Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range to High-End, May 2005

System Summaries

Taking the complete system recommendations, what sort of damage to your wallet are we talking about? First, let's make it clear that these are systems that we would want - we put together all the parts without any consideration of meeting a specific budget. For the High-End setup, we threw out almost all restraints and picked out the parts that we all lust after when we're not busy reviewing other hardware. The Mid-Range was built by making some sensible downgrades to keep the price in check, but it should still pack quite a punch. You can also find a middle ground on many of the parts, so if the High-End is too expensive, but the Mid-Range just isn't powerful enough, going with a few parts from each range is definitely an option. As far as the AMD vs. Intel debate goes, we prefer the AMD setup right now, but dual core processors on Intel would get a few of us to reconsider. Let's start with the Mid-Range systems.

Mid-Range Summaries

Mid-Range AMD
Hardware	Recommended Component	Price
Processor	Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm (Retail) - Winchester core	$190
Motherboard	Chaintech VNF4 Ultra	$89
Memory	2x512MB OCZ Premier	$84
Video Card	Powercolor X800XL OEM	$279
Hard Drive	Seagate 250GB 7200.8 SATA	$128
Optical Drive	NEC 16X DVDR 3520A	$48
Floppy Drive	NEC; Sony; TEAC; Samsung; etc.	$8
Case	Antec SLK3000-B	$56
Power Supply	Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W	$66
Display	Hyundai Imagequest L90D+ 19" 8ms	$350
Speakers	Logitech Z-5300e 5.1	$135
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech Internet Pro Desktop	$26
Bottom Line		$1459

Mid-Range Intel
Hardware	Recommended Component	Price
Processor	Pentium 540J 3.2GHz 1MB (Retail) - Prescott core	$213
Motherboard	ASUS P5GD1	$110
Memory	2x512MB OCZ Premier	$84
Video Card	Powercolor X800XL OEM	$279
Hard Drive	Seagate 250GB 7200.8 SATA	$128
Optical Drive	NEC 16X DVDR 3520A	$48
Floppy Drive	NEC; Sony; TEAC; Samsung; etc.	$8
Case	Antec SLK3000-B	$56
Power Supply	Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W	$66
Display	Hyundai Imagequest L90D+ 19" 8ms	$350
Speakers	Logitech Z-5300e 5.1	$135
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech Internet Pro Desktop	$26
Bottom Line		$1503

Some of you may be wondering why the price of our Mid-Range systems is suddenly $250 more than the last time that we looked at the segment. The answer lies mostly in the upgrades to the LCD and speakers, though overall, the system is simply more powerful. Besides, with our Budget systems ranging from $500 to $1000, we felt that it would be safe to bump up the Mid-Range choices. Feel free to refer to the last Budget Guide and mix and match parts to fit your needs. This is the system that we recommend as an all-around computer. It won't be the fastest in every category, but the difference between it and the High-End systems isn't going to be very noticeable for most users. Sure, you can drop back to a CRT and get cheaper speakers, go with a slightly smaller hard drive and a slower CPU and graphics card, etc. None of those are terrible decisions, and you can get quite a lot of computer for close to $1000. We hope it's clear that there is no specific system that will meet everyone's demands, but we've used all of the parts listed in this system, and every one is a reasonable purchase/upgrade.

High-End Summaries

High-End AMD
Hardware	Recommended Component	Price
Processor	Athlon 64 4000+ 90nm (Retail) - San Diego core	$507
Motherboard	DFI LANPARTY UT SLI-DR	$178
Memory	2x512MB OCZ EL Platinum Rev 2	$188
Video Card	2 x 6800GT - eVGA; MSI; or XFX	$690
Hard Drive	Hitachi 7K250 400GB SATA	$265
Optical Drive	NEC 16X DVDR 3520A	$48
Floppy Drive	NEC; Sony; TEAC; Samsung; etc.	$8
Case	AeroCool Spiral Galaxies	$108
Power Supply	Enermax EG565P-VE FMA2.0 SLI 535W	$97
Display	Dell 2001FP 20" 16ms	$530
Sound Card	Chaintech AV-710 7.1	$27
Speakers	Logitech Z-5500d 5.1	$245
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech Internet Pro Desktop	$26
Bottom Line		$2917

High-End Intel
Hardware	Recommended Component	Price
Processor	Pentium 650 3.4GHz 2MB (Retail) - Irwindale/Prescott 2M core	$412
Motherboard	MSI P4N Diamond	$229
Memory	2x512MB Crucial PC-5300 Value	$172
Video Card	2 x 6800GT - eVGA; MSI; or XFX	$690
Hard Drive	Hitachi 7K250 400GB SATA	$265
Optical Drive	NEC 16X DVDR 3520A	$48
Floppy Drive	NEC; Sony; TEAC; Samsung; etc.	$8
Case	AeroCool Spiral Galaxies	$108
Power Supply	Enermax EG565P-VE FMA2.0 SLI 535W	$97
Display	Dell 2001FP 20" 16ms	$530
Sound Card	Chaintech AV-710 7.1	$27
Speakers	Logitech Z-5500d 5.1	$245
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech Internet Pro Desktop	$26
Bottom Line		$2857

We still really want the option to throw a Pentium D into the Intel system, but we'll have to wait a little longer. The same goes for the Athlon X2 chips, though those are further off than the Pentium D. While the Intel system is actually cheaper than the AMD, despite the extremely expensive motherboard, it's really not a fair comparison. Both systems are SLI capable, but the AMD system will overclock better and quite a few benchmarks - especially games - will be dominated by the AMD platform. Besides the mentioned caveats, there isn't much that you can do to increase the power of the High-End systems without spending a lot more money. If you're looking for a good way to spend all of your tax returns and then some, at least computers are generally less harmful than other addictions.

Closing Thoughts

It's been a while since our last Guide, so we felt that it was best to cover a lot of options in a single article. Hopefully, you now have a better idea of what you want to spend your money on. Any questions, comments, feedback, corrections, or even complaints are welcome.