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TR’s system guide

Geoff Gasior
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WE GET A LOT OF REQUESTS for system and component recommendations. Everyone’s looking for the best bang for his buck, either for individual components or complete systems, and we’ve played with, benchmarked, and otherwise abused enough hardware to know what’s what. We’ve even dedicated an entire forum to vetting system configurations. Although our System Builder’s Anonymous forum is a great resource for those looking for opinions on prospective builds, the time has come for an official system guide from The Tech Report.

We’ve dipped deep into the wells of TR hardware know-how, forged by thousands of hours of exhaustive component testing, in order to formulate a series of recommended system specs designed to fit any budget. These systems are designed specifically for PC enthusiasts, and we haven’t compromised quality or reliability in order to cut corners on price. Read on for our recommendations. You might be surprised at how potent a system can be had for relatively little cash.

Rules and regulations
Before tackling our recommended systems, we should explain some of the rules and guidelines we used to select components. First, the guiding philosophy behind our choices was to seek the best bang for the buck. That means we avoided recommending super-cheap parts that are barely capable of performing their jobs, just as we avoided breathtakingly expensive products that carry a hefty price premium for features or performance you probably don’t need. Instead, we looked to that mythical “sweet spot” where price and performance meet up in a pleasant harmonic convergence. We also sought balance within each system configuration, choosing components that make sense together, so that a fast processor won’t be bottlenecked by a skimpy graphics card or too little system memory, for instance. The end result, we hope, is a series of balanced systems that offer decent performance as configured and provide ample room for future expandability.

We confined our selections to components that are currently in stock and available online. Paper launches and preorders don’t count, for obvious reasons. We also tried to stick to $500, $1000, and $2000 budgets for our desktop systems. Those budgets are loose guidelines rather than hard limits, to allow us some wiggle room for deals that may stretch the budget a little, but are too good to resist.

Budgets make relative pricing an important factor for component choices. Rather than using the lowest prices displayed by various online search engines, though, we’ve tapped a single major retailer for all our price comparisons. Comparing search engine prices for individual components gets messy really fast and would give us a system guide filled with recommendations that required users to shop at a number of different retailers to meet the system’s budget. Our reference prices are taken from a single retailer—Newegg in this case—so folks should be able to order all of the components for any of our systems from a single source with the knowledge that the total will stay on-budget. Newegg doesn’t always have the lowest price around, so we’ve supplied lowest price links—in addition to reference pricing—for each system component.

Pricing wasn’t the top factor in our component choices, though. Our own experiences with individual components weighed heavily on our decisions, and we’ve provided links to our own reviews of many of the products we’re recommending. We’ve also tried to confine our selections to name-brand rather than generic products, and to manufacturers with a solid reputation for reliability. Warranty coverage was an important consideration, as well.

The Econobox
Because speed doesn’t have to cost a fortune
Our low-end Econobox isn’t designed to be the cheapest possible combination of parts. Instead, it’s a solid and affordable foundation for enthusiasts on a budget. We’ve avoided cutting corners that would have limited future upgrade options, and at the same time, ensured that the system doesn’t actually need any upgrades to deliver relatively peppy performance as equipped.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice) $147.00
Motherboard Asus A8N-VM CSM $88.00
Memory Corsair Value Select 1GB (2 x 512MB) $82.00
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (Integrated) $0

NA

Storage Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB $102.50
NEC ND-3540A DVD+/-RW DL $40.99
Audio NVIDIA nForce 430/ADI AD1986A (Integrated) $0

NA

Enclosure Antec SLK2650-BQE w/350W PSU $75.00
Total $535.49

Processor
AMD is in a good place right now. Its Athlon 64 processors typically offer better performance across a range of applications, especially in intensive tasks like 3D gaming, than the competing desktop Pentium processors from Intel. At the same time, Athlon 64 chips generally consume less power (and thus produce less heat) than the Intel chips. That’s why Athlon 64 processors make such a strong showing in our picks, starting with the Econobox.

AMD pushes Sempron processors for budget systems, but we’re going with a 939-pin Athlon 64 for this build for a few reasons. First, using a Socket 939 chip ensures that the system has a clear upgrade path. AMD already has a wide selection of Socket 939 chips from which to choose, and despite the fact that the company will introduce a new Socket M2 platform next year, Socket 939 processors should be available for quite some time. The Socket 754-based Sempron’s upgrade potential isn’t nearly as rosy. AMD’s Socket 754 desktop lineup is dominated by budget processors and older Athlon 64s, and there’s nary a dual-core chip in sight, leaving Socket 754-based systems with precious few upgrade options. Socket 939 also gives our budget system access to the performance benefits that dual memory channels can provide.

Since we’re trying to pinch pennies, we’ve selected the cheapest 939-pin Athlon 64 available, the Athlon 64 3000+. This CPU is based on AMD’s latest 90-nano Venice core, which packs a number of performance tweaks and consumes less power than previous Athlon 64 cores. At about $141, the Athlon 64 3000+ may seem a little indulgent, but the upgrade flexibility and performance it provides are well worth the price of entry. It’ll also run circles around the low end of Intel’s processor lineup.

Motherboard
Since our low-end system requires some belt-tightening, we’re equipping it with a motherboard that features integrated graphics. We’ve yet to review NVIDIA’s new GeForce 6150/nForce 430 chipset, but we have intimate experience with the nForce4 core logic from which it’s derived, and we generally like what we’ve seen of the nForce4 line. (We have run into problems with the nForce4’s hardware-accelerated networking and SATA drivers, but those problems are generally remedied by disabling optional extras.) The GeForce 6150/nForce 430 delivers a pretty compelling array of graphics and south bridge features, and the IGP’s performance is arguably the best around.

Asus’ A8N-VM CSM motherboard is one of the first GeForce 6150/nForce 430 boards to hit the market. With four Serial ATA RAID ports, Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express x1 and x16 slots, and DVI and VGA outputs for under $90, it’s tough to beat. However, as good as the GeForce 6150’s gaming performance may be for an integrated graphics solution, it’s really only appropriate for casual gaming at lower resolutions and detail levels. Regular gamers would do well to add a discrete graphics card, and we’ve recommended one in our alternatives section, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Memory
In the memory department, we’ve equipped our budget system with a 1GB dual-channel kit from Corsair. The kit consists of two 512MB DIMMs, allowing us to take advantage of the Athlon 64’s dual-channel memory controller. A gig of memory might seem luxurious for a budget system, but Windows XP is a little sluggish with only 512MB of memory, even for basic desktop tasks. We don’t want to handicap this system right out of the gate.

Memory is a commodity item, particularly at the low end of the spectrum, so picking a module manufacturer comes down to reputation, reliability, and price. Corsair’s Value Select line has those qualities in spades. Corsair has a strong reputation for building great memory, and we’ve used Value Select modules extensively in the past. The 1GB kit we’ve selected is cheaper than other name-brand kits. The kit is slightly more expensive than some no-name varieties, but we’ll gladly pay a little extra for peace of mind.

Storage
Speaking of commodity items, we have our budget system’s optical drive. There are a staggering number of DVD drives available for around $40, and little real differentiation between drives offered by different manufacturers. The NEC drive we’ve selected can write DVD and dual-layer DVD media in both plus and dash formats, and for those concerned with aesthetics, it’s available in black.

Hard drives aren’t quite the commodity items that optical drives have become, and there are several reasons why we’ve picked a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ahead of drives from other manufacturers. Seagate’s five-year warranty is our biggest motivation for choosing this drive. Most hard drive manufacturers only offer three years of coverage for desktop drives, and although Seagate’s five-year warranty doesn’t necessarily mean that the drive will be less failure-prone than others, the extra coverage entitles you to a replacement drive for longer. The ‘cuda’s appeal extends beyond just the warranty, though. The drive also offers competitive performance with relatively low noise levels, and the 250GB Serial ATA model strikes a good balance between capacity and affordability.

Enclosure and power
Most budget systems skimp when it comes to arguably one of the most important components in a system: the power supply. Good power supplies can last for years, through several upgrades, while bad ones can cause instability and damage a system’s components. Naturally, we wanted to equip our low-end system with a solid PSU, and Antec just happens to include one in its SLK2650 enclosure. The 350W unit should easily handle the power requirements of the system as we’ve specced it and leave users with a little headroom for future upgrades. This mid-tower enclosure also includes a 120mm exhaust fan and has rubber grommets to dampen hard drive vibrations. Its price is tough to beat, considering what you get.

Econobox alternatives
While the preceding selections round out our low-end system, we’ve also come up with a couple of suggested alternatives, should you wish to tweak the formula a little bit. These alternative options will allow you to cut a corner without too much pain or step up to better performance for a little bit more money.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Motherboard MSI RS482M4-ILD $77.00
Graphics XFX GeForce 6600 GT 128MB $129.99
Audio Chaintech AV-710 $25.00

NA

Motherboard
Our first alternative is MSI’s RS482M4-ILD motherboard, which is based on ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. The Radeon Xpress 200 should offer roughly comparable gaming performance to the GeForce 6150, and the MSI board is the only Socket 939 Xpress 200 offering we could find. The MSI is also a little cheaper than the Asus board, so you might question why we’ve relegated it to alternative status. There are a couple of reasons. First, the board lacks Gigabit Ethernet. That’s a pretty big feature to be missing these days, especially as falling prices make GigE networks downright affordable. The ATI SB450 south bridge also suffers from sub-par USB and PCI bus performance, making it a less attractive option overall.

Graphics
While the integrated graphics on the MSI and Asus motherboards might be OK for occasional gaming, regular gamers will want to upgrade to a discrete graphics card. The 6600 GT should dramatically improve the gaming performance offered by our budget box. The XFX card we’re recommending is one of the cheapest 6600 GTs around, and it features dual DVI outputs to boot. XFX offers a “double lifetime” warranty that covers the card through one resale, an important perk considering how little differentiation exists in the graphics card world. As an added bonus, NVIDIA’s graphics drivers should allow you to use the GeForce 6600 GT in conjunction with the Asus motherboard’s GeForce 6150 graphics to power up to four displays, three of them through DVI outputs.

Audio
Since we’ve suggested a graphics card upgrade for those serious about in-game frame rates, it’s only appropriate that we recommend an audio card upgrade to those looking for better sound. The tragic audio quality offered by most motherboards is easily bypassed with Chaintech’s affordable AV-710 sound card. With an Envy24 audio chip onboard and the ability to route stereo output through a high-quality Wolfson DAC, the AV-710 can dramatically improve the audio quality of our budget system without breaking the bank. Of course, you’ll need to be listening to more than just 128kbps MP3s on a set of $10 Radio Shack speakers in order to tell the difference.

The Grand Experiment
The sweet spot for the budget-conscious
Our Econobox is suitable for budding enthusiasts, but the budget only allows for so many goodies. That budget gets doubled for our mid-range build, allowing us to dip into some surprisingly serious horsepower while keeping the total cost close to a grand.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $322.00
Motherboard Abit AN8 SLI $129.99
Memory Corsair Value Select 1GB (2 x 512MB) $82.00
Graphics XFX GeForce 6800 GS (485/1100) $215.00
Storage Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB $102.50
NEC ND-3540A DVD+/-RW DL $40.99
Audio Creative Audigy 2 ZS $70.00
Enclosure Antec Sonata II w/450W PSU $91.99

Total $1054.47

Processor
We’re constantly espousing the creamy smoothness of symmetric multiprocessing, so it’s only fitting that our mid-range build is equipped with a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor. Multithreaded applications may not be ubiquitous, but dual-core chips also excel in multitasking environments, where they’re capable of performing two computationally-intensive, single-threaded tasks in parallel. NVIDIA’s latest ForceWare graphics drivers can even take advantage of a second graphics core to push more data to the graphics card, improving performance.

At a little over $300, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is the least expensive of AMD’s X2 offerings and a clear choice for this build. The recently released Socket 939-based Opteron 165 is also a tempting option, but that chip is still rare in the wild, a little more expensive, and it may require a BIOS update to work properly in most motherboards. Intel actually has the cheapest dual-core chip around in the Pentium D 820, but its performance leaves much to be desired, especially in games—and don’t get us started on power consumption.

Motherboard
Core-logic chipsets sit at the heart of a motherboard, directing traffic and determining its basic capabilities. Chipsets for Athlon 64-based systems tend to differentiate themselves more on features and input/output performance than anything else, and NVIDIA’s nForce4 chipsets reign supreme in those areas—despite intermittent problems with ActiveArmor Gigabit Ethernet acceleration, suspect ForceWare IDE drivers, and pokey AC’97 audio. The nForce4 SLI chipset is also capable of running a couple of graphics cards in tandem for higher performance, a capability we couldn’t resist for a couple of reasons. First, NVIDIA’s latest graphics drivers allow users to mix and match cards from different manufacturers in SLI, making the platform a considerably more accommodating upgrade option down the road. Second, SLI boards come equipped with a pair of PCI Express x16 slots, allowing users to run a second graphics card to power additional monitors with ease.

The nForce4 SLI chipset has been around for a while, so there are plenty of good motherboards based on it. Most of those boards offer roughly the same features and performance, but the Abit AN8 SLI‘s blend of unique features and an affordable price tag make it hard to resist. In addition to being one of the cheaper enthusiast-oriented nForce4 SLI motherboards around, the AN8 SLI also offers a wealth of overclocking options, an impressive suite of hardware monitoring tools, and fan speed control. We liked the AN8’s tweakable nature when we reviewed the upscale Fatal1ty version of the AN8 SLI, but this more pedestrian version of the board is a much better value. The AN8 SLI is also one of a precious few SLI motherboards with passive chipset cooling, ensuring that a whiny mobo fan won’t ruin what could otherwise be a quiet system.

Memory
We’re recommending 1GB of Corsair’s Value Select memory for our mid-range build for the same reasons we selected it for the Econobox. Even for a more expensive system like this one, we don’t think pricey low-latency DIMMs are worth the extra cash. We’ve tested that theory, in fact, and found that value RAM does indeed offer more value. This Corsair dual-channel kit is cheaper than other name-brand memory, and we’ve had good experiences with Value Select memory in the past. If you can find a similar set of memory modules for a better price from another major brand like Kingston, Crucial, or OCZ, by all means, consider buying it instead. Just don’t go generic, or you may get burned.

Graphics
NVIDIA’s recently introduced GeForce 6800 GS gets the nod in the graphics department because, well, it’s faster than anything else in that price range. The 6800 GS uses new silicon that supports all of NVIDIA’s PureVideo technologies, and it’s built on a 110-nano process that improves power consumption and allows for higher clock speeds. Normally, the 6800 GS runs at 425MHz core and 1GHz memory, but XFX’s GeForce 6800 GS cranks the core up to 485MHz and the memory to 1.1GHz, making it the fastest GS on the market. Couple that with XFX’s double-lifetime warranty and a price tag that’s only a few dollars more than the stock-clocked competition, and it’s easy to see why we chose this card.

Although the XFX is one of the best GeForce 6800 GS cards on the market, the fact that it doesn’t have dual DVI outputs pains us. Dual DVI outputs should be standard for $200 graphics cards by now, but as near as we can tell, none of the 6800 GS cards available online offer more than one DVI output.

Storage
We’re carrying over the same storage recommendations from our Econobox for the mid-range build. We still don’t have much to say about the NEC DVD burner, because optical drives just aren’t that exciting. Hard drives are slightly more interesting, and there’s no beating the Barracuda 7200.8 250GB‘s combination of performance, noise levels, and warranty coverage. The drive’s cost per gigabyte is pretty impressive, too.

Audio
Rather than relying on mediocre motherboard audio, we’re splurging on a sound card for the mid-range box. Creative’s Audigy 2 ZS has been around for a while, and it’s still one of only a handful of sound cards that offer hardware acceleration for 3D sound in games, support for high-definition audio, and DVD-Audio playback. You’re not going to find a better equipped sound card for $70.

Enclosure and power
Our mid-range system is wrapped in Antec’s updated Sonata II enclosure. We loved the first Sonata for its quality power supply, quiet noise levels, rubber-damped hard drive caddies, and gorgeous glossy black finish. The sequel improves on the original by beefing up the power supply and introducing some ducting around the CPU. As good as the case is, we really want the Sonata II for its 450W SmartPower 2.0 power supply. You’d be hard pressed to find a better combination of case and power for under $100.

Grand Experiment alternatives
As with our Econobox, we have a few possible alternative component suggestions for the mid-range build.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice) $201.00
Motherboard Abit AN8 Ultra $109.99
Memory Corsair Value Select 2GB (2 x 1GB) $180.00
Graphics Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 $239.00
Audio Chaintech AV-710 $25.00

NA

Processor
Cash-strapped users can save a little money by dropping the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 in favor of a single-core Athlon 64. The Athlon 64 3500+ currently hits the sweet spot for single-core price and performance, and it’s actually clocked 200MHz higher than the cores of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+. You won’t get the creamy smoothness of SMP, but single-threaded apps and games should run a little faster thanks to the clock speed boost. Athlon 64 3500+ processors are floating around with a couple of different CPU cores, and we’d recommend the latest “Venice” revision of the chip for its memory controller enhancements, enhanced performance, and lower power consumption.

Motherboard
Although we like the flexibility offered by NVIDIA’s nForce4 SLI chipset, you can save a little money moving to the nForce4 Ultra if you’re sure you’ll never need a second PCI Express x16 slot. We’re recommending another Abit board—the AN8 Ultra—for many of the same reasons that we’ve recommended the company’s SLI board. Like its SLI counterpart, the AN8 Ultra is loaded with overclocking options, has the best hardware monitoring and fan speed control around, and enjoys silent and reliable passive chipset cooling. You aren’t likely to find a board with comparable features selling for less than the AN8 Ultra.

Memory
Our motherboard alternative saves some money, but our memory alternative costs a little extra. We only recommended 1GB of memory for our mid-range system, but if you’re planning on loading up this box with heavy multitasking loads, 2GB of memory is probably a good idea. You could go with a couple of dual-channel kits based on 512MB modules, but to keep DIMM slots open for future upgrades, we’d suggest a pair of 1GB DIMMs instead. Again, we’re going with Corsair’s Value Select memory because it’s the cheapest name-brand memory we could find.

Some may wonder why we haven’t specced this system with a low-latency memory alternative, but as we’ve noted, lower memory latencies don’t have much of an impact on real-world performance. So, instead of spending extra cash on lower memory latencies, we’d rather put it toward expanding the system’s available memory.

Graphics
Sapphire’s Radeon X800 GTO2 is actually equipped with the same R480 graphics chip that power’s ATI’s high-end Radeon X850 line. Four of the chip’s 16 pixel pipelines have been disabled, so it’s not a better option than the GeForce 6800 GS out of the box. However, it’s reportedly possible to flash this card’s BIOS to unlock the R480’s dormant pipelines, giving you a 16-pipe card for a very nice price. There should be some overclocking potential in these chips, as well. Success in such endeavors is never a sure thing, of course, but from what we’ve heard, the chances of getting a dud appear to be low. This alternative isn’t for the faint of heart. Only enthusiasts comfortable with overclocking and graphics card BIOS flashing need apply.

Audio
The Creative Audigy2 ZS is undeniably the best $70 sound card you can buy, but if you’re looking to save a little money and still avoid onboard audio, the Chaintech AV-710 is a solid choice for about a third of the price. Playback quality should be superior to the AN8’s integrated audio, especially when the front channels are routed through the card’s high-quality Wolfson DAC. The AV-710 can’t match the Audigy 2 ZS’s 3D audio acceleration and DVD-Audio playback support, though.

The $2K Box
Excess—with a healthy dose of prudence
The Grand Experiment is a solid system that should be able to handle a little of everything, but its specs aren’t exactly drool-inducing. For that, we have our high-end build, a machine that avoids hefty price premiums while still packing enough hardware to make you the envy of the next LAN party.

We considered calling this system the The $2K Xtreme Bloody Fatal1ty Ultra Turbo Golden Sample Xpert Xpress 5750 XL GTO2 SLI-FX2 (Model PLZK372-BR12ZK7035-754a), but in the end, we settled on The $2K Box. It’s not as catchy a name as some, but it’ll do.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ $497.00
Motherboard Abit AN8 SLI $129.99
Memory OCZ Platinum PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2 x 1GB) $248.41
Graphics XFX GeForce 7800 GT (450/1050) $309.00
Storage Western Digital Caviar RE2 400GB $230.50
NEC ND-3540A DVD+/-RW DL $40.99
Audio Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic $119.99
Power supply OCZ PowerStream 520W $139.99
Enclosure Antec P180 $124.99
Total $1840.86

Processor
Our high-end system gets an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor. This chip costs a good 50% more than the X2 3800+, so it’s a little indulgent. However, with 1MB of L2 cache per core, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ has twice the L2 cache of the X2 3800+. The X2 4200+ also runs 200MHz faster than the X2 3800+, and it might have a better chance of hitting higher overclocked speeds. Overclockers might also want to consider 939-pin dual-core Opterons, which feature 1MB of L2 cache per core and run at a lower default voltage than the X2 line. However, Opterons for Socket 939 are only just becoming available on the market, and they may not be supported by all motherboards without a BIOS update.

For obvious reasons, we haven’t included a single-core processor or an Intel chip in this build. There’s no need for a high-end enthusiast system to not have a second CPU core, and Intel’s Pentium D processors simply aren’t as fast as the Athlon 64 X2s.

Motherboard
Although we’re upgrading the processor for The $2K Box, we’re sticking with the mid-range system’s Abit AN8 SLI motherboard for its low price, passive cooling, SLI support, and best-in-class hardware monitoring and fan speed control. nForce4 SLI boards are available with more peripherals, including secondary Gigabit Ethernet options and more SATA ports, but we don’t imagine many users will actually be running more than one wired network connection or more than four Serial ATA drives.

NVIDIA’s new nForce4 SLI X16 chipset has actually bumped the nForce4 SLI from the top of the its core-logic lineup, and we were tempted to go with an X16 board for this system. However, we’ve found that the X16 chipset’s extra PCI Express lanes don’t improve SLI performance by much. There aren’t that many nForce4 SLI X16 boards available on the market, anyway. We could only find Asus’ A8N32-SLI Deluxe for sale, and with a $210 price tag, it’s significantly more expensive than the AN8 SLI.

Memory
Corsair’s Value Select memory dominated our selections for The Econobox and The Grand Experiment, but we’re splurging a little on some fancy memory for the high-end system. 2GB is the sweet spot here, and we’re going with a dual-channel kit in OCZ’s Platinum series that’s rated for 2-3-2-6 timings at 400MHz with only 2.6V. We’ve already noted that lower memory latencies don’t always improve real-world performance, but low-latency DIMMs often use higher quality memory chips that respond better to overclocking, and we’ll be wanting to turn up the clocks for this build.

Since even low-latency memory is a commodity these days, we’ve relied on pricing and personal experience with OCZ’s Platinum series to make this selection. To be fair, cheaper 2GB dual-core kits can be found from other manufacturers. However, the OCZ kit is only marginally more expensive than its cheaper competitors, which require extra voltage to hit 2-3-2-6 timings.

Graphics
There’s no shortage of high-end graphics cards available for this build, but many are saddled with exorbitant price premiums. Ultra high-end cards like the eye-popping GeForce 7800 GTX 512 serve the market that’s willing to swallow high price tags to get the fastest performance around. We’re just not in that market. When you can get fantastic performance from a GeForce 7800 GT for just over $300, there’s little reason to pay more.

Again, we’re recommending an XFX card, their version of the GeForce 7800 GT. We scoured the web for a better deal on a GeForce 7800 GT from another manufacturer, but the XFX stayed at the top of our list for several reasons. First, the card is “overclocked” in the box at 450MHz core and 1.05GHz memory clock speeds. Second, it enjoys XFX’s double-lifetime warranty, adding value for those who want to sell the card down the road. Finally, XFX is serving up a free a copy of Call of Duty 2 with the card, giving it a more recent game bundle than other manufacturers. As if all that weren’t enough, there’s the almost-shocking $309 price tag.

Storage
Although we’re technically building a desktop system, that’s not going to stop us from dipping into the workstation world for a hard drive. We’re equipping The $2K Box with Western Digital’s enterprise-class Caviar RE2 hard drive, which recently took home one of our coveted Editor’s Choice awards. The only knock against the RE2 is its lack of support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates, but that didn’t stop the drive from excelling in our performance tests. The RE2 is fantastic, with a 16MB cache, low seek noise levels, a five-year warranty, and a surprisingly affordable price tag for a 400GB drive.

On the optical front, we’re sticking with the NEC dual-layer DVD burner because we might as well have one component span all our builds. In reality, there’s very little difference between the several dozen or so $40 DVD writers available on the market.

Audio
For years, we’ve complained about Creative’s incremental product improvements and general lack of innovation. Someone must have been listening, because the company’s new X-Fi audio processor is a radical departure from the Audigy and the first exciting new audio technology we’ve seen in a long time. Sound Blaster X-Fi cards don’t come cheap, of course, but the entry-level XtremeMusic can be had for just over $100. At that price, the card’s hardware acceleration for 3D audio, EAX 5.0 Advanced HD support, real-time audio processing capabilities, impeccable sound quality, and DVD-Audio support can’t be matched. The X-Fi XtremeMusic’s unique mix of features and relatively affordable price has already earned the card one of our Editor’s Choice awards, and it’s a logical choice for our high-end system.

Power supply
Speaking of Editor’s Choice winners, OCZ’s PowerStream 520W PSU took home top honors in our most recent power supply comparison. At the time, the PowerStream’s excellent performance, adjustable voltage rails, and best-in-class warranty set it apart from the competition. Since then, we’ve used PowerStream 520W PSUs extensively in our test systems, and we have been more than pleased with their reliability and performance.

As much as we like the PowerStream, we do wish that it were a modular design that allowed unused power leads to be removed from the system. Modular PSUs are available from several manufacturers, including OCZ, but none can match the PowerStream’s adjustable voltage rails, arguably a more important feature. There’s plenty of room in the budget for a few zip ties to clean up cable clutter.

Enclosure
Cable routing is the only caveat that comes along with our case recommendation, but in this case, you might need to spring for an extension cable rather than a set of zip ties. Antec’s P180 enclosure eschews traditional case designs by mounting the power supply below the motherboard. This design makes sense from a cooling perspective, but some motherboard and PSU combinations will require extension cables to ensure that power leads can actually reach the motherboard. It’s a minor inconvenience, and one we’re willing to forgive in light of the P180’s noise-muffling side panels, three 120mm fans, rubber-damped hard drive bays, and partitioned cooling zones.

$2K Box alternatives
Since the number of available alternatives tends to expand as our budget increase, we have a few additional suggestions for a high-end build.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $322.00
Motherboard DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR $169.95
Memory Corsair Twinx2048-3200C2 $253.00
Graphics ATI All-in-Wonder X1800 XL $399.00
Storage Raptor WD740GD 74GB $161.00
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB $136.50

Processor
We’ll gladly pay for the Athlon 64 X2 4400+’s extra cache and clock speed, but serious overclockers looking to save a few bills would do well to go with a less expensive Athlon 64 X2 3800+. The X2 3800+ should have plenty of overclocking headroom, and in this system, you’ll want to run it at higher-than-stock clock speeds.

Motherboard
Since our processor alternative is primed for overclocking, we’ve come up with a motherboard to match. DFI’s LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR is based on the same nForce4 SLI chipset as the Abit board, but with Memtest86+ built into the BIOS and a set of overclocking features that cooperate with AMD’s Cool’n’Quiet dynamic clock throttling, it may be a better option for those looking to push a CPU to its limits. The LANParty board doesn’t have passive chipset cooling, fancy hardware monitoring, or fine-grained fan speed control, but its ability to limit the top CPU multiplier used by Cool’n’Quiet affords overclockers extra flexibility missing from most Athlon 64 motherboards. We have, however, run into some apparent memory compatibility problems with this DFI board, so those who aren’t serious tweakers may want to steer clear of this one.

Memory
The low-latency 2GB memory kits from both OCZ and Corsair use 1GB DIMMs rated for 2-3-2-6 timings. We named OCZ’s Platinum kit as our primary selection because it can hit those timings at only 2.6V, while Corsair’s TwinX kit requires 2.75V. That’s a relatively minor difference. We’d pay a few extra dollars for the OCZ’s lower rated voltage, but the Corsair kit is a viable alternative.

Graphics
How do you recommend an alternative to a $300 GeForce 7800 GT with a straight face? Bust out an All-in-Wonder. ATI’s All-in-Wonder X1800 XL may not win every 3D benchmark battle with the GeForce 7800 GT, but with a myriad of video input and output options, an integrated TV tuner, and a bundled Remote Wonder, it’s a slick alternative. The AIW X1800 XL is also a relative bargain when compared to vanilla Radeon X1800 XLs that cost between $350 and $400.

Storage
We have a tag team of storage alternatives for our high-end system. Rather than running a single drive, those seeking improved disk performance may want to look into using a larger capacity storage drive in conjunction with a Western Digital Raptor. The Raptor WD740GD‘s 10K-RPM spindle speed yields low seek times and impressive performance, combined with a five-year warranty. Although those things delight us, the Raptor’s limited capacity demands that it be paired with a larger capacity drive. Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.8 will do for our auxiliary storage drive, and 300GB should be plenty for most folks.

The Double-Stuff Workstation
Perfect parallelism
The $2K Box dips into the workstation world for a few components, so it’s only fitting that we come up with a workstation that dips into the enthusiast’s bag of tricks. This system is designed for heavy lifting, and though the price tag might cause your heart to skip a beat, you’ll see that we’ve exercised a surprising amount of restraint.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Processor AMD Opteron 270 $869.00
AMD Opteron 270 $869.00
Motherboard Tyan Thunder K8WE $422.50
Memory Corsair Registered ECC DDR400 1GB $126.17
Corsair Registered ECC DDR400 1GB $126.17
Corsair Registered ECC DDR400 1GB $126.17
Corsair Registered ECC DDR400 1GB $126.17
Graphics XFX GeForce 7800 GT (450/1050) $359.00
XFX GeForce 7800 GT (450/1050) $359.00
Storage Western Digital Caviar RE2 400GB $230.50
Western Digital Caviar RE2 400GB $230.50
Raptor WD740GD 74GB $161.00
Raptor WD740GD 74GB $161.00
NEC ND-3540A DVD+/-RW DL $40.99
Audio Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic $119.99
Power supply OCZ PowerStream 600W $209.99
Enclosure Lian Li PC-V1200 $210.00
Total $4647.15

Processor
AMD first introduced its dual-core CPU architecture in Opteron processors, and we’ve salivated at the prospect of running a dual dual-core system ever since. An effective quad-processor system is hard to resist, especially in the workstation world, where multithreaded applications are more common. Any pair of dual-core Opterons would be appropriate for this system, but since overclocking isn’t advised at work, we’ll pay a little extra for Opteron 270s clocked at 2.0GHz. Lest you think we’re snubbing Intel intentionally, we briefly considered dual-core Xeons for our workstation build, but were quickly brought back to reality by the Opteron’s advantage in not only performance, but also power consumption and price.

Motherboard
The market isn’t exactly teeming with dual-Opteron workstation motherboards, but we’ve been impressed by Tyan’s Thunder K8WE. This mobo packs a pair of 940-pin sockets, eight DIMM slots with support for NUMA, and an NVIDIA nForce Pro 2200/2050 chipset combo that supplies enough PCI Express lanes for a pair of full bandwidth x16 slots. We do wish that the Thunder K8WE took advantage of the nForce Pro 2050’s additional Serial ATA RAID ports, but the board has plenty of PCI-X slots and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Memory
Using 940-pin Opterons locks us into the wonderful world of registered memory. Registered DIMMs cost more than the unbuffered memory modules you’ll find in most desktop systems, but the extra cost usually gets you ECC support, which can bolster system stability. It turns out that Corsair makes some of the most affordable registered DDR400 DIMMs around, and the company’s 1GB modules were the cheapest we could find.

To fully exploit the Thunder K8WE’s NUMA support, we’re equipping this system with four DIMMs—one for each memory channel on each processor. Anything less than 4GB of memory would be rather uncivilized for a workstation, anyway.

Graphics
Those running workstation-class 3D applications will probably want to replace our graphics selection with a FireGL or Quadro card from ATI or NVIDIA, respectively. Workstation-class applications often require certified drivers, and performance in those apps doesn’t always mirror what we see with desktop cards. However, for enthusiasts with less specific 3D requirements, we’re recommending a pair of GeForce 7800 GTs in SLI. That setup should deliver phenomenal pixel pushing power for the money, in part thanks to the surprisingly low price of the same XFX card we used in our high-end build. We’re sticking with the XFX not only for its low price, but also for its higher-than-stock clock speeds and double-lifetime warranty. You all-business types can always hawk that second copy of Call of Duty 2 on eBay.

We considered recommending a pair of GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB or even 512MB cards for this build, but prudence prevailed. Our two 7800 GTs together cost less than a single GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB, and they should be faster in the majority of applications.

Storage
The workstation’s storage complement draws from components we’ve used in other builds, but combines them in a unique way. We’re recommending a pair of RAID arrays here, with a couple of Western Digital Raptor WD740GDs in RAID 0 and two Caviar RE2 drives in RAID 1. The 10K-RPM Raptor array should be used for applications and data that are sensitive to disk performance, and since RAID 0 arrays are more vulnerable to data loss than even a single drive, we’ll be keeping everything backed up on our mirrored Caviar RE2 array. This storage setup gives us a good balance of performance and redundancy, and it doesn’t cost that much, all things considered.

We’re recommending a dual array configuration, but a single RAID 0+1 array made up of either Caviar or Raptor drives may be more suitable for some workstation environments. A RAID 0+1 comprised entirely of Raptors would provide faster redundant storage, while four Caviars in the same configuration would offer much greater redundant capacity, all within the confines of the nForce Pro’s integrated Serial ATA RAID controller.

The performance of Serial ATA RAID should satiate most workstation users, but if 10K-RPM Raptors aren’t enough, SCSI can deliver better performance, particularly with 15K-RPM drives. That’s overkill for most users, though, and it would blow any last shred of budgetary restraint on our part.

NEC’s dual-layer DVD burner continues to fit into our budget with ease, though. If you can get a dual-layer burner that handles + and – formats for $40, why go elsewhere?

Audio
Integrated audio on the Thunder K8WE leaves much to be desired, and given the overall price of our workstation build, we’ll spring for a Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card. The XtremeMusic’s features, performance, and playback quality can’t be beaten at this price, although those editing audio content may be better served by professional sound cards built expressly for that purpose.

Power supply
We’re sticking with OCZ’s PowerStream line for our workstation’s power supply, using a 600W model to give us a little extra headroom for SLI. The 600W version has the same adjustable rails as the 520W unit we recommended for our high-end system and the same five-year warranty. This power supply nicely fulfills our motherboard’s requirement of an EPS12V-compatible PSU, as well.

Enclosure
By now, you’ll have no doubt noticed that our system guide doesn’t recommend anything from Apple, but we’ve channeled the Reality Distortion Field with our recommendation of Lian Li’s PC-V1200 enclosure for The Double-Stuff Workstation. The PC-V1200’s borrows heavily from the design of Apple’s PowerMac G5 chassis, mounting the PSU and hard drives below the motherboard in a partitioned cooling zone. The look mimics the G5’s industrial-chic look, too. With the PC-V1200 proudly displayed on your desk, one of those cute, iPod-toting hipsters might finally come up and talk to you. We didn’t really spec the PC-1200 for its looks, though. The case’s most important feature is its support for Extended ATX motherboards; it should have no problem accommodating the gargantuan Thunder K8WE.

Double-Stuff Workstation alternatives
We don’t have as much variety in the workstation world as we do with desktops, but there are a few alternatives that can help us lower the cost of the workstation build without compromising too much.

Component Item Reference price Best price
Motherboard Asus K8N-DL $217.00
Graphics XFX GeForce 7800 GT (450/1050) $309.00
Power supply OCZ PowerStream 520W $139.99

Motherboard
With an eye toward lowering the price of our workstation build, the Asus K8N-DL is a great alternative to the Thunder K8WE. This board picked up an Editor’s Choice award in our most recent workstation motherboard comparison, in part because of its relatively low price and enthusiast-friendly overclocking options. Those overclocking options could make a pair of less-expensive Opteron 265 processors more attractive than the 270s we’ve chosen. It’s also possible to squeeze the K8N-DL’s more modest dimensions into some standard ATX cases, although the board is technically larger than the ATX spec.

Unfortunately, the K8N-DL doesn’t match all of the K8WE’s features. The Asus board has two fewer DIMM slots, one less PCI Express x16 slot, and no PCI-X slots at all, making it less appropriate for heavy lifting than the Thunder. Supermicro’s H8DCE is also an interesting alternative to both boards, although we’ve not yet had enough experience with it to comment on its suitability for this build.

Graphics
We’ve dropped SLI in favor of a single GeForce 7800 GT as our graphics alternative for a couple of reasons. First, SLI relies on application profiles that don’t appear to exist for workstation-class 3D applications. Also, our Asus K8N-DL motherboard lacks a second PCI-E x16 slot, so we can only run a single graphics card.

Power supply
Dropping SLI lowers the power requirements of our system, and we’re comfortable falling back on the 520W OCZ PowerStream we recommended for the high-end build. That saves us a decent amount of money, and we only lose 80W of power in the process.

Peripherals, accessories, and extras
Matters of religion and taste
The preceding pages will help you pick out the core components of your system build, and examining those core PC components is really our forte here at TR. However, your build won’t be complete without a few more parts, like a display, an operating system, some input devices, and various other accessories. We don’t have a full set of recommendations at multiple price levels in each of these categories, but we can make some general observations and point out a few specific products that are worthy of your consideration. What you ultimately choose in these areas will probably depend heavily your own personal preferences.

Your operating system of choice
For some folks, operating systems are a matter of religion, not convenience. Those folks will no doubt have their operating systems picked out, their free Linux ISOs downloaded, their Windows installs slipstreamed to CD, or what have you. We wouldn’t presume to tell those folks which OS they should use. For the rest of us, though, just choosing the most appropriate flavor of Windows can be a daunting task.

The absolute cheapest version of Windows XP you can buy is the Home Edition, which comes with everything you’ll need for basic desktop PC functionality. For many users, the Home Edition is certainly sufficient. Power users, though, will want to take a long, hard look at several other options.

Windows XP Professional is a superset of Windows XP Home that offers a host of additional features you may find useful. For us, the feature that tops that list is the Remote Desktop Connection. There are other ways to connect to your PC and control it remotely, but few can match the combination of speed and ease of use provided by RDC. An RDC client can be found on any Windows XP computer, and WinXP Pro also includes a web server that will send a browser-based client to any remote system. Thus, you can connect to your main PC from any ‘net-connected PC and check your e-mail, carry on IM conversations, and generally control your desktop PC as if you were sitting at its keyboard. This convenience, combined with additional OS security and file encryption capabilities, makes WinXP Pro worth the price premium, in our book.

If you build a system based on any of our recs, you’ll be getting a CPU capable of running a 64-bit operating system like Windows XP Pro x64 Edition. This is the 64-bit version of Windows XP Pro. 64-bit computing does offer some compelling advantages, as we have explained in detail, but you’ll want to be careful when considering WinXP x64, because this new OS requires new, 64-bit drivers for each device in your system. Make sure that 64-bit drivers are available for all of your hardware—including printers, scanners, and such—before taking the plunge. So far, our attempts to upgrade to WinXP x64 for personal use have been thwarted by missing drivers. Those who do make the transition to the x64 Edition will be getting a full version of WinXP Professional based on the newer Windows Server 2003 code base, somewhat better performance from 64-bit binaries, robust backward compatibility and performance in 32-bit programs, and superior threading support for dual-core and multiprocessor configurations.

If you want your desktop PC to act as a TiVo, a TV, or a digital media hub, you may want to consider going with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. WinXP MCE is also ideal for home theater PCs (HTPCs), provided that you don’t want to roll your own suite of DVR programs, DVD players, MP3 players, and the like. The Media Center Edition is still Windows XP, but it integrates a smorgasbord of multimedia recording and playback capabilities with an interface suitable for use from the couch, if you please. Perhaps even more importantly, any Xbox 360 game console can act as a client to a WinXP MCE PC, so the Xbox 360 can play back previously recorded TV shows, DVDs, digital photo slideshows, or MP3s in the living room.

Keyboard and mouse
You may be tempted to save a buck or two and go for some cheap keyboard and mouse combo, but that would be a mistake. We don’t recommend generic crud here. Get something good, like a Microsoft or Logitech. Your keyboard and mouse are the primary sources of tactile feedback from your PC, and skimping on them can make a boffo build feel cheap.

We reviewed an early tilt-wheel mouse from Microsoft that lets you scroll up-and-down and side-to-side and liked it, but there are better options for tilt-wheel mice out there now, both from MS and its competitors. Whatever you do, you’ll want to get an optical mouse that has no ball mechanism to get clogged with gunk. Today’s opticals track well on most surfaces and offer gobs of tracking resolution. It’s probably worth paying a little more to get a higher-sensitivity sensor. Although the Logitech MX518‘s “gaming mouse” designation and laser sensor may be mostly hype, it has a great shape and only costs about 40 bucks. If you plan to go with a wireless mouse, consider getting one that has a base with built-in charger, so you don’t have to hassle with charging batteries separately.

Keyboards are even more a matter of preference. Perhaps you like yours adorned with all manner of extra buttons, knobs, lights, and rollers, as the upscale models seem to be these days. For us, a simple keyboard with a standard layout is bliss. We haven’t tried this model, but Microsoft’s Comfort Curve Keyboard looks like a nice compromise between ergo concerns and a conventional layout. At about 19 bucks, it’s also easy on the wallet. Old-school types may want to luxuriate in the klackety-clack of a true buckling spring keyboard like the ones that came with old IBM PCs. If so, knock yourself out by picking up a new one from Unicomp.

A decent display
There are way too many options to go into here, but we’ll consider a few things. First, unless you are doing serious art and design work or professional photo editing that requires perfect color contrast, you’ll probably want to purchase an LCD monitor. Cheap LCDs still have problems with color contrast and response rates, but the better ones are much nicer (and sharper) displays than their CRT-based counterparts. LCDs are getting fairly cheap, too.

If you can swing it, the Dell UltraSharp 2001FP monitor is a gorgeous 20″ display, and is the personal choice of more than one TR editor. This display has a stunning combination of color contrast, resolution, and sharpness that will put your average CRT to shame. The 2001FP’s response time is fast enough to avoid ghosting during DVD playback and gaming. The display can rotate 90 degrees into portrait mode for tasks like document editing, and two of these babies side by side will pack in more pixels for less money than a single wide-aspect LCD like the 2405FPW.

Floppy drive/card reader combo
You can probably get by without a floppy drive these days, if you can navigate your way past the Windows installation routine without hitting a snag. However, there’s no reason not to install a floppy drive in your system’s external 3.5″ drive bay when you can also add a 7-in-1 flash card reader in the very same space. Mitsumi’s floppy/7-in-1 flash card reader combo does just that. The flash reader portion hooks into any open USB header on your motherboard, and it works like a charm. It’s inexpensive, too.

Laptop and wireless router
Ok, so a laptop is a very major accessory, but it is a joy to be able to control your shiny, new PC via Remote Desktop Connection from the couch, the back porch, or the coffee shop. To work tether-free around the house, you’ll need a wireless router and a laptop PC. The wireless router is the affordable part. We’ve had good experiences with the Linksys WRT54G, whose open-source firmware can easily be replaced with “enhanced” versions that provide more flexibility. The HyperWRT firmware, for instance, will let you boost the wireless radio’s broadcast power well beyond FCC regulated limits in order to extend the range—not that we’d ever advocate such a thing, of course. Don’t forget to configure security properly on your wireless router, though, or you’re asking for trouble.

As for the laptop, well, there are a bundle of options ranging from about $500 and up. We may dig into this issue further in a future revision of the system guide, but it’s too much to cover here today. We will only note that our quest for the ultimate ultraportable has turned up some interesting options and a lively discussion about some of the choices in and around the ultraportable category of laptops.

Conclusions
So that’s it for our inaugural system guide. If you’re already deep into PC hardware, you may have your own set of picks already defined in your mind, and indeed, you may have recently abused your credit card in order to obtain some of them. You may well be composing a sweaty, highly agitated e-mail, ready to fire off at us for excluding your favorite bits of hardware. Fire away if you must, but please remember that our component choices are based largely on our own comparative testing of these products, and that our purpose here is merely to help the less-than-godlike enthusiast select components for his new box. We may not achieve perfection in your eyes, but we hope we’ve provided a solid resource for the unsure.

If you’ve read everything we’ve suggested here are are still wavering about which components to choose, let us suggest that you drop into our System Builders Anonymous forum and let our teeming pack of trained gerbils assist you in your quest. Folks post proposed system specifications in there all the time in order to get critiques and ideas. The gerbils can help you refine an enthusiast’s system based on the ones we’ve outlined in this guide, or they can assist you in putting together the parts for a specialized build, like a home-theater PC or a semi-portable LAN gaming rig. Whatever you choose, building a PC is very much a learn-by-doing thing, even for an experienced PC hobbyist. Be sure to tap into interactive resources like our forums in order to get the info and advice you need to make your build go smoothly.

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