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

Price Roundup

AMD Athlon System

Case: Enlight 7230 Case-$50
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1700+-$112
Cooling: Thermaltake Volcano 7-$30
Mainboard: EPoX EP-8KHA+-$90
RAM: 256 MB PC2100 DDR-$64
Hard Drive: 40GB Maxtor D740X 7200 RPM-$84
Video Card : Gainward GeForce2 Ti 64 MB-$101
Monitor: LG Electronics Flatron 17" 795FT Plus / Samsung 700NF-$224
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live! Value-$25
Speakers: Altec Lansing ACS 54-$52
CD-ROM: LG 52x CDROM-$23
Communications: 3Com EtherLink 10/100 3C905C-TX-M or Creative Labs Modem Blaster 56k-$28
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical-$20
Keyboard: MS Internet Keyboard-$15
OS: Windows XP Home-$82
Floppy: Generic-$10

Total: $1010

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Enlight 7230 Case-$50
Processor: Pentium 4 1.6 GHz (Retail)-$140
Cooling: Retail HSF-$0
Mainboard: MSI 845 Ultra-$105
RAM: 256 MB PC2100 DDR-$64
Hard Drive: 40GB Maxtor D740X 7200 RPM-$84
Video Card : Gainward GeForce2 Ti 64 MB-$101
Monitor: LG Electronics Flatron 17" 795FT Plus / Samsung 700NF-$224
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Live! Value-$25
Speakers: Altec Lansing ACS 54-$52
CD-ROM: LG 52x CDROM-$23
Communications: 3Com EtherLink 10/100 3C905C-TX-M or Creative Labs Modem Blaster 56k-$28
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical-$20
Keyboard: MS Internet Keyboard-$15
OS: Windows XP Home-$82
Floppy: Generic-$10

Total: $1023

Conclusion

This month, the system specs seem to favor the AMD rig, if only due to the fact that the Athlon XP offers a bit more power at the value end. With the price increase on DDR memory and the higher prices on the 478-pin Pentium 4 CPUs, this makes it virtually impossible to go any higher than a Pentium 4-1.6 GHz.

In noting this, there is one x-factor in favor of the Pentium 4: the Northwood. These newer Pentium 4 processors are fully compatible with the i845D platform, which makes this a great opportunity to buy a bit lower on the scale now and reap the benefits of a cheap Pentium 4-2.0 GHz or higher upgrade a bit later on. At this time, it is unclear how far AMD will take the Athlon XP, and exactly what kind of compatibility the upcoming Thoroughbred (0.13-micron Athlon XP) will feature.

As far as other components go, we'll be keeping a close eye on DDR prices, as well as how far and how fast prices on the GeForce3 Ti 200 and 3rd-party Radeon 8500 boards will fall in the coming months. Both systems, this month, ended up over the $1000 mark; but it made more sense to treat it as a soft limit than to skimp on RAM.

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.

Vince Freeman
Editor