TR’s August 2006 system guide

As we’ve seen in our review of the Core 2 lineup, these new CPUs pretty much unequivocally outclass the competition in both raw performance and power consumption. They’re rather affordable for new introductions, too. The original Pentium 4 1.4GHz started at $644 and required expensive Rambus memory, and the original Athlon 64 3200+ launched at $417. The Core 2 Duo line, meanwhile, starts at a recommended price of just $183. Add in relatively affordable DDR2 memory and some nice motherboard choices at around $150, and the Core 2 Duo is a very exciting choice indeed for early adopters.

Intel’s new hotness hasn’t left AMD entirely in the dust, though. The Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2, and Sempron lines have recently been subjected to massive price cuts that make them more affordable than ever before. With those price cuts and the new Core 2 chips in mind, we’ve decided to roll out a brand-spanking-new system guide to give you guidance in scratching the early adopter’s itch.

We also have a new sponsor for the system guide: the excellent online retailer Newegg.com. Newegg’s support will allow us to make more frequent updates to the guide, and considering its excellent track record and competitive pricing, it’s also a fine source of components for prospective buyers. Of course, the component picks in the guide are still very much our own. They have evolved from our previous system guides, with obvious input from our more recent hardware reviews and new developments in the market.

Rules and regulations
Before tackling our recommended systems, we should explain some of the rules and guidelines we used to select components. 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 available online. Paper launches and preorders don’t count, for obvious reasons. We also tried to stick to $500, $1000, and $1500 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.

We’ve continued our tradition of basing the guide’s component prices on listings at Newegg. We’ve found that sourcing prices from one large reseller allows us to maintain a more realistic sense of street prices than price search engine listings, which are sometimes artificially low. In the few cases where Newegg doesn’t have an item in stock, we’ll fall back to our trusty price search engine rather than limit our options.

Finally, price wasn’t the top factor in our component choices. 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 solid reputations for reliability. Warranty coverage was an important consideration, as well.

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, we’ve tried to ensure that the system doesn’t actually need any upgrades to deliver relatively peppy performance

Processor
AMD’s recent price cuts have allowed us to upgrade the single-core Athlon 64 3000+ from our last guide to a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+. At $151, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ provides some very serious budget firepower without breaking the bank. While we recommended the Socket 939 version in our last guide, we’ve stepped it up to Socket AM2 for this latest update. Socket AM2 provides a nicer upgrade path, since Socket 939 is more or less a dead-end at this point. Socket AM2 systems support DDR2 memory, as well, which could be re-used down the road. Recent rumors even suggest that Socket AM2 motherboards could be compatible with chips based on AMD’s next-gen, quad-core microarchitecture, sometimes known as “K8L”.

The Athlon 64 X2 3800+ has no really direct competition from the Core 2 Duo at this price point. Rather, it sits in the same class as Intel’s older Pentium D chips, situated between the Pentium D 920 and the Pentium D 930. The X2 3800+ outclasses both of those chips in performance and power consumption, though.

Motherboard
We’ve chosen the direct descendent of our previous recommendation for this build, the Asus M2NPV-VM. Like its Socket 939 predecessor, the M2NPV-VM is outfitted with an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 integrated graphics chipset and its associated nForce 430 south bridge. This new board’s feature set is virtually identical, too, including PCI Express x16 and x1 slots, a couple of 32-bit PCI slots, four 300MB/s Serial ATA ports, and FireWire. The integrated GeForce 6150 graphics sports both VGA and DVI outputs, making it rather handy for budget users who may need to drive a high-resolution LCD monitor.

If you like to watch movies on your PC, the GeForce 6150 also has PureVideo hardware acceleration support for some high-definition video content. You may need third-party software to take advantage of PureVideo, but it’s a nice addition nonetheless. Don’t expect to do much gaming on the GeForce 6150, though. The 6150 is rather anemic when it comes to gaming performance, and you’re much better off with our alternatives section’s discrete graphics card recommendation.

Memory
Our memory choice is slightly fancier than usual. OCZ’s Gold line of memory is aimed chiefly at enthusiasts, as its gold-mirrored copper heat spreader attests. This OCZ Gold 1GB DDR2-800 kit is the cheapest DDR2-800 dual-channel bundle we can find from a big name brand, and it’s reasonably priced. Cheaper DDR2-667 “value” memory may sell for $10 to 20 less, but AMD supports up to DDR2-800 for the new Socket AM2 platform. We don’t think the savings is worth it in this machine, because our motherboard’s integrated GeForce 6150 graphics could use the extra bandwidth created by faster memory.

Storage
We’re quite happy with Seagate’s new Barracuda 7200.10 line, and considering the 320GB model’s low price, it’d be a shame not to include it here. With the drive’s $94.99 price tag, you’re paying a scant $0.30 for each gigabyte. Cheaper models from other companies may save you one or two cents per gigabyte, but we feel the 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 is the sweet spot for a budget machine given its 16MB cache, support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer speeds and Native Command Queuing, and five-year warranty. What’s more, this drive’s implementation of perpendicular recording technology allows it to squeeze all 320GB onto just two platters. Fewer platters generally means lower power consumption and noise levels, and Seagate is currently the only manufacturer we know of shipping a 320GB drive with two platters instead of three.

The NEC ND-3550A is still our DVD burner of choice, because to our knowledge, nothing significantly better has come along yet. That’s a little disappointing, because despite Intel’s decision to ditch IDE support in its latest chipsets, there are still almost no DVD burners that use Serial ATA. Plextor has a couple of models that are exceptions to this rule, including the PX-755SA, but they both cost more than $100—a little too rich for our tastes.

That said, the NEC ND-3550A is still a fine drive. It burns DVDs from the plus and dash standards at 16X, as well as + and – dual-layer DVDs at 8X and 6X, respectively. NEC’s line of DVD burners has a reputation for high quality burns with low error rates, and with its bundled copy of Nero, the ND-3550A offers excellent value.

Enclosure and power
Budget users too often spend all of their money on a fast CPU and a large hard drive, and then throw in a $30 case and power supply bundle as an afterthought. While cheap cases aren’t usually too bad, their bundled power supplies are almost always made with cheap, low-quality components. Iffy power supplies often exhibit low power delivery, voltage fluctuations, poor stress tolerance, and short life spans. In fact, a cheap PSU is not only liable to fail, it can also cause system instability and damage sensitive components over time.

We’re going with Antec once again due to the company’s solid reputation as a builder of reliable power supplies and quiet, high-quality cases. However, we’ve moved from our trusty SLK2650-BQE to Antec’s new NSK 4400 enclosure for this iteration of the system guide. The NSK 4400 is also built for quiet and costs roughly the same as the SLK2650-BQE, but it trades one 5.25″ drive bay for a 3.5″ hard drive bay and features a slightly beefier 380W power supply with a pair of +12V rails. Our recommended dual-core processor sips slightly more juice than our previous single-core Athlon 64, so the extra power should come in handy.

Processor
AMD’s single-core Athlon 64 line was also the object of price reductions, and you can now get a Socket AM2-ready Athlon 64 3200+ for a scant $85.99. If you’d rather prioritize gaming over dual-core processing power, pairing the Athlon 64 3200+ with our recommended GeForce 7600 GS (see below) and our other primary recommendations will get you a solid budget gaming system for just over $600. We think the Athlon 64 3200+ is best-suited for that purpose; equivalent Socket AM2 Semprons are clocked lower and have less cache, and Intel hardly has anything worthwhile to compete at this price.

Graphics
The integrated GeForce 6150 in the Asus M2NPV-VM will handle older games reasonably well, but a dedicated graphics card is really a necessity if you plan to use the Econobox for any kind of serious gaming. For $134, the XFX GeForce 7600 GS is arguably the best offering in its price range. The older GeForce 6600 GT may be slightly cheaper, but the 7600 GS has higher fill rates, more memory, and a passive cooler to boot. The 7600 GS also seems to have the upper hand over ATI’s slightly more expensive Radeon X1600 XT.

We’re quite fond of this XFX model in particular because it offers dual DVI outputs and a “double lifetime” warranty that guarantees support even for second-hand cards. Additionally, NVIDIA’s drivers should let you combine the GeForce 7600 GS with the Asus motherboard’s integrated GeForce 6150 to drive up to four displays, should you happen to have a stock of old monitors lying around.

Audio
Onboard sound is fine for most users, but some may want better playback quality. The Chaintech AV-710 is an interesting deal, because despite its $25 price tag, the card features the ability to route stereo output through a high-quality Wolfson DAC. This trick allows for stereo sound quality well above that of typical onboard audio—and quite a few sound cards—which is great for anyone with decent headphones or stereo speakers. The AV-710 features a VIA Envy24 audio chip that supports 24-bit/192KHz playback and 24-bit/96KHz recording, as well as a lightweight and non-intrusive driver suite.

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.

Processor
We were planning to recommend Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6600 for this system, since Intel’s official pricing places it at $316. However, this chip retails for quite a bit more right now; Newegg, for example, currently lists it for a whopping $459. Since we’d rather stay reasonably close to our $1,000 budget for the Grand Experiment, we went with the Core 2 Duo E6400 instead. We haven’t yet benchmarked this exact model yet, but since it sits between its E6600 and E6300 siblings, it should be right up there with AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 5000+. Not bad for $299, and certainly not bad if it starts dropping closer towards its recommended price of $224. Thanks to our motherboard choice, you should be able to squeeze some substantial overclocks out of this chip, too.

On the AMD side, the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ is currently nigh-impossible to find in stock anywhere. The Athlon 64 X2 4600+ is the next step down the line, and it’s featured in our selection of alternatives on the next page. We don’t think it’s primary recommendation material, though, considering Intel’s performance and power efficiency advantage.

One more note on this issue before we move on, though. Intel is still ramping up production of Core 2 Duo processors, and they are in high demand and short supply at present. You may have to search around at multiple online vendors in order to find one in stock. Newegg had the E6400 in stock when we cooked up this guide, for instance, but they sold out just as we went to publish it. If Core 2 Duo supplies remain tight, you may find that our AMD alternative, listed on the next page, is easier to locate.

Motherboard
Abit’s AB9 Pro is one of the first enthusiast-oriented motherboards powered by the P965 Express chipset, Intel’s mid-range core logic designed primarily for the Core 2 Duo. The $159.99 price tag is relatively high, but the AB9 Pro is outfitted with Intel’s new ICH8R south bridge, which offers RAID functionality and support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ) on up to six Serial ATA hard drives. This functionality is admittedly common on enthusiast boards, but it is absent from cheaper P965 motherboards that feature the vanilla ICH8 south bridge. Abit’s own ICH8-powered AB9 is currently only $6 less than the AB9 Pro, so cutting back just isn’t worth it.

South bridge aside, the AB9 Pro is a pretty desirable motherboard for enthusiasts. It includes better hardware monitoring and overclocking features than the competition in the form of Abit’s μGuru Technology. Additionally, chipset cooling is handled by a “Silent OTES” passive heatpipe-based heatsink combo that takes care of both the north bridge and the processor’s power regulation circuitry. Abit also goes crazy on Serial ATA ports: there are ten in total, including six hanging off the south bridge and one external eSATA connector. Two SATA ports—and the board’s sole IDE connector—are placed right above one of the 32-bit PCI slots, though. That could make cable routing somewhat awkward. Still, Abit’s reputation for overclocking combined with Intel’s Core 2 E6400 should make quite a potent combination.

Memory
Our memory pick was scaled back to DDR2-667 for this system, mostly due to price constraints. 2GB of RAM is now more than ever a necessity for PC gaming, and with Windows Vista looming on the horizon, having some slack on the memory front can’t hurt. However, 2GB DDR2-800 kits are in the neighborhood of $200, about $40 more than DDR2-667. That premium is hard to justify since Intel processors are generally more limited by their front-side bus speed than by their memory. Indeed, the Core 2 Duo’s 1066MHz FSB squeezes both memory and I/O through about 8.5GB/s of bandwidth. Dual channels of DDR2-667 memory can deliver a maximum of 10.7GB/s.

If you’d still rather go all out, then by all means check out our DDR2-800 recommendation for the Sweet Spot system. Just keep in mind that the extra $40 might be better used elsewhere in this machine—for a faster graphics card, for instance. See our alternatives section for that.

As always, our memory brand selection is largely based on price. Feel free to look at manufacturers like Crucial, Kingston, or OCZ if they’re cheaper, but avoid the generic stuff, since it usually implies shorter warranties and poor quality testing.

Graphics
We’re still recommending a GeForce 7600 GT graphics card in this latest guide because NVIDIA’s mid-range GPU remains largely unchallenged in the $150-199 arena. This time, however, we’ve changed our recommendation to an MSI card that won an Editor’s Choice award last month. Despite its awkward name, the MSI NX7600GT-V2D256E is a tantalizing alternative to other GeForce 7600 GT cards that adhere more closely to NVIDIA’s reference design. The NX7600GT features a quiet, heatpipe-based double-wide cooler, video capture capabilities, and factory “overclocking” to 580MHz/750MHz core and memory speeds (the reference GeForce 7600 GT clocks in at 560MHz/700MHz.) The cooler in particular is a nice touch because it produces lower noise levels under load than any GeForce 7600 GT we’ve tested.

Storage
The Econobox’s hard drive and DVD burner are once again making their way in our Grand Experiment. The NEC ND-3550A is a decent drive regardless of budget, and the 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 is also a fine choice.

Audio
If you’re spending $1,000 on a computer, you’re going to want something a little nicer than onboard sound. The Audigy 2 ZS‘s hardware-accelerated 3D audio, DVD-Audio playback, and 24-bit/96KHz recording capabilities make it a great pick. The Audigy2 ZS also offers excellent sound quality, easily surpassing the Chaintech AV-710 from our Econobox alternatives. For $75, there are no competing offerings that come close.

Enclosure and power
The Antec Sonata II is still our case and power supply bundle of choice for the Grand Experiment. The original Sonata offered a great finish, low noise levels, and a high-quality power supply. The newer Sonata II retains the Sonata’s trademark glossy black finish, but it adds an updated 450W SmartPower 2.0 power supply as well as adjustable internal ducting. This bundle might seem somewhat pricey, but the power supply alone is worth nearly $60. Considering that the case also offers a number of noise-reducing features, including a quiet, rubber-mounted 120mm exhaust fan and rubber grommets for mounting the hard drives, we think it’s worth every penny. The case’s high-gloss, piano-black side and top panels are gorgeous, too.

Processor
AMD’s price cuts present some interesting alternatives to Intel’s Core 2 Duo line. The Athlon 64 X2 4600+ is currently listed for $319 on Newegg, but AMD’s official price list specifies a $240 price tag, and prices at some other retailers have already dipped close to this figure. At that price, the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ allows you to scale back a little from the Core 2 Duo E6400 without leaving dual-core territory, while still retaining excellent performance. The money saved can go toward other components, such as a faster graphics card, an extra hard drive, or even one of those newfangled wide-screen monitors kids are raving about these days. If you mostly play games, a speedier graphics card will play a bigger part in game performance than a faster CPU, even if the Core 2 Duo E6400 does outclass the Athlon 64 X2 4600+.

Motherboard
The Abit AN8-SLI for Socket 939 was the star of our last system guide, so it’s only natural to include its Socket AM2 successor here, the KN9-SLI. This board won’t work with our Core 2 Duo E6400, but it’s a splendid match for the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ listed above. Much like the older AN8-SLI and the AB9 we recommend for the Core 2 Duo, the KN9-SLI sports Abit’s μGuru Technology fan monitoring and overclocking features as well as passive, heatpipe-based chipset cooling. Dual PCI Express x16 slots and SLI multi-GPU support for NVIDIA graphics cards are also on the menu thanks to the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset. For storage buffs, the nForce 570 SLI supports RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 across all six of the KN9-SLI’s Serial ATA ports.

Graphics
Our last guide’s sub-$300 video card pick for the Grand Experiment alternative was Sapphire’s Radeon X1800 XT, but this card seems to have been discontinued. That essentially leaves its main competitor, NVIDIA’s GeForce 7900 GT, and a new offering by ATI, the Radeon X1900 GT, battling in the $200-300 arena. Performance-wise, the Radeon X1900 GT is a little slower than the GeForce 7900 GT, but it costs $50 less on average. Since the Grand Experiment has gone up in price because of the Core 2 Duo and its associated motherboard and memory, we think the Radeon X1900 GT is the better alternative for this machine. This Sapphire model includes video capture functionality, a feature absent from cheaper GeForce 7900 GT cards.

Audio
The Creative Audigy2 ZS is a great sound card for $75, but some may prefer a cheaper solution. The $25 Chaintech AV-710 is a good budget alternative, especially considering its ability to route stereo output through its Wolfson DAC for improved stereo playback quality. However, the AV-710 doesn’t accelerate 3D audio in hardware, nor does it support DVD-Audio playback. You can only ask so much from a $25 sound card.

The Grand Experiment is a solid system that should be able to handle a little bit 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.

This build is probably closest to what TR’s editors would choose for themselves in order to get the most value for the dollar in an enthusiast’s PC. Most of the components are chosen because they’re in that proverbial “sweet spot” for price and performance—hence the name.

Processor
From what we’ve seen in our own testing, the Core 2 Duo E6600 is the third-fastest desktop chip available right now. (The fastest and second-fastest are, of course, the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and the Core 2 Duo E6700.) A $459 processor is somewhat lavish for the Sweet Spot, but Intel’s official price list has the Core 2 Duo E6600 at $316, so prices are liable to drop if supply can keep up with demand. AMD essentially has nothing to compete against the E6600 in terms of performance right now, so we feel confident recommending it for the Sweet Spot. As with the E6400 we recommended for the Grand Experiement, though, the E6600’s availability may be spotty.

Some may be inclined to cough up the cash for an even faster Core 2. However, the next model up the line, the Core 2 Duo E6700, only brings an 11% clock speed jump for an increase in price of nearly 70%. The top-of-the-line Core 2 Extreme X6800 nearly triples the E6600’s price for a 22% gain in clock speed. The Core 2 line seems to have a fair amount of overclocking headroom anyway, so there’s no sense in burning an extra $200 or more just to get the fastest out-of-the-box chip.

Motherboard
The Abit AB9 Pro still gets our vote for the Sweet Spot. The market for high-end Core 2-compatible motherboards is currently pretty barren, and the few models with dual-GPU support are priced well over $200. Motherboards powered by NVIDIA’s Intel-flavored nForce 570 SLI chipsets promise to change this situation, but they have yet to appear on store shelves.

Overall, there’s little incentive to aim above the AB9 Pro right now unless you absolutely have to blow money on a pair of ATI graphics cards for Crossfire. Even then, NVIDIA’s “SLI on a stick” GeForce 7950 GX2 offers dual-GPU performance without requiring dual PCI Express x16 slots. The GX2’s price is quite competitive with that of dual-card setups, too.

Memory
DDR2-667 may suffice for the Grand Experiment, but the Sweet Spot begs for speedier DDR2-800. OCZ’s 2GB Platinum DDR2-800 dual-channel kit is priced at the low end of the DDR2-800 spectrum and can handle reasonable 4-5-4-15 timings. From what we’ve seen, the Core 2 has some nice overclocking potential, so this faster memory should come in handy.

Graphics
The Radeon X1800 XT’s disappearance leaves the GeForce 7900 GT as the fastest card in the sub-$300 range. With sufficient horsepower to handle even the most demanding games at high resolutions and with some level of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, the GeForce 7900 GT complements the Sweet Spot rather nicely. We already recommended a predecessor of this XFX-built version of the GeForce 7900 GT in our Sweet Spot alternatives back in May, but this model adds video capture capability. At 520MHz core and 750MHz memory, the card is clocked substantially higher than NVIDIA’s reference design, which calls for 450MHz core and 620MHz memory speeds. To top it off, XFX’s “double lifetime” warranty ensures that warranty coverage stays with the card the first time it’s resold.

Storage
We were fond of Western Digital’s 400GB Caviar RE2 in our last guide, but Seagate’s 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 offers better value unless you absolutely need the extra 80GB. You get the same 16MB of cache and five-year warranty, gain support for 300MB/s Serial ATA interfaces, and save a sizeable amount of cash to put towards other components. For less than $100 a pop, you can always buy a couple of 7200.10s and hit 640GB for only a wee bit more than the 400GB RE2, as well. Running two drives also leaves room for a RAID0 or RAID1 setup, depending on whether you favor performance or redundancy.

As for the DVD burner, we’re again going with the NEC ND-3550A. It’s a great drive, and buying more expensive offerings won’t really get you a whole lot more.

Audio
Our fairly copious budget allows us to include our Editor’s Choice sound card, the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic. The XtremeMusic combines hardware 3D audio acceleration with excellent sound quality, real-time audio processing features, DVD-Audio playback support, and the lowest CPU usage around. Blowing this much on audio might seem a little indulgent, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a better consumer sound card. Even Creative’s own X-Fi Fatal1ty offers few compelling advantages over the XtremeMusic.

Power supply
We like quiet power supplies here at TR, and we’re especially happy when manufacturers come out with quiet power supplies that offer high efficiency, active Power Factor Correction, and cooling via a single monster fan. OCZ’s new 600W GameXStream packs all those features into a relatively affordable package. Granted, 600W may be overkill for a Core 2 system with a GeForce 7900 GT graphics card, but the headroom will be welcome should you desire to overclock or take advantage of the Abit AB9 Pro’s plethora of Serial ATA ports. Our only regrets are the GameXStream’s lack of modular cabling and its relatively short three-year warranty. Our previous guide’s recommendation, the OCZ PowerStream 520W, was covered by a five-year warranty.

Enclosure
The Antec P180 is still our case of choice, thanks to its innovative flipped design, abundance of drive bays, and partitioned cooling zones. Those aiming to build a quiet system will also enjoy its dampening composite side panels, rubber drive mounts, and three low-speed 120mm fans. The P180’s upside-down layout might be an inconvenience because it can require longer power cables, but we think the tradeoff is worth it.

Processor
We’d love to recommend a faster AMD alternative for the Sweet Spot. However, AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and Athlon 64 X2 5000+ processors for Socket AM2 are currently nearly impossible to find in stock anywhere, and the low-power Energy Efficient Athlon 64 X2 chips are simply MIA. That leaves the Athlon 64 X2 4600+, which we already recommended as our Grand Experiment alternative. This chip is really no match for either the Core 2 Duo E6400 or the Core 2 Duo E6600, but it may have broader availability than the Core 2 Duos. The AMD chip also allows one to build a much cheaper dual-GPU system. Motherboards that support both the Core 2 Duo and ATI CrossFire are well above $200, and equivalent SLI models are unavailable right now or otherwise equally expensive.

Motherboard
On the AMD front, meanwhile, the Abit KN9-SLI we recommend here (and in our Grand Experiment build) is currently just under $125, and it can play host to two of our recommended GeForce 7900 GT graphics cards running in tandem. The AMD processor is therefore a sensible alternative if you’d rather prioritize graphics.

Do keep in mind, however, that you can get a single GeForce 7950 GX2 for roughly the same price as two GeForce 7900 GTs and obtain slightly better performance without needing a motherboard that has two PCI Express x16 slots.

Graphics
If you want even more horsepower than the GeForce 7900 GT, ATI’s Radeon X1900 XT is a good bet. It packs twice the memory and consistently trumps its NVIDIA rival in shader-intensive games and at high resolutions with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. This card used to dwell closer to the $400 mark, but it now costs just $55 more than our recommended GeForce 7900 GT. If you play your games on a huge wide-screen display or have always had a soft spot for the red team, this is the high-end card for you. The Sapphire variant of the Radeon X1900 XT may not offer fancy factory “overclocking,” but it does add video capture support, which most GeForce 7900 GTs lack.

Storage
Western Digital’s 150GB Raptor is more of an extra than an alternative for this machine. The 10,000-RPM Raptor provides arguably the best performance of any Serial ATA drive out today, and it’s ideal as a host for the operating system and applications, or for storage-intensive tasks like video editing. However, because of its relatively small 150GB capacity, it really ought to be paired with a slower, larger drive. Combine one with our recommended 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, and you’ll get the best of both worlds: screaming fast performance where needed and high-capacity mass storage riding shotgun.

This workstation-class 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.

Processor
We’re sticking with Opterons for our workstation build. The reason is simple: although Intel’s Xeon 5100-series “Woodcrest” processors are sometimes significantly faster than the competition from AMD, models above 2.0GHz are nigh-impossible to find on either Newegg or our price search engine. Additionally, we weren’t able to find any compatible motherboards with dual PCI Express x16 slots and SLI support. Since NVIDIA’s Quad SLI is now within the grasp of enthusiasts, it’d be a shame to go all-out on the CPU front without leaving an option for ridiculous graphics power. Besides, our Opteron 275s still pack plenty of punch with two cores each, resulting in a proto-4×4 system. Multitasking will scream with this machine, as will multithreaded apps.

Motherboard
We’ve selected the Tyan Thunder K8WE for this build because its NVIDIA nForce Pro 2200/2050 chipset combo offers dual PCI Express slots with 16 lanes each, allowing for workstation-class multi-GPU support. The board also features three PCI-X slots, enabling the addition of Serial ATA or SCSI RAID cards—quite handy if you’d prefer to trade our 10,000-RPM Raptors for some 15,000-RPM SCSI screamers. We do wish the Thunder K8WE offered more onboard Serial ATA ports, though. The four onboard don’t leave any breathing room for upgrades beyond our recommended storage configuration.

Memory
200-series Opterons need registered memory, and Corsair’s registered DDR400 DIMMs get the nod here. At $115 a pop, these sticks are significantly more expensive than their unbuffered counterparts, but their error correction capability makes for better reliability. We’ve decided to use two 1GB modules per processor, or one per memory channel. We could have opted for 512MB sticks, but there’s really no reason to skimp on RAM for a workstation like this one.

Graphics
Users looking to run workstation-class 3D design and engineering applications will want a FireGL or Quadro card, which we cover in our alternatives section. Gamers, meanwhile, will enjoy our dual GeForce 7950 GX2 graphics cards running in Quad SLI mode. NVIDIA has just released its first set of official ForceWare drivers that enable Quad SLI on those cards, and early performance results look impressive to say the least. We’ve picked out MSI’s GeForce 7950 GX2 since it features video capture functionality and also happens to be among the cheapest of its class.

Storage
We’re still recommending two 150GB Western Digital Raptors and a pair of Western Digital Caviar RE2s for our workstation’s storage, but we’ve chosen the new 500GB RE2s instead of the 400GB models we selected previously. Aside from offering 100GB more storage, the 500GB RE2 supports 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer speeds and offers faster performance across the board than its 400GB predecessor. Noise levels and power consumption are lower, too.

As always, our pairs of recommended hard drives can be run in RAID 0 or 1 arrays. RAID 0 may double the chances of data loss while only marginally improving overall system performance, but a pair of striped Raptors will give some extra punch to storage-intensive tasks. As for the RE2s, they can be combined in a RAID 1 array for increased fault-tolerance. In fact, if you favor better performance or greater storage capacity, four of either drive can easily be combined in a fault-tolerant RAID 0+1 array.

For an optical drive, we’re carrying over the NEC ND-3550A to this system, too. We see no reason to recommend a more expensive DVD burner.

Audio
We won’t dabble in the world of professional recording sound cards, as we haven’t spend nearly enough time with them. The Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic should nicely complement our workstation, even if it’s just to listen to Beethoven’s 5th while running complicated weather simulations.

Power supply
Quad SLI demands some serious power, so we’ve taken the 850W PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool from our previous guide’s workstation alternatives and put it among our main recommendations. This power supply really delivers, with four +12V rails rated for a maximum combined output of 648W. With that kind of juice under the hood, our workstation should comfortably handle our quartets of CPU cores, GPUs, and hard drives.

Enclosure
The Lian-Li PC-V1200 is our case of choice for this machine. The PC-V1200 supports the Thunder K8WE’s Extended ATX form factor and features an interesting flipped design with separate cooling zones reminiscent of Apple’s PowerMac G5.

Motherboard
The Editor’s Choice award-winning Asus K8N-DL is back as our alternative workstation motherboard. We think this board’s low price and overclocking options will give it an edge for enthusiasts leading double lives as workstation users. The K8N-DL is also smaller than the Thunder K8WE, which allows it to fit in some ATX cases—a handy option should you prefer to use a case other than our recommended Lian-Li PC-V1200.

That said, the K8N-DL does cut some corners compared to the Thunder K8WE. It only features one PCI Express x16 slot, prohibiting SLI. PCI-X slots are missing, too, limiting performance and compatibility with high-end SCSI cards. The Asus board also strips one of the Opterons of two of its memory slots, limiting that chip to 2GB of memory. Of course, the Opteron’s non-uniform memory architecture allows CPUs to borrow each other’s RAM, so the missing DIMM slots aren’t as big an issue as they might seem. Users looking for an intermediate solution may also want to have a look at the Supermicro H8DCE, even if we’ve had too little experience with the board to recommend it directly.

Graphics
We reckon users purchasing a workstation system may be after some workstation-class graphics power, which is why we’ve gone with the high-end Quadro FX 4500 as our alternative. Currently, it’s the only Quadro FX card available based on NVIDIA’s recent G70 architecture. NVIDIA recently launched a new lineup of G71-, G72-, and G73-based offerings at price points from $169 to $999, though, so they may be worth looking into for users who’d rather not blow $1,499 on the FX 4500. ATI’s FireGL cards are also interesting options, but unlike high-end Quadros that will happily run in SLI mode, the FireGLs don’t support any kind of multi-GPU configuration. We think SLI is a worthwhile option to have for some workstation users, so the Quadro is our choice as a workstation alternative.

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
We could dedicate an entire article to debating the pros and cons of various operating systems, but we’ll just concentrate on the most popular versions of Windows for now. After all, Windows is what the vast majority of users will be running, especially if they intend on playing games.

For the penny-conscious system builder Windows XP Home Edition is usually the panacea. At $199, the retail version isn’t exactly cheap. OEM versions can be purchased for as low as $90, though, and they’re perfectly legal for use by system builders. Microsoft defines a system builder as “anyone who assembles, reassembles or installs software on a new or used computer system,” which would certainly seem to cover users who build their own machines. Since Microsoft also seems to think installing an OEM copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition on a home-built computer is perfectly fine, we doubt they’ll mind you doing the same with other versions of XP.

Speaking of other versions, power users may find themselves better served by Windows XP Professional. The Pro version provides additional features over XP Home, such as remote desktop connectivity, multiprocessor support, file system encryption, and administration capabilities. Again, the suggested retail price of $299 is quite steep, but OEM versions are available for less than $150. We think XP Pro’s remote desktop capability, which allows users to control their computer from a remote system, makes it worth the extra premium. A list of the other differences between XP Pro and XP Home can be found here.

Windows XP Pro x64 Edition is also an interesting contender. Since all the systems we recommended today have 64-bit processors, some users may feel tempted to purchase a 64-bit operating system. As we’ve explained in our look at 64-bit computing in theory and practice, a 64-bit OS will allow the use of over 4GB of RAM (or over 3GB per application) without any complicated workarounds. x86-64 can also grant a nice performance boost in some apps, provided they’ve been coded for 64-bit systems. However, Windows XP x64 is incompatible with 32-bit device drivers, and 64-bit drivers are still far from omnipresent. Our own attempts to use the operating system have been hindered by this problem, so users not feeling particularly adventurous might want to stay clear for the time being.

Finally, while we don’t cover home theater PCs in this guide, some may consider Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 instead of the vanilla Windows XP Home and Pro. WinXP MCE implements a variety of features for TV recording, as well as DVD, video, and music playback, all of which can be controlled from across the room via a remote control. Be warned, however: Microsoft doesn’t sell a retail version, so you’ll be forced to buy an OEM copy. Microsoft doesn’t seem to mind, though.

A decent display
Like operating systems, this topic could really fit into its own separate article. We won’t pretend to have enough testing experience to recommend a particular display over the many that are out there, but some of us are personally quite fond of Dell’s 20″ UltraSharp 2001FP. It features a 1600×1200 resolution, 16ms response time, 250cd/m² luminosity, and a 400:1 contrast ratio. Dell also recently introduced a 2007FP replacement with 300cd/m² luminosity and an 800:1 contrast ratio, and while we’ve had no experience with it yet, it certainly looks good on paper. Both displays are available in the $400-500 range, and Dell regularly offers sizeable rebate specials.

Keyboard and mouse
If you’re buying a decent system, and especially if you intend to play games, you’ll want a good mouse and keyboard to go with it. Both Microsoft and Logitech have a host of laser optical mice available at relatively low prices, so now is a good time to indulge yourself. On the wireless side, Logitech’s MX1000 is a popular choice, offering a laser optical engine, tilt wheel, charging dock, and responsiveness that’s virtually indistinguishable from wired models. For hard-core gamers, the Logitech G5 uses a good old-fashioned mouse cord and packs a couple of unique features: the mouse has two buttons near the wheel to change tracking precision in real-time, and it sports a weight cartridge that Logitech claims offers weight and balance adjustments. If you’d rather not blow $50 on a mouse, Microsoft’s Laser Mouse 6000 is a solid alternative that can be found for under $40.

There are at least two major schools of thought on keyboard. Some users will prefer the latest and fanciest offerings from Logitech and Microsoft, with their smorgasbords of media keys, sliders, knobs, scroll wheels, and even built-in LCD displays. Other users, meanwhile, like their keyboards loud, clicky, and heavy enough to beat a man to death with. We think Microsoft’s Comfort Curve Keyboard is a good intermediate choice between the two, with a low price tag, only a handful of media keys, and a sleek, minimalist design. Key travel isn’t quite what we’d like it to be on the Comfort Curve, though, so try before you buy. If you’re one of the old-school types, you may want to try a Unicomp Customizer 101/104, or simply an original vintage-dated IBM Model M. Fifty bucks is a lot to put down for a keyboard, but these beasts can easily last a couple of decades.

Floppy drive/card reader combo
Since the advent of cheap USB drive keys and broadband internet access, floppy drives have essentially been rendered obsolete. They can still come in handy in a few instances, though, like when you’re installing Windows to a system with a dedicated Serial ATA controller. You could just spend $10 on a run-of-the-mill internal floppy drive, but we prefer to opt for a floppy/7-in-1 flash card reader combo like this Mitsumi model instead. You’re still getting a floppy drive, but the added flash card reading functionality will probably prove more useful over the long run, and it only ups the price another $10.

Conclusions
With AMD’s price cuts and Intel’s Core 2 launch, the CPU landscape has been dramatically re-shaped with faster, cheaper, and more power-efficient processors. AMD may have lost the performance crown to Intel, but as you’ve seen, the company’s price cuts have provided some very interesting options in the sub-$200 range. Unfortunately, these changes in the processor market are offset somewhat by expensive DDR2-800 memory and the relatively high price of Core 2-compatible motherboards. Still, considering the level of performance per dollar offered compared to just two weeks ago, now is still an excellent time to purchase a new desktop machine.

As always, you’re welcome to hit our System Builders Anonymous forum to get some additional tips and insights on system building, or to ask for critiques of changes you might have made to our recommended systems. Folks post proposed system specifications in there all the time. 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.