OCZ DDR2-667 in my book.
The bottom line is that you have to determine what you want to do with the PC. For gaming (you mention CrossFire), spend a lot of money on the GPUs before you even worry about upgrading the CPU (unless you run games at 1024x768). If you plan on running X1900 CrossFire, though, you really better think about upgrading to a nice PSU like the Fotron Source listed. For X1900 XT CrossFire (or X1950 CF), you should probably go with a Fotron Source 700W (or OCZ GameXStream, Thermaltake 700W, or several others which are just rebranded FSP units).
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I unfortunately have to say that Antec PSUs have gone way downhill in the past year. Ask Gary how many dead Antec units he has sitting around. Other than that, though, you demonstrate exactly what I tried to point out: there are a ton of different ways to attack a midrange build, especially at the $1500-$1700 price point. We went with better RAM and a much better PSU with a lower end CPU. RAID won't really help performance much IMO (unless you want RAID 1 for redundancy), and I would rather have a single drive instead of two drives for the same amount of storage (cheaper too).As for the CPU, the E6600 is definitely faster. With overclocking, it's lot closer, as the 2MB cache Core 2 Duos will generally overclock further than the 4MB cache CPUs. At that point, you have to decide whether you really need faster CPU performance or if you should improve something else. If you play games as your primary focus, even the X2 3800+ will be essentially tied with the E6600 until you start to get into much faster GPUs.
RamarC - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I'm a big fan of MatrixRaid. Dual 160s can be config'd as a 40gb mirror (boot, OS, important docs, etc.), and a 220gb strips set (game files, mp3s, dvd rips, page file, temp folder, etc.). A bit more expensive than a single drive, but a more performance and much safer.You guys obviously go through PSs more than me. Still, I'd rather spend about the same cash and get a faster stock system than one that I have to OC to reach the same level of performance.
Araemo - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
I didn't see any discussion of it in the article, but which of those monitors are 24 bit(8 bit panels)?I'm rather picky about colors, and I wouldn't consider any 6 bit panels. I've seen 8 bit panels with good enough refresh times(Using overdrive) from some companies, but it can be such a PITA to find out for sure if a given monitor uses a panel that is 8 bit or 6 bit, that I would like to see that kind of information noted when a recommendation is being made...
Super Nade - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
Hi,I have serious issues regarding the PSU's being recommended. Why are you guys skimping on a no-name, possibly dodgy PSU? To keep things in budget, I'd suggest cutting back on the case and the DRAM, possibly substituting a 17 inch display for the 19 inch. There are several good reasonably priced PSU's (say $80 range)available.
I like the article and agree with most of the recommendations, but for the PSU :)
Regards,
S-N
Revolutionary - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
Everybody questioning the choice of a Fortron-Source PSU because they "have not heard of them" needs to get a clue.They MAKE power-supplies as an ODM. Often the Antec, Enermax, whatever-pricey-name-brand-you-want-to-insert PSU is just a re-badged FS model.
And if you check out the "cool-n-quiet" community, you will find that FSP actually has quite a following. I've personally used 3 of their PSUs (I'm still using one, actually: a 300W 120mm fan model that I bought about 3 years ago...).
Mass marketing brand awareness does not a good component make.
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - link
While I am one to usually advocate buying a 700W or above power supply for any system ;-> , we looked at the baseline system requirements and determined the included power supply from Gigabyte was adequate to meet the systems needs. There are numerous case/power supply choices in this range and most of the tier one case suppliers provide decent power supplies. I for one like the Cooler Master Centurion 5 combo with their 380w power supply for a base system. Obviously, if you designed a system around the base configuration and wanted to overclock your system (in the case of the AMD unit, also run SLI) then a better power supply is certainly warranted.In the upgraded configuration I think our power supply choice reflected one of the best price/performance choices in the 500W~600W range. There was another FPS 550W power supply that was actually at the top of our list for a couple of more dollars but it was sold out at the majority of on-line stores.
:)