Buyer's Guide - Entry Level to Mid-Range, March 2005
by Jarred Walton on March 15, 2005 1:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Displays
For our displays, we continue to stick with CRTs due to pricing concerns. However, our favorite 17" CRT continues to go up in price, so we're placed in somewhat of a difficult position. Cheap 17" monitors can be found, but the quality of such options is never that great. Maximum resolution is generally 1280x1024 with refresh rates of 60 Hz. As price is a major concern for the budget sector, we'll still recommend such a display. However, for a minor price jump, the option to purchase a decent 17" LCD is now there.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $145 shipped
In the past, we have recommended the NEC FE771SB as a slightly more expensive alternative to the Samsung display. However, the price of the NEC displays has now shot up about $20 since the last budget Guide, putting it at nearly the same level as a decent 17" LCD. If you can find the FE771SB for less money, by all means go for it. We are unable to do so - at least, not from any place where we feel that there is a reasonable quantity available. As a less expensive alternative, the Samsung 793DF/MB is still good. Some people prefer shadow mask tubes over aperture grilles like the NEC anyway, but we aren't among that group.
The Samsung display is almost perfectly flat on the inside - in reality, the surface is flat externally and slightly curved on the inside. The MB adds the ability to adjust brightness and color temperatures at the press of a button, which can come in handy for certain games - Doom 3 in particular. Movies also benefit at times, assuming that you're watching movies on your 17" display. Overall, picture quality is good, but if you're doing office work primarily, we feel that spending the additional money for an LCD would serve you best.
Click to enlarge.
Price: $210 shipped
You could always go for a large CRT like the Samsung 997DF, but for non-gaming use, an LCD is probably a better choice. We've selected a good LCD, although not necessarily a great one. Missing is support for DVI input, and of course, you're locked into a resolution of 1280x1024 for best results. However, a 17" LCD is actually larger than a 17" CRT, as the viewable diagonal is 17" rather than 16". A 19" CRT would have an 18" viewable diagonal, making it slightly larger, but then you're dealing with a heavier unit and all of the other CRT aspects. Other benefits to LCDs include the fact that refresh rates are no longer as important, as flicker isn't generally noticed even when running 60Hz, and they don't use as much power as a CRT.
DVI input would make such a display ideal, but that does add at least another $20 relative to the Rosewill. The only real problem remaining with LCDs is the potential for dead pixels. If possible, buying an LCD at a local store and checking it out before leaving the premises is a good way around this issue. Unfortunately, prices and features are often not as good when shopping locally. The warranty of the Rosewill LCD is the one item that gives us cause for concern, as their RMA process looks rather questionable. Still, $210 for a good 17" LCD is about half as much as what such a display cost a year ago!
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
17 - The older Maxtor are like the older WD: they use standard bearings and are prone to develop a whine (in my experience). If you can verify that the drive has fluid dynamic bearings, you could get Maxtor as well. I haven't had great experiences with the Maxtor drives, although I've heard the latest models are better.JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
15 - Sorry, I meant "9550" but typed "5500". The article lists the correct card, though. :o Most of the FX cards aren't worth consideration.As for the 6200TC, there are actually 3 versions, all of which were tested in the AnandTech article. There is a 16MB 16-bit card (one RAM chip), a 32MB 32-bit card (two RAM chips), and a 64MB 64-bit card (four RAM chips). The 32MB cards are not a 64-bit interface as far as I am aware. Many companies are causing confusion on the TC cards as they'll count the PCIe connection as bandwidth in order to make the features look better. Even if the RAM were 700 MHz instead of 550 MHz, you're looking at 2800 MBps on-card bandwidth for the 32-bit version vs. 4400 MBps on the 64-bit version. In theory, the PCIe connection will add an additional 2000 MBps (roughly - 2000 up and 2000 down) , but some of the RAM bandwidth is going to the CPU.
16 - I'd take the guaranteed 6600 for $7 more over the 6200. The 6200 also lacks support for certain memory compression schemes as I understand it.
Klober - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
I know this is a minor point, but I'm curious as to why Maxtor isn't mentioned in the price guide for hard drives. Is there something I don't know about them concerning speed, noise or reliability?filterxg - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
To most people I'd continue to recommend a 6200 over a 6600 vanilla. Rivatuner unlocks the 4 pipelines (softmod), so it becomes an indentical card.Jep4444 - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
"Oh, as far as the budget PCIe card recommendation going to the 64MB 6200TC, please read the benchmarks in our 6200TC article before saying that the 32MB/32-bit version is better (due to memory speeds)."you seem to be confusing cards, i'm talking about the 32MB/64bit part thats clocked at 700mhz(as opposed to 550mhz of the 64MB one)
you're thinking of the 16MB version thats 32bit
PS who said to use the 5500? he mentioned the 9550 which is faster than the 5500
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
13 - Regarding refurb, that's something for the individual to decide. Warranty and availability are limited, so we don't recommend them in Guides. I still don't know about the Chaintech, as I can't find concrete information on specs for the Ultra vs. standard. According to Chaintech, it's the standard nF4 vs. the Ultra, which means the only thing that gets lost is SATA-2 support and a few network "enhancements". They're the same chipset with different resistors cut.Fricardo - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Same as those above, I'd say go with a 6600 non-gt for the upgraded setup. If you're actually going to upgrade the vid-card -- indicating you care somewhat about gaming -- you might as well do it right and spend the extra $7.Is it worth the $10 savings to go from the Ultra mobo to the vanilla? I don't know but I've heard that chipset wasn't made to OC well. Seems like you'd get a bit more value and $99 is still a great price for a mobo. I'm just wondering.
Another possibility for reducing cost is refurbed parts. I've been looking through NewEgg's refurb video section lately and there's tons of great cards for cheap. PCI-Express too. It seems to me you can really raise value that way.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Oh, as far as the budget PCIe card recommendation going to the 64MB 6200TC, please read the benchmarks in our 6200TC article before saying that the 32MB/32-bit version is better (due to memory speeds). The bump from 32-bit to 64-bit more than makes up for the slower RAM (if it is indeed slower). The 64MB 6200TC also beats the X300 in *every* test, so there's no reason to go with the X300 card unless you insist on ATI.http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2300...
I'm actually not fully convinced the "TurboCache" architecture really works all that well. Looking at the various cards, the performance scales almost directly with local memory bandwidth. But that's a topic for another day.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Oops... some bad picks on the GPUs this time. I keep forgetting the 5500. I have updated the GPU page with new picks, and will shortly update the summaries. I guess after seeing 6600 AGP prices I forgot that the PCIe cards were substantially less. Sorry.I also corrected the VNF4 to omit the Ultra. I can't tell if the Ultra includes Firewire support or not. Newegg, at least, is using the same images for both models. I think that's what threw me off in the first place.
rivethead - Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - link
Sorry about my post #7. I just re-read it and I wasn't very clear.What I was trying to say is that I think you're wanting to recommend the Chaintech VNF4 mother board (currently $89 shipped from newegg). This board is different than the Chaintech VNF4/Ultra which is about $100 shipped. For the extra $11, you get a motherboard powered by the nvidia nForce 4 Ultra chip which includes onboard firewall, SATA2 support, and nvidia nTune performance software.
For me, I think the extra $11 is worth the features.
I beleive you'll need to either change the price or alter the narrative to be clearer on your board selection.
But if you really can find the Chaintech VNF4/Ultra for $89 please let me know where!