Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System
by Evan Lieb on February 26, 2004 2:43 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Mid-Range System Summary
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| CPU & Cooling | AMD Athlon XP 2800+ | $120 |
| Motherboard | ABIT AN7 (nForce2 Ultra 400) | $103 |
| Memory | 2 X 256MB Corsair Value Select PC3200 (DDR400) | $84 |
| Video Card | 128MB PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro | $130 |
| Monitor | Samsung 955DF DynaFlat CRT | $200 |
| Computer Case | CaseEdge TS1 (plus $30 360W PSU) | $70 |
| Sound Card | Onboard Realtek ALC658 | $0 |
| Speakers | Logitech Z640 5.1 | $63 |
| Networking | Onboard Realtek 8201BL 10/100 controller | $0 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital 1200JB (80GB) | $88 |
| CD-RW | Plextor 52x24x52 (2MB | $44 |
| Bottom Line | - | $902 |
$902 is the final price of our system, not including any money you'll spend on software (Windows XP Home or Professional, Office, etc.) or a keyboard and mouse.
Overall, you're getting pretty much one of the best bang-for-the-buck systems on the market. You're getting a superb blend of performance, speed, and reliability, all in a very simple and easy-to-use package. Go build your system and let us know what you think.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
View All Comments
gordon151 - Thursday, February 26, 2004 - link
Come on Evan, thought youd know by now that the DSP in the Audigy doesn't support anything higher than 16/48 even though the DACs that it uses do. Thus no 24bit audio on Audigy ES. Only Audigy 2 and up fix this shortcoming.Ecmaster76 - Thursday, February 26, 2004 - link
While it might be iffy on the nforce2 boards external controller, I would definitely reccomend using the SATA version of the Seagate drive on the Asus board (stay away from Maxtor SATA, they use bridge chip that has a bad rep. for compatibility problems). I'm using a SATA Barracuda 80GB, 8MB cache drive and it is sweet!