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Sharky Extreme : Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
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Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
January Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 4By Bao Ly January 30, 2003
Current Cost: $155 X 2 = $310
Current Cost: $209 X 2 = $418 With some product shuffling, and price drops, the Intel system can now rejoin its AMD brethren in the RAID 0 camp. Additionally both systems are sporting Serial ATA RAID controllers, and Seagate has come through with the first Serial ATA hard drives to market. The hard drives have a rated 8.7ms seek time, 7,200RPM rotational speed, and come with 8MB cache.
The AMD system has a much lower CPU cost, so it still retains the 120GB RAID setup that has become a staple in the AMD Extreme machine. The Intel side, with the higher motherboard and CPU costs, will still have RAID functionality, but will be limited to a pair of 80GB drives, rather than the more spacious 120GB drives that the AMD system will have.
While performance benchmarks don't place Serial ATA drives significantly ahead of its ATA 100/133 brethren, the technology is promising, represents the wave of the future, and allows you to take advantage of the super thin cables that Serial ATA drives utilize. This will in turn leave the inside of the case less cramped, and will provide more airflow for smoother system operation.
Cost: $40
This is a gaming machine primarily, but with the soundcard, speakers, and monitor that are going to be included, one might be inclined into watching a few DVD movies here and there. DVD movies are a good distraction especially when you have a deadline to meet but need a 2 hour break. The price difference between a standard CD ROM versus a DVD ROM is not too great, therefore opting for a DVD ROM in the high end gaming machines is a viable option. For DVD ROM drives, there are few better drives out there than this Toshiba 16X DVD ROM. This drive is tray loading drive, which is much more compatible with the smaller sized discs (200MB mini CD's, and 20MB business card type CD's) than their slot loading competition. Toshiba has been a longtime industry leader in optical drives, and this drive is no exception. It's a speedy 16X DVD ROM reader, as well as a not too shabby 48X CD ROM reader, and to top it all off it can read DVD-RAM discs. The technical specs are also impressive, with its 85ms access times, and 512K buffer.
Current Cost: $70
Sure there are PC DVD-R/RW recorders available now, but the adoption rate on them is still quite low, and prices on drives and media have prohibited the average consumer from purchasing them en masse. Although this is an extreme guide, we're going to have to wait a bit longer before adding a DVD-R/RW to the list. Even so, we're switching our guide choice to a CDRW unit that is not only a performance king, but is also quite a good value. . The ASUS CRW-5224A boasts 52X CD write speeds, and 24X CD re-write speeds, 52X CD reading speeds, and a blazing 52X Digital Audio Extraction speeds. This drive is extremely fast and stable, and includes a 2-MB data buffer, and support for buffer under-run protection and optimal writing speed technology. The retail software and hardware bundle is one of the best we've seen, and ASUS not only includes Nero 5, but stuffs a 10-pack of 52X-compatible CDR's and two 24X CDRW disks in as well. The ASUS CRW-5224A isn't one of those drives you can only read the specs on (and wait for available media) but can be used at its top-end performance range right out of the box. The 24X CDRW disks come in mighty handy, especially since it these are incredibly hard to find at the present time.
What can we say about the venerable floppy disk drive? Sometimes you just need one, especially when a pesky NIC requires drivers that are supplied on a floppy.
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