Entry Level Buyer’s Guide, July 2005
by Jarred Walton on July 20, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Storage Recommendations
We've had a couple of articles on the topic of SATA-II recently. The first explained what SATA-II really means, with the basic summary being that it is a "made up" name for 3 Gbps transfer rates and does not require NCQ or any other special features relative to the original SATA. The second was a roundup of SATA-II drives, pitting them against older SATA models. The conclusion of the article was that SATA-II helped in some areas, but there was no decisive winner among the contenders. We invite you to read the article if you want more details, but here, we're basically interested in the best feature level for the best price, with performance being a case of "win some, lose some" regardless of which drive you choose.
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Price: $57 shipped (OEM)
Even though SATA-2 is an unofficial spec and doesn't guarantee faster performance, it does win out in several benchmarks and the Hitachi drive is cheaper than any other 80GB SATA HDD. The Hitachi SATA-2 drives also offer NCQ support, though again that can help or hurt performance depending on the application. While some people will want more than the 80GB offered here, most budget users will find the storage to be more than sufficient. If you eventually run out, adding a second hard drive is one of the easiest upgrades that you can make to a PC. Worth mentioning is that not all of the motherboards actually support the faster 3 Gbps transfer rate of SATA-2, but the drives are backwards compatible with 1.5 Gbps data rates, so it's still safe to purchase the newer models, regardless of motherboard.
Upgraded Hard Drive Recommendation: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 HDT722516DLA380 160GBSATA-2
Price: $87 shipped (OEM)
For our upgraded hard drive, we felt that double the capacity was sufficient. You can get a slightly better cost per GB of storage by moving to the 250GB drives, but few people need that much storage. As with our base recommendation, we ended up settling on the SATA-2 drive from Hitachi. Western Digital makes a standard SATA model that costs $2 less, and Samsung and Seagate have models that are $5 to $10 more, but for now, we're content to go with SATA-2 support at a lower price than competitors offer.
If you want a quieter drive, Samsung is the best choice; the rest of the manufacturers are all pretty similar in noise levels. The best price per GB of storage comes from the Seagate 7200.8 - at least at the time of writing. $119 for 250GB of storage finally breaks the 50 cents per GB mark for SATA storage. Western Digital and Hitachi offer similarly priced models, and the difference between the 160GB Hitachi at 55 cents per GB and the 250GB Seagate at 48 cents per GB may not be enough to get you to fork out the extra $30.
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Price: $22 shipped (OEM)
A few people wondered why we would put a DVD+R into a budget system in the last Budget Guide, and the answer is that you really don't need DVD+R/CD-RW capabilities for a budget system. We're saving over $20 by going with a DVD-ROM on our budget setup, but if you have any interest in burning CDs or DVDs, we highly recommend the upgrade to a DVD+R drive. Anyone who doesn't need recording capabilities can get the cheapest DVD-ROM that they can find, but we're requiring DVD support as we've heard that Windows Longhorn will ship on a DVD rather than multiple CDs. The $10 saved by dropping to a CD-ROM isn't worth the hassle of upgrading to DVD support in the future.
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Price: $48 shipped (OEM)
For the rest of you who agree that the backup/archival uses of DVD+R media alone is worth the price of admission, we have the NEC 3540A burner. An update to the 3520A and 3500A, the price of the NEC burners continues to lead all contenders (though by a slim margin). Our recent DVD+R Roundup uncovered issues with reading and writing several types of media with the latest drives, but we're hopeful that BIOS/firmware updates will solve most of the issues. None of the drives were able to obtain a clear victory, and availability of some of the drives (like the BenQ DW1640) is limited. If you can find the BenQ DW1640, it was the only drive that successfully read back every disc that it wrote - though it still couldn't write to every disc type. As another alternative to the NEC drive, the LG GSA-4163 adds DVD-RAM support for a small price increase of $4. Whichever DVD+R you choose, the key is to recognize its strengths and weaknesses in terms of media - paired with the appropriate DVD+/-R, any of these drives will work well.
Optional Equipment: Any 3.5" Floppy Drive
Price: $8 shipped (OEM)
While not required, there are still times when a floppy drive can prove useful. None of these boards will require a floppy to install Windows XP, but if you want to add a second hard drive for RAID support, it will be necessary to have a floppy drive. We haven't verified whether or not the motherboards have Windows flashing utilities for updating the BIOS, but Award BIOSes can be updated using the WinFlash application, and that's the most common BIOS type. We'd almost recommend that you avoid the floppy just so that we can hasten its retirement, but the decision is yours.
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RussellCollins - Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - link
So let's just start with some basics. I have relied upon the reviews here for the last 6 or 7 years when it came to building computers. I have built several of my own based upon a mix of recommendations from this site and personal research. My background is in mechanical engineering and I am currently working as a software test engineer. I say that to suggest that even those who know better can pay for their mistakes they shouldn't have made...I built a system for my parents (*gasp, that's already asking for trouble) based almost exclusively off this entry-level model (AMD flavor). It worked perfectly for about a week and then the system simply refused to turn on. I tried checking as many things as I could to narrow down the problem based on the limited equipment I had on hand. I thought at first that a bad power-supply might have fried some of the silicon so I had them get a new mobo after all the components plugged into it (save for the CPU) were tested on other machines and appeared to be fine.
Needless to say, I'm STILL ironing out the kinks in my spare time because it refuses to breath again. The fans all turn on but nobody's home (won't even post to BIOS). I'll be installing a new CoolerMaster PSU and probably new CPU this week just to finally resolve the issue.
Final words: go with your instinct for self-preservation and get a trustworthy power supply. It isn't worth the risk and headache. This was a good review overall but I wish now that I had gone with my first hunch to swap out power supplies before the first boot.
DarkForceRising - Sunday, August 28, 2005 - link
Does the Foxconn AMD Mobo. have integrated graphics?Gioron - Sunday, July 24, 2005 - link
Ok, I hate to harp on it, but I'm going to anyways. The included power supply in the case is a bad idea. Although I can't be sure this is the exact power supply, I went and found a review of a 350W codegen from annother cheap case. Here's the picture of the spec sheet: http://www.mikhailtech.com/articles/psu/codegen350...">http://www.mikhailtech.com/articles/psu/codegen350...Things of note:
How the hell does that add up to 350W? I only get about 330W just by adding everything together. It sure as heck can't output all of that at once, and usually its a good idea to ignore the piddly little negatives and the VSB buss, which would drop it down to a heck of a lot lower than 300W. Honestly, I'd be suprised if this can handle 200W well. The only real hope is that they've improved their 350W power supplies in the couple years since the review, but I would doubt it.
And then there's the quote from the article: "Worst case scenario - pardon the pun - is that you'll have to purchase a new power supply down the road (and/or deal with RMA issues)."
No, thats _NOT_ the worst case scenario, although its a likely scenario. I had to completely replace every component in my parent's computer when their power supply died. I tested everything seperately and every single component in the system was toast. And the real worst case scenario involves an electical fire burning your house down (yah yah, not terribly likely, but a lot more likely with that power supply than with a quality one). Power supply death isn't something you want to deal with.
As far as dell systems go, it was interesting to note that 2 of them on the site ended up dying when we had a planned power outage, even though the computers were switched off at the time. The sun boxes we also use came through fine.
Side note: I was viewing the comments, then had to reload the dang thing because of an error. Then <poof>, the new comment system was in. Somewhat confusing to get used to, not sure I like the change yet, but just barely using it. Might be a good idea to add post numbers to things like this, just since everyone is so used to saying "#12, you're an idiot", etc. And add a preview button while you're at it.
Pythias - Monday, September 5, 2005 - link
Is this budget system going to pull 330 watts at peak?spartacvs - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
I totally agree with you. It's funny because the computer case is propably the least important part of a computer. But the power supply is probably the most important. lolI don't think the problem is comming from Jarred. IMO, he do a hell of a good job in his systems guides. No, imo, the problem might coming from the price limit. Maybe 500$ is too low, maybe go with 550-600$. Sure you can buy a system for that price but is it really viable? Will you end up with a much better system that will last longer (eg. the messages about the monitor) for 50-100$ more?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
Thanks, spartacvs...The budget price is killer. I deal with people asking about $500 PCs all the time, and I shudder at the compromises that often need to be made. You're right about the PSU, Gioron: the WORST that can happen is really bad. Very unlikely IMO, but I have had a cheap PSU fry everything in a system (other than the graphics, sound, HDD, and CD-ROM). That was an old socket 370 board, and the Celeron, motherboard, and RAM all got toasted along with the PSU.
For what it's worth, I really do encourage people to upgrade the PSU. Still, I *think* these chepaer cases will do okay with budget components. Don't upgrade the graphics or CPU and stick with a single HDD and you should do okay. I think I may actually go out and purchase one of these cases for an article. A sort of PSU expose to see if I can get better OC results and stability with a good PSU rather than the crappy "350W" included. Heheheh.... stay tuned! :D
spartacvs - Thursday, July 21, 2005 - link
And you can still buy a video board later. Also, a monitor last longer (like most of the peripherals).Zebo - Thursday, July 21, 2005 - link
True I hear ya. But the low end LCD's dont usually have DVI... All I'm saying is if I had $500 for a system I'd rather have integrated graphics and a 17" LCD than a 6200 TC with a 17" cheap CRT. As ones budget gets higher more and better options open up.. maybe I'm just low-balling to much.:)OldPueblo - Thursday, July 21, 2005 - link
The 6200TC allows you to play BF2, D3, HL2, and whatever else for an amazingly low price. The card is a gift in my eyes. I have friends that just absolutely cannot afford anything else, and to them its a godsend.JarredWalton - Thursday, July 21, 2005 - link
44 - Calin, I'm not a big fan of mail-in rebates, so you're looking at $280 for the cheapest 19" LCD that has DVI input. If you don't mind MIRs, you can get an Aopen F90JS for $242 from Newegg - $70 MIR. I still say the Acer AL1914SMD at $307 is a great LCD, though. Expensive for a "budget" system, but a good display can last through 3 computer upgrades or more.43 - Zebo, I'd like to recommend an LCD with integrated graphics, but the lack of DVI output from the IGP motherboards makes the add-in card almost a requirement in my book. (That's another one of the problems I have with the "free LCD upgrades" you get from OEMs; LCDs without DVI are simply not the same.) It's still an option, though, and I think the recommendations in this Guide give people enough information to put together such a setup if they want.