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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plinden - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Point to a console game that can compete with Civilization III. (Imagine trying to control such a game without a mouse....)Civ III plays nicely on my three yr old 1.8GHz, as does Age of Empires and Sim City IV. You don't need a $1500 gaming PC with a $380 GPU to play Civ III or any other strategy/sim game (ok, that's currently - but I doubt even Civ IV will be that resource hungry)
(You can tell from the games in my collection when I was last able to spend any time playing games)
bob661 - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
I don't think he was refering to the hardware. Rather, the existence of a similiar game for the console.Pete84 - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
You need friends to play games with on the sofa, otherwise a PC is much better. I live in the sticks so the multiplayer capabilities of consoles doesn't do much, my hasn't figured out a gamepad yet :pPythias - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Good job, although it seems to me that you seem almost apologetic about some of your choices. Dont be. If folks want to complain about your choices, let them write their own damned guide. :)Methusela - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
I'm pretty impressed, overall, by the guide. I read through the whole thing and can't really find more than minor faults with any part of it. Those don't even really beg mentioning except for not including the price of an OS with it. You're not going to do much gaming without Winblows, I'm sad to report. Even office applications and accounting packages rarely come compatible with *nix unless they're enterprise-class.It's an interesting comparison given that I've purchased some reasonably mid-range PCs for my office from a local white box shop. The prices (and componentry) here compare favorably to what they were charging, except that you don't get any overall system warranties with the DIY systems listed here. Overall, though, I'd probably prefer to build my own at work if my boss would allow. Building affords you many extra benefits and prevents any corner-cutting that you don't decide upon directly.
Thanks, Jarred!
JarredWalton - Monday, September 19, 2005 - link
Yeah, I cheat on the non-inclusion of the OS. Personally, I'd grab XP Pro, so add about $135 to each system - unless you have a copy of XP Pro that you want to remove from another PC, I suppose.