Entry Level Buyer’s Guide, July 2005
by Jarred Walton on July 20, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Memory Recommendations
RAM prices have mostly stabilized after some major price cuts over the past few months. We're going to go with 2x512MB for all of the configurations, though you could disperse the cost over a few months if you want to start with a single DIMM and add a second DIMM later. We wouldn't recommend getting anything smaller than a 512MB DIMM as RAM requirements are only going to increase in the future.
Click image to enlarge.
Price: $83 shipped (Retail)
You can check out our prices for 2x512MB of PC3200 DDR at our Pricing Engine. Any of the brands listed there are safe bets - Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, Patriot, Crucial, OCZ, GEIL, G.Skill, etc. - and we've gone with the lowest price on CL2.5 RAM for our recommendation.
If you're going with the socket 754 system, you could even go with a single 1024MB DIMM instead of two DIMMs - there is no dual-channel support on socket 754, you may recall. Prices for 1GB DIMMs are slightly higher than 2x512MB, and timings are generally slower with 3-3-3-8 being typical of GB DIMMs compared to 2.5-3-3-8 for the RAM we chose. Most people wouldn't notice the difference, however.
Click image to enlarge.
Price: $143 shipped (Retail)
For our upgraded DDR configuration, we're assuming that you're buying the Athlon 64 system. The reason why that's important is that Athlon 64 allows for a wider selection of CPU :RAM ratios, and 1:1 overclocking is not as important. Generally speaking, you want 2-2-2-7 1T timings at the fastest speed that your memory can handle. You can grab the OCZ VX or Mushkin Redline for 2-2-2 1T at higher speeds provided that your motherboard can supply the required voltage, but DDR400 with 2-2-2 1T is generally sufficient - maybe a few percent lower than higher clocked 2-2-2 RAM, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. This OCZ Gold uses Winbond BH5 chips, so you'll need to provide 2.8V to get 2-2-2-5 1T timings at DDR400. Intel users are better served by 1:1 ratio overclocking, but since both Intel setups are using 533FSB, any PC3200 RAM is going to be sufficient for reaching up to 4.0 GHz (assuming that the CPU can go that high).
Click to enlarge.
Price: $131 shipped (Retail)
While you can find faster DDR2 RAM - there are even PC-8000 DIMMs available - they are priced too high for a Budget Guide. We've gone with some reasonable RAM rated at DDR2-533 with 3-3-3-8 timings. You could go for RAM rated at DDR2-667, but with the processor that we've chosen, it won't matter much. Integrated graphics also stand to benefit from the faster DDR2 memory, but the difference is a case of slow graphics vs. not quite as slow graphics, so it's a minor point. By default, the RAM should run at DDR400 with the bus set to 133 MHz (533FSB), a ratio of 2:3. Raising the bus speed above 175 MHz (700FSB) might require you to adjust the memory ratio down to 3:4 in order to keep the RAM at or below the specified PC-4200 rating. Worth noting is that good quality DDR2 is now slightly cheaper than good quality DDR, so that's one less barrier to choosing DDR2.
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bob661 - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
Thanks Jarred.JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
#15 - Bob,OCZ has quite a few overlapping RAM offerings these days, all of which have a place. I recommended the BH5 based Gold that runs 2-2-2-5 1T at 2.8V as opposed to the VX offering that requires 3.2V for 2-2-2-5 1T. Here's the link:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_e...
You can also find the RAM at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
The VX is about the same price, but it doesn't have "Gold" in the name.
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WRT the displays, I would much rather have a larger display. Getting people to go from $600 for the basic setup to $750 for a 19" LCD is a tough sell, unfortunately. I really like 19" LCDs (and I like my 2405FPW even more), but few people are willing to shell out over $300 for "just the display". As Hacp mentions, a lot of people just don't realize what they're missing. I know plenty of people with 17" to 19" displays that still run them at 1024x768 - even on LCDs. They just don't realize that resolution is something most people should adjust.
SDA - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
#31, I'm not sure where to start with you.First: Anyone can see the difference between 17" and 19".
Second: You won't notice any difference between a fast system and a (reasonably) slow system when watching movies, writing letters, or surf the web. otoh, you WILL notice a difference between a good monitor and a bad monitor when playing games and editing photos. You're using your monitor every time you're at your computer, but most of the time you don't need a fast CPU at all.
Third: Image quality is important. If image quality wasn't important, people wouldn't buy high-end video cards for games.
IME, people who place I/O equipment (monitor, mouse, sound setup, etc.) at the bottom of the list do so because they have never used genuinely good I/O equipment for any reasonable length of time. I don't mean any offense here, this is just what I've seen.
Zebo - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
sprockkets - just the opposite.. prescott uses about 30% more power than a northwood at same hurtz.. and really starts leaking like crazy after 3.4 which a northwood never saw.Zebo - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
Bob - http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...Hacp - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
I doubt that a budgetminded person would recognize the difference between 19 and 17 inches much. Heck, I would even go for a 15 inch LCD if it gave room to get a better video card/cpu or more ram. Screen size is the last thing I think about when I budget for a comptuer.Wellsoul2 - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
The Polywell LCD is a good one but I would go witha 19 inch monitor for around 40 to 50 bucks more.
The bigger LCD makes such a huge difference IMHO
compared to the bang for the buck you get putting
50 bucks anywhere else.
Hacp - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
Btw nice guide. Didn't mention this before.sprockkets - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
Yeah, but consider first that having a prescott core as opposed to a northwood core would save power, but also save more energy also since you don't have to spend money on the HVAC removing the excessive heat it makes too, and that system takes a lot of energy!At work, we have 2.8ghz stupid dell optiplex systems that have no ventilation slots whatsoever, and it is so funny to see all the dust collect on the back and the floppy drive because that is all it can intake from. But they don't put out much heat. However, the newer prescott based ones (same 2.8ghz) are much hotter; in fact, I managed to get prime95 on it, and the stupid computer had to turn on the processor fan to full blast, making it sound like a vacuum cleaner! It even speeds up when loading simple websites (gets louder while loading, then quiets down once the page loaded up)!
Btw, someone at newegg made this comment about not having cool and quiet on semprons: They don't need it! The 2600 and 2800+ (well, at least the 90nm Palermo cores) put out so little heat, I don't even think the fan is necessary! It runs 2-3 degrees over ambient, and around 5 when prime95 is running!
Other note about power supplies and Dell: Dell used to use Delta, then of course the fiance department cut that out and now they use crappy HIPoint. Again, where I work, with new 3.06 ghz systems, out of 30 some systems, nearly all have had the power supply replaced, and a good amount even twice. For exaple, do a search for Dell 4600 and see what I mean. It doesn't pay in the long run to use crappy power supplies for all the issues it causes.
siliconthoughts - Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - link
While I like to build systems as much as the next guy, for a $600 system the new HP A1130n systems (at bestbuy/circuitcity/etc) are really hard to beat (3500+ athlon64 socket 939, 250GB SATA, PCIe, DVD, DVD-RW, integrated ATI X300, 1GB RAM) for ~$650 (w/ monitor and throwaway printer after rebate) Dell has nothing competitive with it.You generally don't build a system like this for yourself anyway - vendors have a purpose: keeping me from being the free-support guy.