February Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 8

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon XP System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $54
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton - $118
Cooling: Vantec AeroFlow VA4-C7040 - $23
Motherboard: MSI K7N2 Delta-L - $73
Memory: 512-MB (2x256-MB) Corsair PC3200 DDR - $87
Hard Drive: 120GB Western Digital SE - $90
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro 128-MB - $143
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $179
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $60
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive - $47
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $85
Floppy: Panasonic, TEAC, etc. - $8

Total: $997

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $54
CPU: Pentium 4-2.8 GHz Retail - $170
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: ABIT IS7-E - $85
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC3200 DDR - $72
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE - $70
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon 9600 Pro 128-MB - $143
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $179
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $60
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive - $47
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $85
Floppy: Panasonic, TEAC, etc. - $8

Total: $1,003

Conclusion

Each month, we upgrade a few components that in turn, provide an incremental jump in both performance and features. Last month was a bit of 'two steps forward, one step back", but this time out, we've gone back to the usual pattern. The majority of system components remained the same, but we did manage to upgrade the Intel processor to the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, and moving the DDR memory from PC2700 to PC3200. The AMD side was more sedate, with only the DDR memory and hard drive selection moving, though both offered a great opportunity to make use of the lower AMD platform costs and budget cushion. The video card portion was adjusted to provide a bit more value, but from a performance standpoint, it was a non-issue. Overall, these two systems are coming together quite nicely, and both provide a lot of high-end features at a very attractive price.

The performance race has also evened out between AMD and Intel, with the Athlon XP 2800+ and Pentium 4-2.8 GHz processors matched up well, and both systems sport PC3200 DDR and Radeon 9600 Pro video cards. Any real differences will come out when overclocking, as at base speeds, this is a pretty tight race. Looking over the component list, it's mind-boggling what you can put together for $1K. The Intel and AMD side both incorporate relatively high-performance CPUs, 512-MB of dual-channel PC3200 DDR, 7200 RPM, 8-MB cache hard drives, and even CDR/RW and DVD-ROM capabilities. If overall value is your main goal, these value gaming systems certainly deliver, and offer a noticeable price-performance advantage over our higher-end guide configurations.

* 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.