Buyer's Guide - Entry Level, January 2005
by Jarred Walton on January 9, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Hard Drives
All of the motherboards that we have selected in this Guide include Serial ATA ports, and so we will confine our hard drive recommendations to that area. It's not that SATA is any faster than PATA in terms of real world performance; it's just that the cables are so much easier to work with and we're rather tired of the cumbersome, old IDE interface. The total difference in price is basically meaningless, usually coming in at less than $5. Of course, picking up the same drive with either interface is possible, so if you want an IDE model due to your motherboard/system choice, don't let the lack of SATA hold you back. In fact, overclockers can generally achieve better results with IDE than SATA.The only issue with SATA drives is that depending on how the SATA support is included on the motherboard, a floppy disk with a driver may be required to install Windows XP. For the Intel systems and the socket 754 option, that shouldn't be required, but the socket A platform may require the use of a floppy disk. Actually, since the NVIDIA MCP-S chip provides the SATA support, you're probably okay there as well - we haven't actually verified this, so we cannot say for sure - however, it's definitely something to pay attention to if you're looking at other motherboard options. Regardless of what platform you choose, though, it is our view that for the added $8-$10 that a floppy drive costs, it is still a useful inclusion. Some BIOS updates still require it, and we already mention the potential XP installation problem. You may only use it a few times a year (if that), but for the one or two times where you actually need it, we hate to scramble around trying to find a workaround.
Click to enlarge.
Hard Drive Recommendation: Seagate 80 GB 7200 RPM 8MB SATA
Price: $69 shipped
We've talked about this in most of the past guides, but to recap, the Seagate drives are a great choice. They come with the longest standard warranty (5 years), they use near-silent fluid dynamic bearings, they offer more than sufficient storage, and their price and performance are more than acceptable. You could save up to $5 by going with a Western Digital PATA drive, but those drives have a tendency to develop a high-pitched whine that we would just as soon not deal with. Maxtor, Hitachi, and Samsung also make similar drives, but the Seagate usually wins out in at least one area, at least with the 80GB SATA drives - their IDE models have started to go up in price, it seems.
Click to enlarge.
Hard Drive Alternative: Samsung 160 GB 7200 RPM 8MB SATA (or IDE)
Price: $92 shipped
Seagate still makes a good hard drive if you want something larger than 80 GB, but as the size increases, their price doesn't stay as low as competitors' offerings. Samsung is just as quiet as Seagate, and at about $20 cheaper than the Seagate SATA drive, we prefer their 160 GB offering. (The IDE version is available for the same price if you want to go that route.) When you get right down to it, the 160 GB Samsung makes a very good alternative to the 80 GB drives. It costs about 33% more, but doubles the storage capacity. Granted, many people won't ever use up even an 80 (or 40) GB hard drive, and that's why the 80 GB drive gets our recommendation. However, if you plan to store a lot of music, movies, images, games, etc. on your computer, it's definitely a worthwhile investment.
Those of you who have been around a while may remember the "good old days" where people used to talk about the price (in dollars) per MB of hard drive capacity. $200 for a 40 MB hard drive was once a bargain! Now, we have the 80 GB drives coming in at 86 cents per GB, and the 160 GB drives are only 57 cents per GB. How many more years until we begin to look at the price per TB of storage for a single hard drive? Technology is a wonderful thing.
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JarredWalton - Friday, January 21, 2005 - link
Next Guide is due out "soon" - like this weekend probably.As for PATA vs. SATA, the performance difference is negligible. The cables are a different story. PATA (also called IDE/EIDE) uses 40 pin connectors and 80 pin cables. SATA gets by with a cable that's about 1/4 as large, and the connector is only about 1 cm wide instead of 5 cm or so. Rounded IDE cables help, but the IDE connector is still rather a pain in the butt.
Also, SATA is point-to-point, which means there are no worries about master/slave settings. Each SATA device is on its own channel. The theoretical performance of SATA is higher than PATA, but in practice all current hard drives are limited by the hard drive's sustained transfer rate.
Fauno - Thursday, January 20, 2005 - link
Dumb question: what´s the difference for SATA and PATA?Tkx for all.
Fauno - Thursday, January 20, 2005 - link
Mr. Jarred, thank you for the great newsletter!I would like to see an improved, i mean, something
better than the Budget and Performance scenarios.
How long may i have to wait for your next guide?
I´m anxious because i´m in hurry to make a brand new computer.
Thank you vey much.
micronot - Monday, January 17, 2005 - link
Show me the Benhchmarks ---I have no complaints about the selections, but it would have been nice to also see how these systems compare on a few benchmarks. This would help show a price to performance ratio.
erinlegault - Wednesday, January 12, 2005 - link
How do think nForce motherboards have instability at default settings?I know VIA has been very reliable since their Apollo Pro 133 chipset, I have owned several. But, to say Nvidia nForce chipsets are unstable is unfounded. The various flavors of nForce 2, 3 and now 4 are the probably the best chipsets ever made.
I have no opinion about the initial nForce chipset, I personally never give first timers a chance. This is probably the chipset you call unstable, but what company does not produce a first generation product that isn't perfect.
bob661 - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
I don't recommend Nforce boards to non-enthusiasts because of instability or just plain quirkiness (sp?). I figure a geek wouldn't mind troubleshooting and tinkering but I don't assume that for newbies or general users. VIA has always treated me kindly and I don't have people coming back to me after I build them a computer complaining about quirks. I remember when VIA was the quirky, problem-ridden chipset but I haven't seen that for at least 5 years. We use computers with that chipset at work as CAD workstations (29 machines) and there's no instability.Live - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
If the 6600 is an option in PCIe why not as AGP it is available in both?woodchuk - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
Have to agree on the VIA and SIS chipsets, not only because they tend to lose sound drivers and such occasionally, but the nVidia solutions seem bulletproof.Also, the Semprons I've built recently are very disappointing in anything that likes a lot of cache, either Tbird or Barton equivelents are faster.
justly - Tuesday, January 11, 2005 - link
Thanks again, although I really wasn't expecting a responce to my last post.I understand the reluctance tward integrated video, but to be fair there are two reasons for building a budget system one is obviously because you cant afford the alternitive, and the other is because you know you dont need the alternitive. If someone is simply trying to make a performance system fit a tight budget then I would expect them to have problems simply because that is not the correct way to make a performance system. Is this the type of person that you are making a budget guide for? if so then I guess I misunderstood the purpose of the budget guide.
I'm NOT intentionally trying to argue with you, it just irritates me that the impression I (and I think others may also) get from the article is that Nforce is not just the chipset of choice but that it seems to be the only chipset that is acceptable, and now I see you say "a less expensive chipset isn't necessarily inferior". That was the point I was trying to make.
A lot of what you say makes sense, but a few things don't (at least to me), one being that you assume cheaper capacitors, resistors, fabrication facilities, etc (along with cheaper chipsets and less features) are used to make a budget board, but unless the Nvidia chipset is cheaper or the board has less features then the only way a Nvidia motherboard can compete in price is to use as cheep or cheeper parts or fabrication facilities yet you still claim it is more stable/compatible, how can this be? ok maybe it is the BIOS, I guess I just have a hard time believing that every non-Nvidia moterboards out there has problems with their BIOS.
My experiances are a little different than yours. I have had very little or no problems with SiS or ALi drivers in the past (VIA is a different story). When the K6-2/III was popular I had both ALi and VIA based motherboards and I would say without a doubt that I liked the ALi better. On the Athlon platform I can also say without a doubt that I liked the SiS better than the VIA. While I personally haven't owned a Nvidia chipset I do know of more than one person that had problems with them (and they where not budget builds either, in fact they where top of the line in most cases).
Having a bias is normal everyone has them, I just think with a following as large as what Anandtech has you should try to hide that bias a little better. Maybe it is time you try a SiS or ALi/ULi chipset again, you might be pleasantly surprised. Then again maybe you know yoou need more than SiS or ULi can give you in that case continue on with your "self-perpetuating bias. :p" just kidding, have a nice day and thanks for the insight regarding your recommendation.
JarredWalton - Monday, January 10, 2005 - link
Let me go back to an earlier statement, just to make sure we're all on the same page. I said the following on page 2: "There are boards that use the VIA K8M800 chipset with its S3 UniChrome Pro graphics, and there are also boards that include the SiS Mirage graphics. Performance and reliability of either one are questionable in our opinion." Just to make this clear, the "questionable" aspect is specifically in regards to the integrated graphics - lowest common denominator graphics almost always cause me grief. Some will only support 24-bit color, which is not 100% compatible with all applications, forcing you to use 16-bit mode at times. Others simply perform very poorly even in 2D applications, and then there's the supported refresh rates which may end up being 60 Hz at any resolution above 1280x1024.Okay, now back to the topic at hand....
Memory compatibility issues can come from a variety of areas. For example, even with an Intel 865PE chipset, you're not going to see identical performance or compatibility across all motherboards. It probably has a lot to do with the BIOS, not to mention some other items like quality and location of capacitors, resistors, etc.
THG did a memory comparison maybe six months back where they tested about 10 to 15 different brands of RAM on 10 to 15 different motherboards. I don't recall the specifics, other than the ASUS K8V SE Deluxe was the most compatible motherboard (working with all the RAM types used) and that the Corsair RAM was the most compatible RAM.
As I'm not a BIOS programmer or motherboard manufacturer, I can't say for sure what causes the issues that some boards experience, but I can hazzard a guess. Let's assume you're trying to make a budget board that will sell for $25 less than other motherboards. The first step is usually to go with a cheaper chipset, i.e. SiS or ALi or VIA as opposed to Intel or NVIDIA. (I don't know how expensive NV chipsets are, but I know that Intel is regarded as the most expensive out there.) Now, a less expensive chipset isn't necessarily inferior, but I have a feeling a lot of motherboards that use cheaper chipsets also use cheaper capacitors, resistors, fabrication facilities, etc.
I would guess that this is why the ASUS A8V Deluxe and the Abit AV8 are still very good boards even with the VIA K8T800 Pro chipset. They also cost nearly as much as competing NVIDIA boards. As with all things, compromises are made to reach any price point. If most motherboards with a certain chipset sell for $85+ and a new board comes out that only costs $70, you can be almost sure that either features or quality were cut - possibly both. Long-term reliability of cheap motherboards has never been good for me, although I'm sure others have had okay experiences.
Beyond that, I don't have any real concerns with the VIA A64 motherboards. SiS and ALi/ULi are a different matter, although I freely admit that I have avoided using motherboards with those chipsets for years. Finding comprehensive chipset drivers for NVIDIA, Intel, and VIA motherboards is generally a simple matter; not so with SiS and ALi (in my experience). Drivers always end up mattering, and the easier it is to get all the drivers installed, the better.
In the end, it's a Catch-22 situation: I don't trust SiS and ALi/ULi based motherboards as much as NVIDIA and Intel based motherboards due to some bad experiences. The only thing that would really convince me that they no longer have problems would be extended use of such a motherboard over a two year period. However, when I look at the prices and it's only $10 more for a board that I already trust, why take a chance?
I'm only one person, with limited access to hardware (even if I have more access than most people, I can't just get anything I want). No one has perfect knowledge of how specific boards will work over a 4 year period, so we end up guessing based off of previous knowledge. My previous knowledge says that SiS and ALi boards are more likely to have issues over an extended period of time, but what I really know is that *previous* SiS and ALi boards had a lot of problems. Yup, it's a self-perpetuating bias. :p