Buyer's Guide - March 2000

Value Professional
Once again, our value system mirrors the high-end system with a bit of corner cutting. We still needs lots of RAM, as much as our other high-end systems, in fact.

Processor – AMD Athlon 650 - $250
The KX133 chipset helps the AMD Athlon come close to a Pentium III clock for clock, but if you compare dollar for dollar, the Athlon is the clear winner.  The Athlon 650 is the best bargain out there now on a performance/cost basis, so that’s our pick for the value professional system.  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
Once again, the amount of memory is a key factor in overall system performance under professional applications, so even our value system gets 256MB.  

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 – Gigabyte GA-GF2560 SDR GeForce - $200
As long as you don’t need support for anti-aliased lines, the GeForce keeps up with the Quadro in most situations, but at less than one-third the cost.  The key is the powerful GPU that provides the most polygon power available today.  This, of course, makes the GeForce the perfect card for a value professional system. Fill rate isn't as critical for professional applications, so SDR memory is sufficient.

We went with the Gigabyte as it was the winner of our GeForce SDR Roundup and it's reasonably priced. It's not the easiest SDR GeForce to find, but it is possible. If you can't find it, just go with the best deal on an SDR GeForce that you can find.

For more information, read our GeForce SDR Roundup and our Gigabyte GA-GF2570 Review.

Monitor – iiYama VisionMaster PRO 450 - $650
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.  Make sure you can deal with the damper wires that all Trinitron style tubes have.  The VisionMaster PRO 450 is a 19” monitor and it is highly recommended 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.