Buyer's Guide: High End System - May 2004
by Wesley Fink on May 26, 2004 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Computer Case
Recommendation: Coolermaster Praetorian (PAC-T01-E1) SilverPrice: $126 shipped
While there are cheaper Coolermaster cases with Aluminum fronts and steel bodies, the Coolermaster All-Aluminum cases are still some of the best for build-quality that you will find anywhere. The Praetorian is a classic Coolermaster Aluminum mid-tower case with 10 drive bays - 4 hidden and 6 front accessible. Aluminum cases dissipate heat more efficiently, but Coolermaster still includes four additional fans for cooling - 2 front fans, a top fan, and a rear exhaust fan.
There is also a sliding panel on the front protecting a great selection of essential front ports - 2 USB, firewire, headphone and mic. You will also find a handy removable motherboard tray for easier mounting and the case is a tool-less design for easy assembly.
The build quality of the Coolermaster is superb, and the reinforced chassis makes the Praetorian stronger than most aluminum cases. Kingwin also makes a decent aluminum computer case, and you will find the Kingwin cases for a little less money. The Kingwin 424 with a window would also be a great match to the DFI 875B LAN party, but there is also an optional windowed side panel for the Coolermaster.
Power Supply
Recommendation: Antec True Power 430WPrice: $68 shipped
For a power supply, we suggest Antec's True Power 430W PSU for $68 shipped. The Antec True Power series provides very consistent power to the rails and has performed very well in AnandTech power supply roundups. It provides extremely stable voltages, a good warranty, quiet operation, low operating temperature, and is a tried and true power supply. The True Power series, in particular, is one of the most trusted power supplies among enthusiasts. While a good quality 350W or 400W power supply might do the job here, you will have the comfort of some reserve for the ever more power hungry processors and video cards. You will also enjoy rock solid stability with the top FX53 Athlon 64.
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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MadAd - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
I just wish you guys would do a 'dream' system, money NO object - us geeks like to dream, even if we cant afford fibre raided flash drives and $2000 sound setups ..... it only has to be like once every 3 months or so, just for drooling rights - awww go on :)Ma10n3 - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
This comment thread seems to be pretty dead now, but I thought I'd just tack this on...Maybe there should be a high-end gaming system and a high-end everything-but-gaming system.
A lot of newer game engines are SMP capable though, so the two may become one in the near future.
qquizz - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
GLARING ERROR ALLOWED TO STAND:As noted days ago in this forum, I can't believe Anandtech has allowed this error not to be changed yet in this sentence in the storage section of the article:
"Those concerned about data security more than ultimate speed can configure the drives as RAID 0, or mirroring."
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
I wish I could just edit one of the posts above... Anyway, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense that the Iwill doesn't support DDR400 though because the memory controller is on the processor die. ???But, if the manufacturer doesn't claim it supports it, than it seems reasonable to go with a manufacturer that does. After all, when you're spending this much money on a system, compatibility becomes very important!
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
Uh, scratch the Iwill board. It only supports up to DDR333!Looks like the TYAN Thunder K8W is about the only choice.
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
Roostercrows, another motherboard that supports all the features listed above is the Iwill DK8X.Can't seem to find any others...
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
#52, If you are considering a dual-opteron setup, than I should also let you know that the only mobo I could find that uses the NUMA (microsoft.com has quite a bit of info on NUMA) configuration and has AGP8X, PCI-X, and legacy PCI is the TYAN Thunder K8W. If anyone knows of any others that have all these features, please post the info.roostercrows - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
#50, Yes, I did read all the posts including #39and I didn't mean to imply that you used the term best "bang for the buck". sorry if I gave that impression.
I'm building a new computer and have the dual raptor hard drives and one maxtor 200 GB, power supply from PC power & cooling, video card X800, monitor (not my white wall #51 but that was funny), case is a coolermaster stacker, I'm trying to decide which processor and mobo to use and this was the first I had heard of possibly using a dual opteron and it sounds interesting as cadcam use is part of my goal but I need to learn a lot more. Thanks for your opinion since the WinXP64 is what I'm building the system for.
Neekotin - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
yo guys, it just hit me. this is a high-end sys... why not get a white wall and good projector, imagine your monitor as the entire wall. ;)Ma10n3 - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
#49, Did you take a look at the article listed in post #39?Oh, and I at least never claimed a dual-processor system gives you more "bang for the buck." I do believe it gives you quite a bit more mileage out of the hardware you purchase considering the direction Windows is heading (referring to Windows XP 64-bit edition, of course). Also, the benefit of doubling the memory bandwidth as well once WinXP64 is released (because of NUMA support) should increase performance in all applications, 32 or 64 bit. The legacy PCI bus is a severe bottleneck to all connected peripherals largely due to the fact that they all have to share the same bandwidth. Most of the newer dual-processor boards offer alternatives to just a single legacy PCI bus because of the chipsets they use and features of the AMD Opteron cpus.
Considering all of the above, I don't believe an Intel dual-processor system contains enough worthwhile features to justify the purchase.
Again, as far as the hard numbers, please refer to the URL listed in post #39.