May 2002 Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 9

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon XP System

Case: Antec SX630 Case (PP303XP PSU) - $60
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1800+ - $106
Cooling: ThermalTake Volcano 7 & Athlon XP Shim - $28
Motherboard: MSI KT3 Ultra - $93
Memory: 256 MB PC2700 DDR - $60
Hard Drive: 40GB Maxtor D740X - $78
Video Card: Abit Siluro GF3 Ti 200 - $114
Monitor: LG Flatron 795FT Plus / Samsung 700NF - $205
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 OEM - $25
Speakers: Logitech Z540 5-Piece Speaker System - $55
CD/DVD-ROM: LG 16X DVD - $32
Communications: Creative Labs Modem Blaster 56K PCI or D-Link 530TX - $20
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: MS Internet Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78
Floppy: Generic - $8

Total: $992

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Antec SX630 Case (PP303XP PSU) - $60
Processor: Pentium 4 1.6A GHz Retail - $129
Cooling: Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard ASUS P4S533 - $104
Memory: 256 MB PC2700 DDR - $60
Hard Drive: 40GB Maxtor D740X - $78
Video Card: Abit Siluro GF3 Ti 200 - $114
Monitor: LG Flatron 795FT Plus / Samsung 700NF - $205
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 OEM - $25
Speakers: Logitech Z540 5-Piece Speaker System - $55
CD/DVD-ROM: LG 16X DVD - $32
Communications: Creative Labs Modem Blaster 56K PCI or D-Link 530TX - $20
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: MS Internet Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78
Floppy: Generic - $8

Total: $998

Conclusion

This month, the overall configuration tends to favor the Athlon XP by a slim margin. This observation is using standard clock speeds, and we all know what an overclocking demon the Pentium 4-1.6A is. So if you intend to really pull out all the stops using the 533 MHz front-side bus, then the Intel rig will probably ride to the performance victory.

From an overall standpoint, the two systems are quite impressive. These include 256MB of PC2700, KT333 and SiS645DX motherboards, GeForce3 Ti 200 video, along with some excellent audio and control peripherals. I don't know about the rest of you, but the kind of system you can assemble for $1,000 is quite astounding, and should easily handle both current and upcoming games.

Next month we'll be hoping for lower CPU and DDR prices, as well as seeing how the GeForce4 Ti 4200 release affects overall video card prices. If we could slide a true Radeon 8500 or higher-end GeForce3 board into our value gaming rig, it would be like icing on the top of the cake. Getting a SoundBlaster Audigy OEM would also be a coup but we'll have to put in our 30 days before we know what sort of cash savings we may have left over.

Please note that the prices in our guide do not include shipping costs or taxes. The final system price also reflects a "best case" scenario of finding an online vendor that stocks the majority of internal components, or having access to a number of local computer retailers for system quotes and comparison shopping.