November 2007 Budget Buyers' Guide
by Jonathan Maloney and Jarred Walton on November 8, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Intel Entry-level PC
Quite a bit has changed for Intel over the last 18 months; they were struggling against AMD's Athlon and early X2 range for much of 2005/2006, before annihilating much of the lead AMD had built up with the release of the Core architecture. After the Core 2 Duo release in July of last year, many were wondering when Intel would start to address the budget segment. The Allendale core has come down in price, but now we have the Pentium Dual-Core CPUs that use the Conroe-L design, giving Intel Core 2 chips from top to bottom. This is the first time Intel has begun to attack the entry-level area in both performance and value for money, an area where AMD has traditionally dominated. For roughly $650, you can pick up a very decent dual-core Intel system that fully washes away the performance nightmare that was the NetBurst Celeron range. At nearly $200 less than our last entry-level Intel system, this configuration will still give you the same performance, but lightens the load on the wallet tremendously.
As is usually the case with Intel systems, the processor and motherboard are the main differences in price from the AMD system, but this time, we see Intel narrowing the gap to less than $10. For $74.99, we get a lot of processor for our money - the Pentium E2140 is basically a cutback E6300 at 1.6GHz (half the shared L2 cache). For many budget users, the E2140 will provide more than enough processing power to satisfy their needs. Performance is roughly the same as the AMD 4000+ at stock speeds, but the edge in overclockability goes to the E2140. It's not unreasonable to double the CPU clock speed with an appropriate motherboard and a bit of aftermarket cooling.
Unlike the CPU, the motherboards for Intel systems have yet to drop to price parity. IGP offerings for Intel come from Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, SiS, or VIA. Balancing performance, reliability, stability, and pricing, we're going with the class leading Gigabyte GA-73UM-S2H based around the GeForce 7150 IGP chipset that costs $50 more than the Foxconn board we used in the AMD system. In our eyes - even at the entry-level position - the motherboard is one area of a system where you simply cannot skimp on quality.
We chose the somewhat pricier GeForce 7150 over Intel's GMA X3100 (G33) and AMD's X1250 as not only is the performance of NVIDIA's latest IGP outstanding - leaving the GMA X3100 completely in its dust - but the price is also competitive with both the Intel and AMD offerings. The cheapest G33 motherboard is just $10 less than the GA-73UM-S2H, while the only Radeon X1250 IGP we could find is abit's Fatal1ty-branded F-190HD - for $106.99. As is the case, don't expect to be able to fire up Crysis while your boss isn't looking - even at 800x600, performance will bring a completely new understatement to the term "slide show". However, for general office use, HTPC, or some light gaming (think games from 2005 and earlier), this choice should still last a few years. Feature-wise, the GA-73UM-S2H also sports an HDMI output should you wish to connect the system to an HD projector or TV. The motherboard also has support for Intel processors featuring a 1333MHz Front Side Bus, and comes with a FireWire 1394a port and eSATA 3Gb/s for external SATA hard drives.
The rest of the components are identical to the AMD entry-level system, with the Intel configuration costing about $50 more than the AMD setup. We could shave that $50 off, but you'd be sacrificing quality for price, and that's not something we can recommend at this point. Biostar also has a GeForce 7150-based motherboard that sports their well-regarded TForce enthusiast sub-brand, and it's a reasonable alternative at the sub-$100 price point.
If we compare the two entry-level systems, it's tough to pick a winner. If you don't need much in the way of performance, you can safely save the $50 and get the AMD setup. The Intel system currently has a better motherboard (and IGP), so for those that need a bit more it's worth the additional money. For the typical entry-level PC right now, you can go either route and be happy.
Quite a bit has changed for Intel over the last 18 months; they were struggling against AMD's Athlon and early X2 range for much of 2005/2006, before annihilating much of the lead AMD had built up with the release of the Core architecture. After the Core 2 Duo release in July of last year, many were wondering when Intel would start to address the budget segment. The Allendale core has come down in price, but now we have the Pentium Dual-Core CPUs that use the Conroe-L design, giving Intel Core 2 chips from top to bottom. This is the first time Intel has begun to attack the entry-level area in both performance and value for money, an area where AMD has traditionally dominated. For roughly $650, you can pick up a very decent dual-core Intel system that fully washes away the performance nightmare that was the NetBurst Celeron range. At nearly $200 less than our last entry-level Intel system, this configuration will still give you the same performance, but lightens the load on the wallet tremendously.
| Intel Entry-level PC | |||
| Hardware | Component | Price | Rebates |
| Processor | Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 (1.6GHz 65W 1MB L2) |
$75 | - |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-73UM-S2H NVIDIA GeForce 7150 HDMI mATX |
$99 | - |
| Memory | Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 PC2-6400 | $90 | $40 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung Spinpoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0GB/s |
$63 | - |
| Optical Drive | Samsung 20X DVDRW/DL SH-S202G | $28 | - |
| Case | Athenatech A3602BB.400 mATX w/400W PSU | $35 | - |
| Display | Hanns-G HW-191DPB Black 19" 5ms Widescreen DVI (1440x900) |
$170 | - |
| Speakers | Logitech R-20 12W 2.1 | $19 | - |
| Input | Microsoft Optical Desktop 1000 Wireless | $26 | - |
| Operating System | Microsoft Vista Home Premium OEM | $112 | - |
| Bottom Line | $717 | $677 | |
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Unlike the CPU, the motherboards for Intel systems have yet to drop to price parity. IGP offerings for Intel come from Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, SiS, or VIA. Balancing performance, reliability, stability, and pricing, we're going with the class leading Gigabyte GA-73UM-S2H based around the GeForce 7150 IGP chipset that costs $50 more than the Foxconn board we used in the AMD system. In our eyes - even at the entry-level position - the motherboard is one area of a system where you simply cannot skimp on quality.
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If we compare the two entry-level systems, it's tough to pick a winner. If you don't need much in the way of performance, you can safely save the $50 and get the AMD setup. The Intel system currently has a better motherboard (and IGP), so for those that need a bit more it's worth the additional money. For the typical entry-level PC right now, you can go either route and be happy.
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Lunyone - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Are they kidding? This Apex case/PSU combo has got to go! I'd put in the NSK Antec Case/PSU combo with a 380w Antec Earthwatts ANY DAY over that piece of c##p! Who recommends that? It's like recommending a Rosewill/Broadway PSU (no offense) over a quality PSU. Did they actually boot these things up or was it just a paper launch? Hehehehe!Frumious1 - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Let's play a game: come up with the best system you can and keep the price under $600. Make sure you're including everything, like LCD, keyb, mouse, speakers. Guess what? It's damn near impossible to do if you're going to spend $50 on a PSU! I don't dispute that the cheap PSUs may fail, especially with overclocking, but I've seen a lot of lousy PSUs that are still ticking after four or five years. I've also seen plenty Antec PSUs fail within the first six months.If anyone knows a good way to get a quality PSU into a budget system, though, I'd love to hear it. I don't want to cut RAM, CPU, GPU, mobo, etc. any more than already done. So I'm left with spending $50 more just because cheap PSUs are going to apparently explode! Pardon me for being a sceptic. Sure, a capacitor may blow under heavy load, but the only way you're getting that sort of load is if you do some overclocking.
I'd say that the gaming systems in this article are probably going to put out about 150W max without overclocking, and they can almost certainly do that for a long time. Sort of like my old overclocked Pentium D 920 (3.6GHz) is still chugging along with a $50 case+PSU I bought about two years ago. And I know for a fact that system is putting out more than 150W, yet it keeps running without apparent difficulties.
wjl - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Right. The issue of power consumption isn't covered here at all.Following other tests as well, the Seasonic power supplies appear to be both cheap and efficient, tho they are at about 75% only. If you spend some 10$ more on a Silverstone PSU, you'll have about 85% efficiency, which pays back in the long run - plus helps saving the planet a bit.
Zoomer - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Antec earthwatts 380w going for $30 AR at newegg. :)JonathanMaloney - Thursday, November 8, 2007 - link
First of all I just want to thank those who have taken the time to comment on my first article for Anandtech. I know there were a couple of issues that had to initially be ironed out along with some existing disputes over some of the hardware selection. Hopefully I'll be able to provide answers for these choices - please forgive me if I've left any out - I will get to them eventually!Standard or Widescreen?
This was bound to cause some conflicts - undoubtedly at 20" and up, the choice is pretty obvious for most - widescreen makes the most sense, but at 19"? My original selection was for the same monitor but in 4:3 - but after some discussion we felt it was best to go with the widescreen option. Having the option to display in both landscape and portrait modes was a valuable addition, and we felt this was a valid alternative.
X2 5000+ Black Etd
My bad on this one - originally I went for an X2 5200+ but was recommended the Black Etd with the unlocked multiplier - in my excitement(!) I overlooked the fact checking process - I did check out the AMD site along with two other reviews for it but didn't find any mention of a heatsink being required. Being thorough is the key here and I let you guys down, so I'm sorry for that.
2Gb RAM enough for Vista?
Hell yeah! I'm only running 2Gb at the moment and am playing COD4, Gears of War, Crysis SP demo all extremely well on my Opteron 165 / 2Gb DDR500 / 8800GT. Of course I would prefer to have 4Gb for 64-bit Vista but for a budget of roughly $1000, 2Gb RAM was the baseline - 4Gb was an expensive luxury. Sure, if you have the cash, go the 4Gb route with 64-bit Vista.
Linux for entry-level system
A good point here - and it should have been mentioned in the article for those looking to save another $100 - and at a price of around $500 those entry-level PCs would have looked fantastic value. Only thing here was that we were accommodating for the wider audience, and one that undoubtedly be Windows based. Don't forget most entry-level systems are configured for the everyday office or home - a domain where Linux has yet to penetrate on a large scale. (Again, Linux vs Windows can be argued till the cows come home)
Samsung hard drives
A valid concern here, as Samsung are generally not a big player in the HDD market - not yet at least. If they continue moving as they are in the cell phone / RAM / SSD markets, they might just contend with the likes of WD, Seagate and Hitachi. Samsung produce some very reliable hard drives, and provide some of the lowest measured acoustics of any HDD, while also having a very low power draw. It was for these reasons I went for the Spinpoint series over the more traditional offerings from WD or Seagate.
I'm sure I'm missing something here but I'll get to it once I read over the comments again. Thanks!
strikeback03 - Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - link
Do the widescreens here rotate to portrait orientation? I love being able to rotate my 24" vertical to work on portrait oriented images, but I have noticed that a lot of the bedget 24" displays that have come out since I bought mine (February) do not rotate.Also, the guide mentioned Intel and AMD stock coolers using heatpipes. I have an E6600 and 2 Q6600 stock coolers sitting in their boxes here, as far as I can tell they are a copper core pressed into an extruded aluminum fin section with a fan clipped on top. Do higher-end processors come with better heatsinks?
Finally, as far as Linux goes, my experience getting Ubuntu running on a few systems has been mixed. My desktop here at work (Q6600, MSI P35 Platinum, SATA optical and HDD, nVidia 7300GT, 2GB Corsair RAM) runs Ubuntu flawlessly, this system could be the poster child for everything working out of the box. My home system (E6600, Foxconn P965, SATA optical and 2 HDD, nVidia 7600GT, 2GB Corsair RAM) has been a major PITA. 6.10 ran well mostly, though there were occasional USB and sound issues and it did not like my Bluetooth keyboard. 7.04 would not run without some kernel options set, and would still freeze occasionally. 7.10 was completely unstable until I got rid of powernowd and added a few other kernel options. Then there are random issues like my MX1000 may or may not get all the buttons working each time I boot. So I would say the OS is certainly usable for common tasks (though gaming can be an issue), but the user should know they might need to tweak some things and should probably have another computer with internet access available when installing if nothing else in order to check forums and such for help in getting everything running.
stmok - Saturday, November 10, 2007 - link
I don't think it would hurt to mention Linux as an alternative if the person chooses to save $112.Hmmm, accommodate a wider audience?
What does that entail? All they do is surf the web, email, maybe download a movie, music, and play an occasional Flash game or use some other Flash-based content. (Youtube works fine in Linux).
All that is easily achieved with Linux.
The issue arises when that much needed app needs Windows. Like Office 2007. (You can run Office 2003 with Wine).
customcoms - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Glad to see even an anandtech editor is still gaming on a trusty Opteron 165. These processors are GREAT, especially since I only paid $150 for mine and its been at 2.7ghz ons tock air, UNDERVOLTED to 1.3v, since day one! Now its just time to ship my 8800GTS 320mb back to eVGA and get an 8800GT.One thing mentioned, but not in depth, is the overclocking ability of the cpu's. You mentioned it, but failed to point out that at 3.2ghz (which is reasonable for both AMD and Intel cpu's on air), the Intel cpu will beat amd's by up to 20% (which most everyone reading these comments knows). Also, the Intel cpu is more likely to reach that clock speed, and there isn't a plethora of knowledge on AMD AM2 overclocking since pretty much every hardcore overclocker is riding the Core 2 train right now. Which means for someone new to overclocking, the Intel platform is probably going to have better support at this point (as far as tweaking the motherboards etc.). Either system is still plenty fast, and it won't matter much unless you are benchmarking, but the Intel system gets the nod right now.
piasabird - Thursday, November 8, 2007 - link
I dont see many people using a Samsung Hard Drive in their builds on the website forums.Are they any good at all?
Missing Ghost - Friday, November 9, 2007 - link
Yes they are good. At same capacity/RPM, pretty much any manufacturer gives you something relatively similar.