Yet another critique my rig...

[50]

Hello, I'm trying to get the best bang out of my buck for under 1,000 dollars. This is what I am thinking for a configuration..

Athlon 64 2800+ w/ Chaintech mobo (i know many people think a64's are overpriced, but I want to get on the 64 bit bandwagon and not become obsolete) $198
Antec Sonata $100
Radeon 9600 pro $107
Thermaltake Silent Boost K8-$25
Windows XP home license: 60 dollars
NEC 2510a-$85
I have RAM and all the other accesories.
The one part I'm not really sure about is the hard drive and monitor. What is the best cheap sata hard drive? I saw this seagate for $67. If I get that I am left with ~260 dollars for a monitor. Can I get a nice 15" LCD for this price? I could give up the DVD burner if that's what it costs for a nice LCD. Thanks

 

[Mik3y]

dont get that seagate harddrive. it only has 2mb cache. get the western digital 8mb cache one. its the same price and is faster.

 

[RyanM]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
dont get that seagate harddrive. it only has 2mb cache. get the western digital 8mb cache one. its the same price and is faster.

Or not.

"Buffer Size - 8 MB"

That's a pretty decent price on the drive, and Seagates tend to be quieter (if not a tad hotter) than the WD's. Nice choice.

And for $260, you can get a 19" Viewsonic professional series or come pretty close to a Mitsu/NEC FP912SB (the same monitor I have). 1600x1200 @ 85 Hz. Yum.

 

[Tostada]

I think you're going about this backwards. A nice monitor is just about the only part of the system that can actually be considered an investment. Decide what monitor you want, then look for suggestions of what to do with the remaining cash.

Think about it. In 5 years, it's not going to make any difference whether you got an A64 2800+ or overclocked a Mobile Athlon XP... although presently the Mobile Athlon will actually give you better performance.

And a 15" LCD for your primary display? Wow. Check out Newegg. You can spend $290 (w/ shipping) on their cheapest POS 15" LCD or you can spend $274 a nice 19" SuperBright DiamondTron. LCD's aren't really for the budget-conscious.

Why are you even listing a DVD burner? Either you want to burn DVD's or you don't. I don't understand why you would have it in there to begin with if it's something you can easily get rid of to save some money.

Honestly, your system makes no sense. You want a $200 CPU and a cheap hard drive to go with it. What exactly are you planning on doing with the system? You'd probably have a much better machine if you just upgraded the machine you've got.

I mean, for $1000 you have two different basic directions to go. You can build a new low-end Athlon 64 with a R9600 Pro and a cheap hard drive, or you can make your current system kick ass with:

$547 BenQ 19" TFT or $559 22" SuperBright Diamondtron

If you don't have SATA, you can still get a drive that's as fast as anything besides a Raptor 74. Get a $91 Hitachi 160GB PATA drive with 8MB cache / 3-year warranty, or get a $100 Samsung PATA drive with 8MB cache / 3-year warranty.

Get an $83 NEC 2510A.

Get a $206 Radeon 9600 Pro with the XT core, flash it, and get a $17 (w/ shipping) Vantec IceBerg 4 Copper video cooler.

Seriously, you'd rather have an A64 2800+ than a $600 monitor and an R9600?

 

[RyanM]

Tostada's right on the money.

You're going to change motherboard, CPU, and RAM far more frequently than you'll reinvest in things like monitors. Build the sytem around which components are going to be with you the longest, and which are the most expensive.

My priority list would go something like this:

Monitor (kept for 3+ years
Case (kept for 2+ years)
Sound Card (kept for 2+ years)
OS (kept for 2+ years)
Graphics Card (kept for 1+ years)
Hard Drive (kept for 1+ years)
RAM (kept for 1+ years)
Optical Drive (kept for 1+ months)
Motherboard (kept for 1+ years)
Processor (kept for 1+ years)

So, let's count it down:

Monitor - Mitsu/NEC FP912SB 19" CRT - $299 shipped
Case - Antec Sonata - $100
Sound Card - Hollywood@home 7.1 - $24 shipped
OS - Windows XP Home - $60
Graphics - Radeon 9600 Pro - $107
HD - 160 gig SATA 8MB Cache - $105
RAM - Got it

That leaves $305 left to get the mobo, processor, and optical drive. Let's say you go with the NEC 2510a - Leaves you with $220.

Grab yourself a MSI KM400A mATX mobo for $65 and you have SATA, 4 usb headers on the mobo, 3 PCI, 1 AGP, and support for up to an Athlon XP 3000+. You've got $155 left for your CPU - Which'll snag you a 2800+ Barton retail with change to spare. Practically almost as good as your A64 for the time being, and a year from now, you can just get a new mobo and proc to get your 64-bit goodness.

But in the mean time, you've got a damn fine audio card, an extra 80 gigs of HD space, and a super-fine monitor with 3 year warranty.

This assumes you don't steal anything else from your old rig to throw it in as an addition or replacement for one of the aforementioned parts.

 

[50]

Thanks for the comments guys. I forgot to mention one important fact, this is going to be a rig for someone else and not me. It will be used mainly for surfing the net (and common tasks) and some gaming. I'm definately going to scrap the dvd burner (BTW I have cd burners and cd roms around, I might buy a cheapo DVD rom though). The one thing I can't agree on though is the CRT because space is an issue and an LCD is absolutely necessary. I may decide on forgetting the A64 and getting a mobile athlon. Is the HD really that bad? I was told Seagates are incredible drives and very quiet, plus this one has SATA and an 8mb buffer. The person who is getting this computer does NOT need more than 80 gigs of space.

Mach-I have to ask why you would suggest a mobo such as the MSI KM400A? It is micro atx which seems unecessary and I haven't really heard of anyone using it. Wouldn't I be a lot better off with an Abit IC7 or one of those boards and a mobile athlon xp? Thanks for the help guys

 

[Tostada]

A lot of times I give people the general advice that they'll be much happier in the long run if they spend as much on their monitor as the whole rest of their system. Those who listen to that advice always thank me later.

My GF has a crappy Shuttle 1st-gen SFF with a Celeron 366 in it, but all she does is email on the thing, and she's just happy to have a cute little computer with a cute little 15" KDS LCD.

"Some games" is a pretty vague idea. For "some games," maybe an nForce 2 IGP would be fine.

If you're talking about someone who's mostly just surfing the net, I would still squeeze that BenQ screen into the budget. Seriously, they'll be so much happier looking at a 19" BenQ than some 15-17" panel, even if the framerate is a little lower in their occasional gaming.

You said you've already got RAM and other accessories ... so I'd get this:

$547 BenQ 19" LCD
$80 Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
$58 Shuttle AN35N-Ultra
$94 Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro 128-bit passive
$91 Hitachi 160GB Deskstar 7K250, 8MB, 3-year
$40 Sony 52x32x52x16 combo CD-RW / DVD
$79 + $15 shipping Antec SLK2700-BQE

I really don't think your average consumer will be all excited about a case that says "Antec" on the side like the Sonata, and the SLK2700's look better when you flip open the cover, too. I also doubt they will ever do anything to tax a Barton, so I'd go with the cheapest retail one. People are happy to see that retail Athlon sticker on their case, even if you replace the heatsink.

 

[Tostada]

I suppose if you're adamant about the fact that they don't need more than 80GB space, I would save some money on the hard drive and spend it on making the system completely silent:

$547 BenQ 19" LCD
$80 Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
$58 Shuttle AN35N-Ultra
$94 Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro 128-bit passive
$64 Samsung 80GB, 3-year
$40 Sony 52x32x52x16 combo CD-RW / DVD
$79 + $15 shipping Antec SLK2700-BQE
$14.99 + $5 shipping Artic Cooling Copper Silent 2TC heatsink

That's $996.99 delivered.

 

[RyanM]

I think a 19" LCD might be overkill for the applications they seem to be talking about. A 17" or 15" would be more than adequate for web-surfing, and if the gaming is a bit more than casual, I'd lean towards the 17". Either way, the reduction in price can be spread out among the major components to make things faster/quieter/better. Here's a suggestion - All prices are shipped.

$460 NEC 17" LCD - 16ms refresh, 140 degree viewing, 450:1 contrast
$80 XP Barton retail
$65 MSI KM4AM-L - Has the benefit over the Shuttle of on-chip SATA and allows you to choose from more potential cases
$125 Radeon 9600PRO 128MB
$76 80GB WD 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA
$86 NEC 2510A w/ Roxio burning software
$17.50 Speeze copper heatsink/80mm fan - Fairly low-profile for its size, damn near silent
$37 CasEdge mATX case - LOVE this case. Small, stylish, easy to work on, roomy.
$41 SilverStone 360W PS with 120mm exhaust
----------
$987.5 (all prices included shipping, I think)

A few notes about this setup and why I chose it in general.

The LCD is a gorgeous one, viewable space clocking in between a 17" and 19" CRT, fast refresh (important for gaming), high contrast ratio, 3 year warranty.

The 2500+ Barton's a no-brainer. More than enough head room for most stuff, and in a year when 3200+ cost $80, you can throw one of those in for a reasonable speed increase.

Now, the motherboard. You asked why I recommended it. Several reasons:

[*]It's mATX. You can slam that thing in an Aria or another mATX mobo down the line if you so please.
[*]It has 4 USB on the back and 4 headers on the mobo. Most mATX boards only have 2 headers on the mobo.
[*]While its onboard sound isn't quite as good as the nForce2 boards, it's nothing to shake a stick at. And you can always throw in an AV-710 for another $25.
[*]It has two SATA ports. One for the hard drive, one for down the line if you ever choose to throw another in. Also, its SATA is onchip, meaning it doesn't occupy PCI bus bandwidth.
[*]Hardware temp monitoring. I've found a few mobos in the past that neglected to mention they lack the feature. This one has it.
[*]Its layout is excellent. The ATX connector is near the front of the board, which keeps the ATX cable out of the path of the CPU fan. The SATA headers are near the front of the board, along with the IDE headers. There's plenty of space around the socket for a monster HSF if you want one. And so on.

Simply put, best mATX mobo for the SocketA platform that I've found.

Moving along, Radeon 9600PRO. 300 MTexels and 3.2GB/s faster than the 9600NP. Not much, but faster's faster.

The WD hard drive was chosen because it has an 8MB cache, where the Samsung does not, and also carries a 3 year warranty. There's your DVD burner to. Obviously, you could save $40 and scale back to a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive.

As for the case, again, one of the smallest, nicest cases I've ever worked on. Its hard drive mount is rotated 90 degrees, making installation of drives and connecting them a snap. Nearly tooless design. Couple with the Silverstone, you won't need any other fans in the case besides the one it comes with, and you could 7v that most likely. Great airflow through the front of the case. Throw away the 300W PS or sell it for $5 once you've got the Silverstone in.

That's about it. Tostada's recommendation is indeed excellent, but this is just my personal preference and take on what you've specified.

Hopefully these ideas will get your mind jogging and help you decide on what ya want!

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: MachFive
I think a 19" LCD might be overkill for the applications they seem to be talking about. A 17" or 15" would be more than adequate for web-surfing, and if the gaming is a bit more than casual, I'd lean towards the 17". Either way, the reduction in price can be spread out among the major components to make things faster/quieter/better. Here's a suggestion - All prices are shipped.

This is a system for someone who surfs the web and does some gaming. A really expensive video card would be overkill. An Athlon 64 would be overkill. There's no such thing as a 19" LCD being "overkill." A better monitor is always better.

I just don't see where the money you saved on the monitor made things faster/quieter/better. It's a worse system in every area.

You're using the same CPU, and you've gotten rid of the nForce chipset. The system is not faster.

You've gotten rid of the passive video card, you've gotten rid if the silent case, you've gotten rid of the quiet hard drive, and you've switched to a louder CPU cooler. The system is not quieter.

You've switched to a smaller LCD that doesn't even have a DVI input. It's certainly not better.

I love NEC/Mitsubishi monitors, but $460 is way too much for an analog LCD. NEC's $493 version has DVI-D, but at that point it'd be pretty silly not to just spend the extra $55 for the 19" BenQ.

The only real benefit is a slightly better (and louder) video card, and SATA (which will of course require a floppy or a slipstream install).

If I was going to build a $1000 system with a cheaper monitor (and only an 80GB drive), it would be:

$455 Sony 19" LCD, 16ms DVI-D
$80 Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
$58 Shuttle AN35N-Ultra
$206 Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro with XT core
$64 Samsung 80GB, 3-year
$40 Sony 52x32x52x16 combo CD-RW / DVD
$79 + $15 shipping Antec SLK2700-BQE

$997.00 delivered.

There's a system that would actually be a really great gaming system, but unless he's going to be doing a lot of gaming, it would still obviously be much better to have the silent system with the huge BenQ screen.

 

[RyanM]

Perhaps I should have said smaller, as well. There is a significant size difference between the two systems.

The Antec case is 2808 cubic inches. The CasEdge is 1617 ci. The Antec weighs 28 lbs shipped. The CasEdge is 17.5 lbs.

Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but my primary motivating with the mATX system was size. Everything else was secondary.

As for 19" vs. 17", you're right, they surf the web and do casual gaming. I don't think Joe user is going to need the extra 2" - That's 50's call, and I was simply offering an alternative. Don't take it personally.

Point by point, though.

nForce chipset. Show me a mATX nForce2 chipset board with SATA, and I'd be all over it. They're not out there, and if they are, I've overlooked it. As for its speed versus the KM400A boards, we're not talking lightyears ahead. I'd be surprised if the difference is greater than half a percent in most tests. Dual-channel's only advantage on the Athlon platform comes when you're using onboard video, and obviously we're not, so I don't see much value with the nForce2's.

Passive video card? Okay, we'll switch back. I was offering one way to redistribute the money saved by going to the 17" LCD. We'll put that into something else then. Silent case? It's only silent because it sports 120mm fans and has a PSU fan that moves all of 25 CFM of air. The CasEdge with a Silverstone would likely have the same combined dB ratings with the Silverstone 120mm fan and the CasEdge stock 80mm exhaust fan. WD drives may be a bit louder, but with 8MB of cache, it will be faster than that Samsung. Again, it's going to come down to preference of quietness vs. speed. I give a slight preference to speed when the difference between the two is so small, and in this case, both the speed and noise differences are not all that great. You obviously favor noise levels over speed, again, your perogative; nothing wrong with personal preference.

And this CPU cooler is not louder. The stock fan simply doesn't auto-adjust speed with ambient temp; the top speeds and dB levels of the Arctic and the Speeze are identical. So we throw a temp-sensing fan on the Speeze. Then you've got the same noise levels, but an all-copper heatsink with a greater density of fins which have a higher thermal conductivity. You do the math.

Call the DVI absence a slip-up. I glossed over that. So we'll throw in that Sony. Awesome contrast ratio and viewing angle on that sucker. An excellent choice.

Yes, SATA will require a floppy to install. I'm sure he can handle hooking up a drive temporarily, or he can get a black floppy for all of a few dollars.

BTW - You left the HSF off your last list. If he's now stuck to using the stock Athlon HSF, you just lost any edge that Hard drive bought ya, and more.

So let's go over my altered list.

$455 Sony 17" LCD - 16ms refresh, 160 degree viewing, 500:1 contrast, DVI
$80 XP Barton retail
$65 MSI KM4AM-L
$94 Radeon 9600 128-bit passive
$67 80GB Seagate 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA
$49 Lite-On SOHC-5232K w/ Nero Express, PowerDVD
$17.50 Speeze copper heatsink/80mm fan
$18 Thermaltake 90mm fan with 90 to 80mm adapter - 27 CFM @ 17 dB up to 82 CFM @ 47 dB - Temperature or manual control
$47 CasEdge mATX case
$41 SilverStone 360W PS with 120mm exhaust
$11 Black floppy drive
$7 Round single-device IDE cable for CD-RW drive
$7 Round floppy cable
$24 Chaintech AV710 7.1 Channel Soundcard w/ Optical Out
----------
$983 (all prices include shipping)

Okay, so, to sum that one up. You've got SATA. Better audio. You've got a silent HSF combo that is overclockable. A near-silent PSU and near-silent exhaust fan, same as the Antec. You've got a floppy drive for legacy support and loading your SATA drivers, and a CD-RW that actually comes with decent burning and DVD playback software. All your cables are rounded for the best airflow. *And*, to top it off, it's a lot smaller than the ATX sized system.

You lose about 33% on the video card for speed versus the 9600XT, you lose a bit of quietness with the HD, but you gain that back with everything else.

But again - This system caters to a different purpose than Tostada's. If size is not a factor, go large. It all comes back to the basics of computing.

Price = (Velocity + Features)/(Size + Noise)

As size and noise increase, price decreases. As speed and featureset expand, price increases. It's sacrifices and trade-offs, and only the person putting it together in the end can make the decision where the corner needs to be cut to make that price point.

 

[zlooop]

I would give some serious browsing through the FS/FT threads. You can save a lot of money when you buy some of these tweeny boppers birthday presents.

 

[Tostada]

MachFive:

If you look at the systems we've both listed, that gives you 3 options:

1) The 1st silent system I listed with the $94 Radeon and 19" BenQ LCD

2) The 2nd non-silent system I listed with the $206 Radeon and 17" Sony LCD

3) The system you listed with the $94 Radeon and 17" Sony LCD (and mATX and SATA)

I don't know ... maybe some people would rather have a slightly smaller case and SATA, but I'll bet most would prefer either a better video card or a better monitor. It's worth $100 to have a better screen. It's worth $100 to have a better video card. Is it worth giving up both of them to have mATX and SATA, not to mention having a worse chipset and a generic PSU?

I just don't think it makes much sense that SATA and mATX are such a prority to you. SATA doesn't have any advantages currently. SATA drives are just ATA drives with a SATA bridge. Micro-ATX doesn't really save you that much space over regular ATX. If you can't fit a regular case, you're probably going to have to go with a SFF system.

All of your weird little arguments don't really hold up. You think it's better to have a CD-RW that comes with Nero? If you're worried about software, maybe you'd better include an operating system in your list.

 

[RyanM]

Originally posted by: Tostada
MachFive:

If you look at the systems we've both listed, that gives you 3 options:

1) The 1st silent system I listed with the $94 Radeon and 19" BenQ LCD
2) The 2nd non-silent system I listed with the $206 Radeon and 17" Sony LCD
3) The system you listed with the $94 Radeon and 17" Sony LCD (and mATX and SATA)

The 3rd system is also quite silent as well. But yes, that about sums it up.

I don't know ... maybe some people would rather have a slightly smaller case and SATA, but I'll bet most would prefer either a better video card or a better monitor. It's worth $100 to have a better screen. It's worth $100 to have a better video card. Is it worth giving up both of them to have mATX and SATA, not to mention having a worse chipset and a generic PSU?

I wouldn't call it slightly smaller. Look at the difference in dimensions and weight. I'd call that rather significant. And to some people, size is a factor. Up until 6 months ago, I had a full-tower, until I realize that holy crap, my TV Tuner, Audio card, and video card would fit perfectly on a mATX board, and I wouldn't need a massive case. It's up to him. Why knock it, when it's simply one other way of doing things?

I fail to see how the KT400A is a "worse" chipset. Please fill me in on this one. Don't mention nForce audio or dual-channel, because my solution includes a better soundcard than nForce equates to and dual-channel is moot with add-in audio/video present.

And don't knock Silverstone. Ever. These guys are offering some of the most innovative and rock solid power supplies, cases, and PC parts I've ever seen come from nowhere. Their high-end cases are gorgeous and functional, and their power supplies are quiet, have excellent power ratings, and provide stable voltage across the board. I swear by mine, and build them into system whenever someone wants to hear their own thoughts instead of listening to the squeal of those 80mm fans. There's no excuse for any PSU manufactured by a decent company (read: Antec) to use anything less than a 120mm fan at this point.

I just don't think it makes much sense that SATA and mATX are such a prority to you. SATA doesn't have any advantages currently. SATA drives are just ATA drives with a SATA bridge. Micro-ATX doesn't really save you that much space over regular ATX.

Again, I disagree. While the performance difference of SATA vs. IDE for the same drive boils down to nil, the cables are thinner, easier to route, and take up less real estate in the case. Also, I have a Raptor, so that's sort of an important thing. He doesn't, but perhaps 1 or 2 years from now, when SATA *does* make a difference, he'll want to add a drive - He won't be able to do that without slapping in a SATA card. Again, another preference - I prefer more features when possible.

If you can't fit a regular case, you're probably going to have to go with a SFF system.

I don't really know what that means. Do you mean fit the case into a desk or something?

All of your weird little arguments don't really hold up. You think it's better to have a CD-RW that comes with Nero? If you're worried about software, maybe you'd better include an operating system in your list.

Actually, he included XP Home in his list, so I assumed he wants to use legit software. When you published your first specsheet, you left it off, so I followed suit. Nonetheless, I would pay $10 more for a burner if it saves me upwards of $50 on a software that I use. Maybe he will. Maybe he won't. Again. You and I are just giving him options. If you're taking this personally, don't.

BTW, I'll work on that whole "dying" thing. I can't really help you with the candidate I'm endorsing, but I'll smoke a few extra cancer sticks a day to speed things up.