Buyer's Guide: Value Professional 3D - October 2002

Case - Antec SX630 II - $75

The Antec SX630 is a case we have been recommending for quite some time now in our value system configurations. The SX630 II is a slight modification of the original SX630 and offers new front USB and IEEE-1394 connections.

The SX630 II is a mini tower case solution that offers 8 drive bays (five 3.5" bays and three 5.25" bays), seven expansion slots, a swing-out side panel, and an 80mm rear case fan standard. Cooling-wise, the SX630 can also accept two front mounted 80mm case fans. The SX630 II's 300 watt AMD approved power supply should have no problem with our KT333 motherboard and Athlon XP 1900+ processor.

Sound Card - Integrated 6 Channel Avance Logic ALC650 - "Free"

Sound really should not play that large of a role in a professional 3D system but it is always nice to have the ability to work and listen to high fidelity music at the same time. We found in a recent on-board audio test that the 6 channel Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec is able to provide exactly what we were looking for. The MSI KT3 Ultra2 that is at the heart of our value gaming setup makes use of the ALC650, providing a very low cost 6 channel audio solution that provides audio functionality not previously available in an integrated audio chip.

Avance Logic's software allows you to remap the three 1/8" jacks on the KT3 Ultra2 to handle front, rear and LFE outputs. Because of this, these three jacks enable 5.1 channel analog outputs without the use of any additional brackets. The audio quality of this solution should be just about as good as a high end discrete audio card with a price much more attractive: free.

Check out our page covering onboard audio in our KT333 roundup for more information.

Speakers - Generic - $20

Because sound is not the most important thing in most professional environments,we chose to outfit our value professional 3D system with a set of speakers that do not really do the integrated audio justice system justice. Any pair of stereo speakers at your local computer store will make do for now as all we are looking for is the ability to play back Windows sounds. If you are interested in getting a higher end audio system, try the Logitech Z-540s. They cost about $40 more than the generic stereo speakers but sound a world better.

Ethernet - Linksys EtherFast 10/100 - $20

We have been recommending the Linksys EtherFast 10/100 network card for what seems like ages now. We continue to stick with the card because of our personal experience with it. We have been using EtherFast 10/100 cards in the lab for years now and have never been disappointed. Plus, the card offers full support for all major OS's.

Hard Drive - Western Digital WD400JB 40GB - $88

This time around our hard drive recommendation has changed a bit. Previous value-level buyer's guides recommended the Western Digital WD400BB hard drives as the hard drive solution of choice. After a number of e-mails which suggested that the WD400BB drives actually use different platters than the WD800BB drives that we based the performance of the 40GB hard drive on,we decided to investigate the issue. The e-mails were right. It seems that the WD400BB does use older 20GB platters meaning that the drive consists of 2 platters and 4 heads. The WD400JB, on the other hand, uses a single 40GB platter with 2 heads. Add to that feature the fact that the WD400JB includes 8MB of cache and is only $18 more than the WD400BB and it becomes clear that the WD400JB should be the hard drive of choice for our value professional 3D system.

A hard drive actually ends up playing a large role in the overall speed of a system. With the WD400JB, one should not be disappointed. Those looking for more space may wish to check out the 80GB WD800JB at $115.

CD-R/CD-RW - Name Brand 32x10x40 Drive - $50

We decided to put a CD-R/CD-RW drive in our value professional 3D system because the additional money that the drive costs is worth it in the long run. The price of a CD-R/RW drive is only slightly higher than that of a read only CD drive and the added functionality is well worth it. Thanks to the addition of a CD-R/CD-RW you can now store and distribute 3D files with ease. We took a look at a Benq (aka Acer) CD-R/CD-RW drive when pricing our selection but other brands like ASUS , AOpen, and Lite On offer drives with similar specifications at competitive prices.

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home - $190

Thanks to your feedback, we opted to make Microsoft Windows XP Home the operating system of choice for our value systems. Windows XP Home offers the same functionality and stability as Windows XP Professional but leaves out some networking functions that, although nice in a professional environment, are far from necessary.

Bottom Line: $1207 (without software)