Buyer's Guide - March 2000

High-end SOHO
The small office/home office machine has a unique set of requirements. It must provide quick and snappy 2D performance, be very stable. The keys to good performance on such a machine is lots of RAM and a fast hard drive.

Processor – AMD Athlon 650 - $200
Although CPU performance isn’t the most important factor for many office applications, there are some where CPU performance is critical. At similar clock speeds, the Athlon holds a significant advantage in price, and for that reason, we’ve chosen an Athlon 650.  Throw in a Golden Fingers device and the 650 can easily overclock to somewhere between 700 and 800 MHz. 

For more information on all Athlon processors, read our Athlon 1GHz Review.

Motherboard – EPoX EP-7KXA - $140
If you’re going with an Athlon CPU, the VIA KX133 chipset is clearly the best platform to run it on.  Unfortunately, there’s a lack of good KX133 boards that are also widely available and that has driven price up considerably through good old supply and demand.  The EPoX is the only widely available KX133, so it’s our pick for now, but better KX133 boards are on the way.

For more information, read our EPoX EP-7KXA Review.

Memory – 256MB Corsair or Mushkin PC133 SDRAM (2x128MB DIMM’s) – $250
Even though memory is relatively cheap these days, 256MB is more than enough.  We could have dropped down to 128MB, but the savings didn’t justify the performance loss.  Besides, this is our high-end SOHO machine, and there’s room in the budget. 

As for the exact brand of memory, we recommend Corsair or Mushkin modules.  We use them in our test systems and have had absolutely no problems with them. 

Video card – Matrox G400 32MB Dual Head - $180
We’ve always found Matrox cards to do an excellent job in business environments, and their latest card, the G400, is no exception.  You’ll get snappy 2D display, DVD playback, and excellent display driver utilities that include useful features like virtual desktop.  With the option for dual head, you can add a second monitor to potentially double your workspace.  And if you need to take a break from work, the G400 is ready to frag away ;)

For more information, read our Matrox G400 & G400 MAX Review.

Monitor – iiYama VisionMaster PRO 450 - $650
If you’re going to be sitting in front of your monitor for hours a day, it’s critical that you have a crisp monitor that can provide a flicker-free refresh rate at your resolution of choice.  Using a Mitsubishi Diamondtron NF, the iiYama VisionMaster Pro 450 provides a perfectly flat display surface using the same technology in Sony’s FD Trinitron models, but at a lower cost.  The VisionMaster PRO 450 is a 19” monitor and has been highly acclaimed here on AnandTech and by owners alike.  If you’ve got the funds, we highly recommend you go with the 22” VisionMaster PRO 510 for about $1000.

For more information, read our iiYama VisionMaster PRO 450 and VisionMaster PRO 510 Reviews.