Entry Level Buyer's Guide, October 2005
by Jarred Walton on October 14, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Graphics Recommendations
All of the motherboards are PCI Express, so we don't need to worry about AGP cards anymore. The Office builds also include integrated graphics, further eliminating the need for graphics cards. You may need to add a DX9 capable GPU in the future to get the most out of Windows Vista, but by the time you're ready to install Vista, even a $100 graphics card will likely be trounced by the $50 cards of the future. For the Gaming configurations - depending on how much gaming you plan on doing - we recommend that you spend as much money as possible on a graphics card. We've allocated an extra $250 for the gaming builds in order to accommodate higher performance requirements, but we'll still offer two options for the graphics card: a lower cost card and an upgraded card. (The final system configurations will use the lower cost option.)
Price: $138 shipped (Retail)
We considered quite a few options for the base graphics choice. X700 Pro is the cheapest and still offers reasonable performance for the $100 price tag. We'd like a bit more performance, though, so we expanded the search to the 6600 GT, 6800, and X800 lines. X1300 and X1600 might become viable in the future, but they are not yet available for purchase. The X800 lineup starts at $130 for the Sapphire X800 GT and then quickly jumps to $160 or more. There's also a $30 rebate to get the X800 for $120, which might be worthwhile if you can wait for the rebate to come through. We looked at X800 GT Performance, and found it to be competitive with the 6600 GT. However, the 6600 GT is still available for less, particularly when you consider that the cheapest X800 GT is a 128MB DDR-700 offering (as opposed to the 256MB DDR-980 cards). GeForce 6800 cards are all $170 or more even with a rebate, so we passed them by and ended up with the venerable 6600 GT.
Offering acceptable performance at resolutions up to 1280x1024 when antialiasing is turned off, the 6600 GT is a good match for the budget gamer. It's getting a bit "slow" relative to the fastest cards on the market, but it still manages to put up a fight with the upcoming X1600 XT. Given the price of $130 vs. the $249 MSRP for a yet-to-be-shipped X1600 XT, there's little reason to consider the latter. XFX, Chaintech, and eVGA are all priced similarly when you count rebates, but we took the eVGA for $138 and bypassed the need for a rebate. XFX allows you to spend $10 more now and get a net savings of $10 once the rebate clears, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Price: $186 shipped (Retail)
For a bit more money, there are quite a few upgrade options. The X800 GT isn't really worth the added cost, but the GTO and GTO2 models pack in quite a few extras - extra pipelines, that is. The choice boils down to going with a GTO 256MB card or spending the extra $40 for the GTO2. GTO2 cards have 12 pixel pipelines but can usually be "unlocked" to 16 pipelines and X850 XT speeds. (To gain the extra performance from the GTO2, you have to flash the card with the X850 XT BIOS, but it always works - at least so far. The final clock speed varies, but most people have been getting good results. You can read more about the BIOS flashing process at TechPowerUp.) However, prices and availability are becoming difficult to gauge, so we'll opt for the standard GTO.
The GTO cards run at 400/980 speeds by default, but there's a decent chance of overclocking the core a bit. You'll want to get a card that has the 6-pin PCIe power connector for best results, which is why we've listed the Connect3D card instead of the Sapphire model. (Apparently, there's a very good chance that you can flash this card to an X850 XT BIOS as well.) What you end up with is close to X800/X850 Pro performance and $50 left over in your pocket. We won't list this component in the final list, but if you care enough about gaming to read the whole article, we think that this is the best price/performance option out there right now.
We really like the GTO2 for overclockers and others willing to flash the BIOS, but it might be gone by the time you read this, so we'll leave it as an honorable mention. (Some resellers have increased prices on the GTO2 cards by $50 to $90 in just the past week! It's still a bit cheaper than the real X850 XT, but you're only saving about $30 instead of $100+.) Sapphire apparently has one more shipment of GTO2 cores coming in, but it's going to be the last.
All of the motherboards are PCI Express, so we don't need to worry about AGP cards anymore. The Office builds also include integrated graphics, further eliminating the need for graphics cards. You may need to add a DX9 capable GPU in the future to get the most out of Windows Vista, but by the time you're ready to install Vista, even a $100 graphics card will likely be trounced by the $50 cards of the future. For the Gaming configurations - depending on how much gaming you plan on doing - we recommend that you spend as much money as possible on a graphics card. We've allocated an extra $250 for the gaming builds in order to accommodate higher performance requirements, but we'll still offer two options for the graphics card: a lower cost card and an upgraded card. (The final system configurations will use the lower cost option.)
Click to enlarge.
Price: $138 shipped (Retail)
We considered quite a few options for the base graphics choice. X700 Pro is the cheapest and still offers reasonable performance for the $100 price tag. We'd like a bit more performance, though, so we expanded the search to the 6600 GT, 6800, and X800 lines. X1300 and X1600 might become viable in the future, but they are not yet available for purchase. The X800 lineup starts at $130 for the Sapphire X800 GT and then quickly jumps to $160 or more. There's also a $30 rebate to get the X800 for $120, which might be worthwhile if you can wait for the rebate to come through. We looked at X800 GT Performance, and found it to be competitive with the 6600 GT. However, the 6600 GT is still available for less, particularly when you consider that the cheapest X800 GT is a 128MB DDR-700 offering (as opposed to the 256MB DDR-980 cards). GeForce 6800 cards are all $170 or more even with a rebate, so we passed them by and ended up with the venerable 6600 GT.
Offering acceptable performance at resolutions up to 1280x1024 when antialiasing is turned off, the 6600 GT is a good match for the budget gamer. It's getting a bit "slow" relative to the fastest cards on the market, but it still manages to put up a fight with the upcoming X1600 XT. Given the price of $130 vs. the $249 MSRP for a yet-to-be-shipped X1600 XT, there's little reason to consider the latter. XFX, Chaintech, and eVGA are all priced similarly when you count rebates, but we took the eVGA for $138 and bypassed the need for a rebate. XFX allows you to spend $10 more now and get a net savings of $10 once the rebate clears, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $186 shipped (Retail)
For a bit more money, there are quite a few upgrade options. The X800 GT isn't really worth the added cost, but the GTO and GTO2 models pack in quite a few extras - extra pipelines, that is. The choice boils down to going with a GTO 256MB card or spending the extra $40 for the GTO2. GTO2 cards have 12 pixel pipelines but can usually be "unlocked" to 16 pipelines and X850 XT speeds. (To gain the extra performance from the GTO2, you have to flash the card with the X850 XT BIOS, but it always works - at least so far. The final clock speed varies, but most people have been getting good results. You can read more about the BIOS flashing process at TechPowerUp.) However, prices and availability are becoming difficult to gauge, so we'll opt for the standard GTO.
The GTO cards run at 400/980 speeds by default, but there's a decent chance of overclocking the core a bit. You'll want to get a card that has the 6-pin PCIe power connector for best results, which is why we've listed the Connect3D card instead of the Sapphire model. (Apparently, there's a very good chance that you can flash this card to an X850 XT BIOS as well.) What you end up with is close to X800/X850 Pro performance and $50 left over in your pocket. We won't list this component in the final list, but if you care enough about gaming to read the whole article, we think that this is the best price/performance option out there right now.
We really like the GTO2 for overclockers and others willing to flash the BIOS, but it might be gone by the time you read this, so we'll leave it as an honorable mention. (Some resellers have increased prices on the GTO2 cards by $50 to $90 in just the past week! It's still a bit cheaper than the real X850 XT, but you're only saving about $30 instead of $100+.) Sapphire apparently has one more shipment of GTO2 cores coming in, but it's going to be the last.
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i am getting angry - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
As most of you known, I'm usually a big fan of Anandtech, however this time I couldn't disagree more!A "cheap/no name/ POS" PSU is an open inventation to every problem possible!
Very good PSU's can be had for under $30!
Cheap, but Good PSU's! [url]http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027898523...[/url]
I am "davidhammock200" however I couldn't login as me!
JarredWalton - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
"A 'cheap/no name/POS' PSU is an open inventation to every problem possible!"It depends a lot on how high-end you go with parts. I've got a system sitting two feet from me with that MGE case and PSU. It's running at 2.70 GHz with a Sempron 3100+, and it's been running that way for three months. Did I get lucky? Maybe. More likely, people are just a little too concerned about power supplies and budget systems. $30 more would be enough to upgrade the 19" CRT to a 17" LCD - which do you think most people will choose?
I personally have never encountered instability that I would attribute to a PSU. I've had PSUs fail on numerous occasions, but in every case all it required was a new PSU. I've heard the stories of PSUs taking out the entire computer, and it's certainly possible in theory. I've never actually seen it happen, though.
Maybe I just care for my PCs too well? I do try to give them a good dusting every 3 months, which does wonders for fan life. I also don't try putting high-end builds with low end power. Low end parts with a low end PSU is exactly what you get from Dell and the likes, though. I've got a P4 2.8C Dell at my corporate job that has a 150W PSU. Amazing, eh? And it's been running 24/7 for over two years.
bldckstark - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
If you want to get PO's about an article take a look at this one that is posted on THG. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. They put together a MAJOR POS, don't use any logic, then also don't have any benchmarks to show what a piece it is. Take a look @ http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20051014/index.h...">$500 gaming rig from THGYou may disagree with some of the picks here, but that whole system is crap. But at least they stayed in budget! I used to love THG, but now it is ridiculous. They have become a system buyer site, instead of a system builder site. It's like PCWorld bought them or something.
If you were going to build a system for $750, and you found you could build a significantly better one for $100 more wouldn't you do it? Hell, that is only 13%. I recently did the exact same thing. I got an SLI board cuz it was only $20 more. I got a 3200+ on a deal cuz it was only $15 more than the 3000+ on a package deal. I got a 6600GT even though they cost more than I originally thought. I got 512MB OCZ Platinum Rev2 ram cuz I can buy more later instead of 1GB of value ram now. I got a 300GB SATA drive cuz it was cheaper per GB than a 250, but it cost more too. Any project of any kind should have built in 10% contingency plan. In my lonely opinion Jarred is only liable for grief on the 3% over that. So here it is WAAaa.......... (3% of a whine).
bgladwyn - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
It seems odd to include a speaker package with a subwoofer for an office setup when headphones would do. Similarly, flat panels are useful in the office because of the desk space they liberate. Lose the $37 speakers and shell out $199 for the cheapest 17" TFT on PriceGrabber and you have $33 well spent.JarredWalton - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
When I say office in this guide, I mean "home office" as opposed to an actual workplace computer. For a workplace, speakers are generally frowned upon. There are many ways to get to an LCD, but quality is a bit more important than price if you're going that route. I'd forget about 15" LCDs and put 17" as the minimum, with a DVI input being preferred. Still, $200 for a 17" LCD isn't bad. $250 will even get you a 19" model, possibly with DVI.Like I said in the displays section, the only reason I didn't include an LCD was to get closer to the $500 price. I highly recommend anyone that can should spend more money on the display, with 19" LCDs being the ultimate goal.
bgladwyn - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
Fair play, I've read all the article now(!) and can see that you'd already considered this point.ceefka - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
Any expectations on integrated DVI graphics?I think that a 17" VGA LCD like the Samsung 710v (think it was 12 or 16ms) is quite OK for office use. Granted it is more expensive than a "comparable" CRT. It uses less juice, produces less heat and occupies less space, plus you actually work on that screen. My latest experience on a CRT was that after some time the numbers danced before my very eyes :D Just weigh that in and draw your own conclusions.
pcmatt1024 - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
i believe the new 6150 from nvidia (basically the higher end version of what was used on the amd office board) will have dvi out. boards should be out in the next few weeks.
JarredWalton - Saturday, October 15, 2005 - link
I can say for sure that the ATI Xpress 200 and Intel 915G both *can* support DVI output. The problem is that no motherboard manufacturers actually have such support so far. (I know that it's possible because I have two SFF cases with those chipsets, and they both have DVI ports.) Basically, DVI is a "high-end" option and IGP is often "value-oriented". It's sort of like the problem with uATX motherboards: no one makes an "enthusiast uATX" design; they're all built for value. And yes, there are some people that would like a high quality uATX mobo.PrinceGaz - Friday, October 14, 2005 - link
LCD panels are certainly getting better and I know for a fact that my next display (when this Mitsubishi DP 2070SB fails, which hopefully won't be for several years) won't be a CRT as there is already nothing available as good as it.If you were having problems using a CRT, then the refresh-rate was almost certainly too low. Windows 2000/XP defaults to 60hz which is unusable for most people for extended periods with a CRT monitor, and that is probably what you were using. Any half-decent CRT monitor will support at least 85hz at the ideal resolution, with which most people have no problems. Really good CRT monitors will support 100hz or more at their optimum resolutions, but unfortunately those really good CRT monitors can only be bought second-hand now as all the best manufacturers have switched to LCD panels.