Buyer's Guide: Value Gaming - September 2002

Case - Antec SX630 - $75

The Antec SX630 is a case we have been recommending for quite some time now in our value system configurations. The SX630 is a mini tower case solution that offers 8 drive bays (five 3.5" bays and three 5.25" bays), seven expansion slots, a swing-out side panel, and an 80mm rear case fan standard. Cooling-wise, the SX630 can also accept two front mounted 80mm case fans. The SX630's 300 watt AMD approved power supply should have no problem with our KT333 motherboard and Athlon XP 1700+ processor.

Sound Card - Integrated 6 Channel Avance Logic ALC650 - "Free"

We found in a recent on-board audio test that the 6 channel Avance Logic ALC650 AC'97 codec makes the need for a discrete sound card in a value system no longer necessary. Luckily, the MSI KT3 Ultra2 that is at the heart of our value gaming setup makes use of the ALC650, providing a very low cost 6 channel audio solution that provides audio functionality not previously available in an integrated audio chip.

Avance Logic's software allows you to remap the three 1/8" jacks on the KT3 Ultra2 to handle front, rear and LFE outputs. Because of this, these three jacks enable 5.1 channel analog outputs without the use of any additional brackets. The audio quality of this solution should be just about as good as a high end discrete audio card with a price much more attractive: free.

Check out our page covering onboard audio in our KT333 roundup for more information.

Speakers - Logitech Z-540 - $57

Audio quality in a gaming system is of utmost importance. Hearing shots coming from the left side of the screen just does not sound right on your typical pair of $20 stereo speakers. Although a 5.1 audio setup is ideal, going with a 4.1 setup in our value gaming system seemed to make the most sense.

The Logitech Z-540 speakers make for an excellent 4.1 speaker setup at a very tempting price. The dedicated sub and rear speakers will certainly help bring any 3D game to life. You can save a $20 or so by going with a 2.1 speaker setup if you are on a very tight budget. Then again, those out there with a more lax budget may opt to go for the Logitech Z-560's.

Ethernet - Linksys EtherFast 10/100 - $20

We have been recommending the Linksys EtherFast 10/100 network card for what seems like ages now. We continue to stick with the card because of our personal experience with it. We have been using EtherFast 10/100 cards in the lab for years now and have never been disappointed. Plus, the card offers full support for all major OS's.

Hard Drive - Western Digital WD400BB 40GB - $70

Recently Western Digital has been producing the fastest IDE hard drives on the market. The company's performance and special edition lines offer great performance at prices that are comparable with other drives. The WD400BB drive that we chose to outfit our value gaming system with is one of the company's "high performance" drives. The name is worthy, being that you will be hard pressed to find a faster 7200RPM IDE hard drive. In fact, the WD400BB only falls behind the "special edition" WDx00JB drives when it comes to performance (thanks to the JB's 8MB of cache). At $70, the 40GB WD400BB makes the most sense for our value gaming system. If you are looking for even more performance, another $20 will get you the same drive with the 8MB buffer.

For those wanting more space, the 60GB WD600BB runs about $85 and the 80GB WD800BB is selling at $95.

CD-R/CD-RW - Name Brand 24x10x40 Drive - $50

We decided to put a CD-R/CD-RW drive in our value gaming system because the additional money that the drive costs is well worth it in the long run. We previously configured our value gaming system with a 50X CD-ROM drive that rung in at $30. For $20 more we were able to get a CD recorder that reads almost as fast as a dedicated CD drive but also offers the ability to backup and transfer data. In particular, we looked at the BTC BCE2410IM CDRW drive but other brands like ASUS, AOpen, and Lite On offer drives with similar specifications at competitive prices. In fact, $10 more can get you a 40x burner in some cases.

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home - $190

Thanks to your feedback, we opted to make Microsoft Windows XP Home the operating system of choice for our value gaming system. Windows XP Home offers the same functionality and stability as Windows XP Professional but leaves out some networking functions that should remain unused for the most part by gamers. Gamers will benefit from Windows XP's stability and broad game support.

Bottom Line: $764 (without software)