Weekly Buyer's Guide: High End System - April 2004
by Evan Lieb on April 30, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
High End System Summary
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| CPU & Cooling | AMD Athlon 64 3400+ retail | $415 |
| Motherboard | MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R (VIA K8T800) | $123 |
| Memory | 2 X 512MB Mushkin Level One (CAS2.0) | $240 |
| Video Card | 128MB PowerColor 9800 Pro | $206 |
| Monitor | Samsung SyncMaster 21" CRT (1100DF) | $470 |
| Computer Case | Kingwin K11 Aluminum ATX plus $50 400W Antec SL400 PSU | $120 |
| Sound Card | Creative Labs Audigy 2 6.1 OEM | $71 |
| Speakers | Logitech Z-5300 5.1 speakers | $148 |
| Networking | Onboard 10/100/1000 Ethernet | $0 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital 1200JB (120GB) | $88 |
| CD-RW | NEC 2500A 8X DVD+/-RW | $84 |
| Bottom Line | - | $1965 |
$1965 is the final price of our high end system this week, not including any money that you'll spend on software (Windows XP Home or Professional, Office, etc.) or a keyboard and mouse.
Save for the recommended video card (due to next generation cards being just around the corner) and HDD (10,000 RPM drives aren't cheap enough yet), this is the fastest desktop system that you can buy, short of full blown FX53 and P4EE systems. You can always opt for the prohibitively expensive processor solutions, but just realize that the performance difference will be negligible.
Now, go build your system and let us know what you think in our comments section.
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ducsauce - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link
I've been reading your guides on mid-level and high-end systems for a while and have been hunting for the OCZ 3700 gold revision ii recommended in this guide. this product seems to have disappeared. is this because they're running out of low latency chips or just the product coming to the end of its life cycle. either way, shouldn't you guys make recommendations on stuff that can be easily found on the internet? is there an alternative to the OCZ chip? i'm planning to build a system soon but the mushkin 3500 level I doesnt give me much headroom and i kind of missed out on the level II sticks last year.thanks,
duc
TrogdorJW - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link
Wow... no comments yet! Well, I'll just toss in my two cents.I realize you guys are big fans of the Inwin case, but can't we at least get *one* alternate recommendation? I mean, this is high end, so potentially you could look at the $200 cases. Yes, price is still a consideration, but there must be at least one other case worth considering. Really, I'm just getting tired of seeing the same case in almost every price guide. :)
For mid-range, I like Antec's SLK3700-BQE. On the high end, though, I'm not really sure. The Inwin is really still a mid-range case, if you ask me. $120 with a power supply is not too expensive. So go nuts, and recommend something really good as the alternative. Maybe the Lian Li, or maybe a Cooler Master, or whatever.
Otherwise, I like the setup. It's just too expensive for me. (Although I did pick up that exact same Mushkin RAM not too long ago - great stuff!)