Mid-Range Buyer's Guide, September 2005
by Jarred Walton on September 19, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
System Summaries
That takes care of the recommendations for four different systems. We've included AMD and Intel variants for both platforms, though we have to say that we prefer two of the choices over the others. The Intel Gaming solution is really not the best fit for that market, while the Pentium D with 2GB of RAM really provides a lot of value for the Office and Professional market. (Yes, the AMD X2 is also very good in that market, though it does cost more.)
Gaming Systems
$1500+ for a "gaming system" seems like an awful lot of money, doesn't it? The $400 price of the upcoming Xbox 360 looks like a bargain by comparison! However, consider this for a moment: you don't need a display for the Xbox 360, as you use your TV - or alternatively, add the cost of a TV to the console. Furthermore, you can't do most business work on a console. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, surfing the Internet - some of those might be possible to a limited degree, but consoles certainly won't match the overall utility of a personal computer. If you're like many people, you already need a computer in your home. For gaming, you're pretty much just adding a $400 graphics card (and even a $200 graphics card would suffice).
If you can use your current monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse, and if you go with the EVGA bundle, you could get the price of a fully capable gaming system down to just over $1000, shipped. You could also go the other direction and buy 2x1GB of RAM, a faster CPU, a big LCD, and more HDD capacity (or multiple drives), resulting in a truly High-End system costing over $2000. Neither option is "correct", so spend what you want to spend and use this Buyer's Guide as exactly that: a guide on what you might want to purchase.
If you want other options on how to balance the Gaming performance against cost, drop the SLI support and get the Office motherboard selection, and drop to an Antec Sonata-II instead of the separate case and PSU. You save $114 on the either configuration. You can go with a cheaper graphics card as well - $230 for the X800XL, and you're right at the $1250 price point. Personally, though, we'd rather spend the extra money for the 7800GT.
Office Systems
Our Office configurations are a little less painful on the old pocketbook, ringing up at just over $1300. As with the Gaming setups, reusing your current display, speakers, etc. could reduce the cost quite a bit, getting under the $1000 price point. For the AMD setup, you might consider upgrading to 2x1GB of RAM, since multitasking that can take advantage of two cores is also more likely to surpass the 1GB RAM usage mark. The Intel system comes with 2GB of RAM, but the processor is definitely slower than the X2 3800+. It might be worth considering a CPU upgrade for the Intel system, but we're not really sold on the bang for the buck that it offers.
Some of you are probably wondering how the dual core CPUs perform in gaming systems. Many games work fine, though some have issues with two cores being present. (There aren't any current games that can actually utilize both cores, unfortunately.) Anand has mentioned recently that he's looking into gaming compatibility. We do have a modified version of the setaffin.exe Freeware program that might prove useful - unlike setaffin.exe and runfirst.exe, you can set the application to run on any CPU core instead of just CPU 0. If you'd like, give it a try - it's unsupported software, and we take no responsibility for what it might do to your system, of course. It's also available under the GPL license free of charge. (Thanks to Russell Pickett for providing the basis of the tool; simple, yet effective! We've avoided providing a direct link to his web page to avoid overloading his home server.)
Conclusion
We hope that you've found this Buyer's Guide to be useful, and we'll be releasing additional Guides more frequently in the future. Your comments, suggestions, and criticisms are welcome. As we've tried to make clear, there is no perfect system that we can recommend for every person. If you're willing to spend $1250 or so, however, there are plenty of decisions that can be made to tune the system to your needs.
We did not include an OS in the total cost of any system, so that would add $90 to $135 (when purchased with hardware) to the price for Windows XP. We should also mention that there has been some confusion about XP Home and dual-core support. XP SP2 will indeed support both cores; it is licensed as a single socket product, so it supports HyperThreading as well as the Pentium D and X2 processors. Even though it will work, we prefer the added flexibility of XP Professional and feel that it is worth the extra $45.
You could also ditch Microsoft altogether and go with Linux or some other Unix derivative - probably not for gaming, but OpenOffice with Linux actually makes for a rather potent office system. We wouldn't give such a setup to your grandparents, but more knowledgeable computer users shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out how to get such a system working properly.
That takes care of the recommendations for four different systems. We've included AMD and Intel variants for both platforms, though we have to say that we prefer two of the choices over the others. The Intel Gaming solution is really not the best fit for that market, while the Pentium D with 2GB of RAM really provides a lot of value for the Office and Professional market. (Yes, the AMD X2 is also very good in that market, though it does cost more.)
Gaming Systems
| AMD Mid-Range Gaming System | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 512K 1.80GHz (939) - Retail | 146 |
| Motherboard | DFI LanParty UT SLI-DR | 165 |
| Memory | Patriot PC-3200 2x512MB Extreme Performance XBL | 150 |
| Video Card | XFX 7800 GT Overclocked | 379 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital SATA II 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar SE | 81 |
| Optical Drive | BenQ DW1640 Black (OEM) | 43 |
| Case | Cooler Master Cavalier 3 CAV-T03-UK | 76 |
| Power Supply | SunBeam 550W NUUO SUNNU550-US-BK Modular PSU | 86 |
| Display | Acer AL1914smd-8 19 inch 8ms LCD | 301 |
| Speakers | Labtec ARENA 685 5.1 Speakers | 48 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Logitech Internet Pro Desktop | 23 |
| Bottom Line | 1498 | |
| Intel Mid-Range Gaming System | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Pentium 630 2MB 3.0GHz (775) - Retail | 175 |
| Motherboard | ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe | 199 |
| Memory | Corsair PC-5300 2x512MB XMS2 C4 | 137 |
| Video Card | XFX 7800 GT Overclocked | 379 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital SATA II 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar SE | 81 |
| Optical Drive | BenQ DW1640 Black (OEM) | 43 |
| Case | Cooler Master Cavalier 3 CAV-T03-UK | 76 |
| Power Supply | SunBeam 550W NUUO SUNNU550-US-BK Modular PSU | 86 |
| Display | Acer AL1914smd-8 19 inch 8ms LCD | 301 |
| Speakers | Labtec ARENA 685 5.1 Speakers | 48 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Logitech Internet Pro Desktop | 23 |
| Bottom Line | 1548 | |
$1500+ for a "gaming system" seems like an awful lot of money, doesn't it? The $400 price of the upcoming Xbox 360 looks like a bargain by comparison! However, consider this for a moment: you don't need a display for the Xbox 360, as you use your TV - or alternatively, add the cost of a TV to the console. Furthermore, you can't do most business work on a console. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, surfing the Internet - some of those might be possible to a limited degree, but consoles certainly won't match the overall utility of a personal computer. If you're like many people, you already need a computer in your home. For gaming, you're pretty much just adding a $400 graphics card (and even a $200 graphics card would suffice).
If you can use your current monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse, and if you go with the EVGA bundle, you could get the price of a fully capable gaming system down to just over $1000, shipped. You could also go the other direction and buy 2x1GB of RAM, a faster CPU, a big LCD, and more HDD capacity (or multiple drives), resulting in a truly High-End system costing over $2000. Neither option is "correct", so spend what you want to spend and use this Buyer's Guide as exactly that: a guide on what you might want to purchase.
If you want other options on how to balance the Gaming performance against cost, drop the SLI support and get the Office motherboard selection, and drop to an Antec Sonata-II instead of the separate case and PSU. You save $114 on the either configuration. You can go with a cheaper graphics card as well - $230 for the X800XL, and you're right at the $1250 price point. Personally, though, we'd rather spend the extra money for the 7800GT.
Office Systems
| AMD Mid-Range System | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2x512K 2.0GHz (939) - Retail | 361 |
| Motherboard | EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra | 98 |
| Memory | Corsair PC-3200 2x512MB Value CL2.5 | 89 |
| Video Card | Connect3D Radeon X700 Pro 128MB | 98 |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi SATA 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar T7K250 NCQ | 120 |
| Optical Drive | NEC 3540A Black (OEM) | 42 |
| Case and Power Supply | Antec Sonata II + SmartPower 2.0 450W PSU | 115 |
| Display | Acer AL1914smd-8 19 inch 8ms LCD | 301 |
| Speakers | Logitech Z-3e 2.1 Speakers | 73 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Logitech Internet Pro Desktop | 23 |
| Bottom Line | 1320 | |
| Intel Mid-Range System | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Pentium D 820 2x1MB 2.8GHz (775) - Retail | 248 |
| Motherboard | ASUS 945P P5LD2 | 132 |
| Memory | Corsair PC-4200 2x1024MB Value | 163 |
| Video Card | Connect3D Radeon X700 Pro 128MB | 98 |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi SATA 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar T7K250 NCQ | 120 |
| Optical Drive | NEC 3540A Black (OEM) | 42 |
| Case and Power Supply | Antec Sonata II + SmartPower 2.0 450W PSU | 115 |
| Display | Acer AL1914smd-8 19 inch 8ms LCD | 301 |
| Speakers | Logitech Z-3e 2.1 Speakers | 73 |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Logitech Internet Pro Desktop | 23 |
| Bottom Line | 1315 | |
Our Office configurations are a little less painful on the old pocketbook, ringing up at just over $1300. As with the Gaming setups, reusing your current display, speakers, etc. could reduce the cost quite a bit, getting under the $1000 price point. For the AMD setup, you might consider upgrading to 2x1GB of RAM, since multitasking that can take advantage of two cores is also more likely to surpass the 1GB RAM usage mark. The Intel system comes with 2GB of RAM, but the processor is definitely slower than the X2 3800+. It might be worth considering a CPU upgrade for the Intel system, but we're not really sold on the bang for the buck that it offers.
Some of you are probably wondering how the dual core CPUs perform in gaming systems. Many games work fine, though some have issues with two cores being present. (There aren't any current games that can actually utilize both cores, unfortunately.) Anand has mentioned recently that he's looking into gaming compatibility. We do have a modified version of the setaffin.exe Freeware program that might prove useful - unlike setaffin.exe and runfirst.exe, you can set the application to run on any CPU core instead of just CPU 0. If you'd like, give it a try - it's unsupported software, and we take no responsibility for what it might do to your system, of course. It's also available under the GPL license free of charge. (Thanks to Russell Pickett for providing the basis of the tool; simple, yet effective! We've avoided providing a direct link to his web page to avoid overloading his home server.)
Conclusion
We hope that you've found this Buyer's Guide to be useful, and we'll be releasing additional Guides more frequently in the future. Your comments, suggestions, and criticisms are welcome. As we've tried to make clear, there is no perfect system that we can recommend for every person. If you're willing to spend $1250 or so, however, there are plenty of decisions that can be made to tune the system to your needs.
We did not include an OS in the total cost of any system, so that would add $90 to $135 (when purchased with hardware) to the price for Windows XP. We should also mention that there has been some confusion about XP Home and dual-core support. XP SP2 will indeed support both cores; it is licensed as a single socket product, so it supports HyperThreading as well as the Pentium D and X2 processors. Even though it will work, we prefer the added flexibility of XP Professional and feel that it is worth the extra $45.
You could also ditch Microsoft altogether and go with Linux or some other Unix derivative - probably not for gaming, but OpenOffice with Linux actually makes for a rather potent office system. We wouldn't give such a setup to your grandparents, but more knowledgeable computer users shouldn't have too much trouble figuring out how to get such a system working properly.
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flatblastard - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
I'll be looking forward to reading this article, maybe we can clear some of this confusion up.ksherman - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
you mentioned that XP Pro will have no problem with a dual core processor. If I were to upgrade my current computer with a 3800+, will I have to reinstall my OS? everything else will remain constant.JarredWalton - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
It depends in a large part on your current setup. Worst case scenario, you'd probably have to do a repair installation over your current OS. Actually, worst case you hose your current OS and start from scratch, but 99% of the time that's not required.Furen - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
You are very likely to be able to pull off a CPU swap without problems but if you have those weird speed-up/slow-down problems that some people seem to be having in certain games (and you cant fix them using the X2 driver), then a clean install will probably fix that for you.2ndRUNNER - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
I would rather buy an entry-level PC for doing most of my jobs
and save $400 or more (on graphic, SLI mobo, CPU, etc.)
to buy a console dedicated to pure gaming. In this way, I can
enjoy the best of both worlds since all major game companies
are moving to consoles. In addition, I feel more comfortable
watching DVD, seeing my photos, listening to music, recording
TV programs and definitely, playing games with friends on my sofa.
yacoub - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Hmmm let's see:I like to watch TV while I use the computer. I can't play a console and watch TV as easily, let alone hear the news in the background while I play.
My TV is too old to really provide a worthy display for a modern console. So that means spending $1000-2000 for a nice TV.
I tend to prefer PC games for their greater depth, functionality (due to more buttons to bind and flexibility in how you assign them), modability, map/level-making, community, etc. Many things not offered on console games.
Until there is a trackball for controlling 'mouselook', a console controller is rubbish for FPS gaming, period.
A lot of the games I play today are older games that definitely won't be seen on a console anytime soon or simply wouldn't port well anyway due to their complexity (MechWarrior4:Mercenaries w/ MekTek add-on, MechCommander2 w/ Wolfman's add-on, Rome: Total War, etc).
So why would I: Give up the gaming I have now (my current rig needs an upgrade soon in order to continue gaming on it, so if I buy a console and TV I'm foregoing that), buy into an expensive proposition for future gaming that likely won't include many of the games I'd be interested in, and thus end up with less than what I started?
It just doesn't make sense. Not yet. The XBox360 is coming closer, for sure, but until they provide a trackball & keyboard setup including button configuration (heck, let me use my current USB ones from my PC) and content-identical ports of PC games, I won't be sold on using a console for ALL of my gaming wants.
yacoub - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Oh and then there's the realization that the Z-680s probably won't cut it for audio output for the TV and it'd be home theatre audio system time. Yeah right. That's so far out of my budget right now...bob661 - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
The Z-5500's work perfectly for home audio use. There's an optical input on the controller. Works great.yacoub - Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - link
Yes, they're the same as my Z-680s, I'm just saying that they are still PC speakers, not home audio quality speakers. Compared to the other PC speaker options, they're excellent, but they don't stack up to home audio, trust me.JarredWalton - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
People obviously have differing tastes. Personally, I hate console controllers. I was over at a friend's place tonight and we tried Conker: Reloaded on the Xbox. The pathetic controls are just a great way to mask non-existent AI, as far as I can tell. If I spent a lot more time with consoles, I'd certainly improve, but I don't think I could ever reach the same skill level as a mouse/keyboard FPS player.That's somewhat beside the point, though, when I consider the games I actually play and enjoy the most. FPS games are great, but a good strategy game often lasts longer on my HDD than the latest FPS. Point to a console game that can compete with Civilization III. (Imagine trying to control such a game without a mouse....)
There's room for both types of gamers, and frankly I doubt I'll get any of the next gen consoles. They just don't appeal to *me*.