Weekly Buyer's Guide: Entry Level System - July 2004
by Evan Lieb on July 7, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Keyboard and Mouse
While trivial, it's still important that you purchase the right keyboard and mouse. Different people have different preferences for a keyboard's look and feel, and the same goes for a mouse. Therefore, we suggest that you personally try out a keyboard and mouse. Recommending purchasing these items online is misleading, as there are too many users with different preferences for this type of thing. Visit your nearest PC outlet to try out a keyboard and mouse; a PC Club, Best Buy, CompUSA, or Circuit City store will do. We suggest that you start with Microsoft and Logitech keyboards and mice. Make sure you also check out optical mice from Microsoft and Logitech. A good solid optical mouse from either manufacturer should run about $20, but in some cases, can run as little as $10 if you can find the right deal.If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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Evan Lieb - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
As far as the system you're recommending Tostada....if you really want to go with a bottom of the barrel manufacturer like Biostar, the absolute worst 2D and 3D video performance you can find on the market in the nForce2 IGP, and a 2MB cache 80GB HDD instead of an 8MB cache HDD, then be my guest. ;)Oh, and the Apex case comes with a no name 300W PSU. Another huge no no.
Evan Lieb - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
Degrador, it has been fixed. :)Tostada, no, even at 1024x768 the text quality difference between an nForce2 IGP board and an ATI 9200 board is quite noticeable. It's even fairly noticeable at 800x600. Not sure what IGP boards you have used, but I've used basically all of them. They're OK if you want cheap video with occasional gaming, but 9200 cards are better if you want even better gaming and noticeably better 2D text quality.
As far as the keyboard/mouse, we explained our reasoning quite clearly. A keyboard/mouse is a much more individualized purchase than, per your example, a set of speakers. You're constantly feeling and touching a keyboard/mouse, so our recommendation would be based purely on opinion, on personal preference. That's really not what we want.
WD 8MB cache drives are widely considered a bit faster than comparable Seagate/Samsung/Hitachi 8MB cache drives, are on the whole a bit cheaper, and are generally considered very reliable. They really don't run much hotter than comparable drives, and they are only noticeably louder than Seagate drives. The difference is minute, at best, either way you look at it.
I'm not sure what your definition of crippling is, but 256MB of RAM is hardly crippling for an entry level Windows XP machine. How many times is an entry level user going to notice a boost in performance with more than 256MB of memory? Hardly many times at all, and certainly not enough times that they would actually be compelled to spend $50 or more. And since you mentioned it, exactly where are these "many other places" that you could cut costs in this system?
Tostada - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
If I was going to spend $546 on an entry level system (with monitors and speakers), I think this would be a MUCH better system:$180 NEC 17" SuperBright Diamondtron
$57 Athlon XP 2000+ T-bred Retail
$61 Biostar M7NCG 400 nForce 2 dual-channel IGP
$64 Samsung 80G
$90 2 x 256MB Corsair PC3200 CL2.5 Value Select
$40 Sony 52x32x52x16 combo DVD / CD-RW drive
$32 Apex 300W case
$20 Creative SBS250 speakers
$544 delivered from newegg.
A better monitor, twice the RAM, a dual-channel board, and the ability to play DVD's for $4 less.
I would generally spend the extra $23 to get an Athlon XP 2500+ Barton, though.
Tostada - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I really must (as always) beg to differ on this system. It makes me wonder if the author of the guide has built many entry level systems for average people.In this price range, buying a video card is a complete waste of money unless you need the DVI output (which the $40 Radeon listed doesn't have). The nForce2 IGP does very well, and text quality is perfect for the average user (who isn't going over 1024x768 anyway).
A computer pretty much needs a keyboard. I find it quite odd that the price of speakers is included, but a keyboard/mouse is not. You can use a computer without speakers.
I also find it odd that the guides are sticking to Western Digital drives, especially the WD800JB. WD's specs for their 80G drives are quite bad -- they reserve the right to give you 40G platters. WD drives (with exception of the Raptor) are generally louder, hotter and slower than most of the competition from Samsung/Hitachi/Seagate.
And honestly, 256MB is pushing the limits of what is acceptable. There are many other places to cut costs before you cripple a machine with 256MB RAM.
Frallan - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I like this system I find it to be really good value for money since you acctually found good products that are also decent performers.But I would really like to se the Overclockers guide as well :0)
Degrador - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I think I pointed this out last time too with the cpu alternative: "All this adds up to noticeably better performance that, depending on what applications are run, you may or may not notice". Please, please, please can you fix this? It really bugs me :)Apologiliac - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
*fondApologiliac - Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - link
I'm particularly found of this weeks budget system.