![](/Content/images/logo2.png)
Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/985
Buyer's Guide: Value SOHO - September 2002
by Matthew Witheiler on September 9, 2002 1:46 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
This article was first available on the AnandTech Newsletter. Click Here to Subscribe.
When we set out over a month ago to bring you weekly buyer's guides we knew we had quite a task on our hands. Choosing components and assembling them into the best system for the appropriate situation is not an easy task. We are forced to evaluate a number of products on a number of levels, from price to performance. Needless to say, we occasionally ran into a few bumps in the road but overall we are confident that our buyer's guides provide sound system advice and are only getting better.
Since the buyer's guides are now weekly, we go through a period of seven weeks each with a different system recommendation. We started initially with the value SOHO buyer's guide, continuing on to the value gaming, value professional 3D, high-end SOHO, high-end gaming , high-end professional 3D guides and finishing with the dream system buyer's guide. Since that seven week cycle has been completed, it is time to go back and take a look at the system we recommended seven weeks ago, the value SOHO system.
When redoing a specific buyer's guide, we reevaluate the components selected for the system based on new prices, new technology, and reader input. It is almost guaranteed that the bottom line will change, going either up or down depending on the trend in hardware. You are also pretty likely to find some hardware changes throughout the system. Things on the high-end side tend to change fairly rapidly but even the value buyer's guides will include new hardware on a fairly regular basis.
Every component in a recommend system, from case to monitor, is covered. The only hidden costs are shipping costs, which can add anywhere from 5% to 10% to the total system cost depending on what you get and from where. The best way to keep shipping costs down is to order as much as possible from a single vendor or pick things up locally. Be sure to take a look at the AnandTech Hot Deals Forum to see if any AnandTech readers have posted a special deal on a piece of hardware in the recommended system. Also be sure to check out our Weekly CPU & Video Card Price Guide and our Weekly Memory & Motherboard Price Guide to see if prices have been updated since the buyer's guide was last posted.
This Week
The value SOHO system configuration is the first system to be subject to our reevaluation process. We took a look at the hardware we recommended for the system seven weeks ago and realized that there were some changes to be made. Our goal was still the same: to produce a SOHO system that would provide fast application performance at a low price. The value SOHO system won't be filled with the latest and greatest components but rather with pieces that combine to make a value system able to run the vast majority of applications a business user will throw at it.
Upon evaluation, we opted to change our CPU, CD-ROM, and case recommendations. Prices have also been updated this week, ultimately producing a faster system for almost the same exact price.
Value SOHO
Processor - AMD Athlon XP 1600+ (1.40GHz) - $53
Last
value SOHO buyer's guide we recommended a Duron processor to power our business
system on a budget. We cited the processor's fairly good performance along with
its excellent price. Thanks to price cuts this time around, however, we are
pleased to find a more more capable Athlon XP processor at the helm.
Making the move from the Duron 1.3GHz to the Athlon XP 1600+ only brought the processor price up by $3 compared to the Duron prices seven weeks ago. This week's CPU price guide puts the Athlon XP 1600+ at only $12 more than the Duron 1.3GHz: $12 well spent. There is no question that our business machine will benefit from the extra cache offered by the Athlon XP. The 100MHz speed bump doesn't hurt much either.
At this price, it really only makes sense to go with the Athlon XP in our value SOHO machine. Sure, we could have outfitted the system with a new Celeron processor but it would have increased system price a significant amount and not offered all that much of a performance boost. In fact, the majority of our benchmarks show the Athlon XP 1600+ out performing the Celeron 1.7GHz in business tasks.
Read up on the Athlon XP processor in our Athlon XP review.
Motherboard - ASUS A7N266-VM - $70
Our motherboard selection remains the same as it was last time around. Let's look at what we said about this system in our last value SOHO buyer's guide:
Perhaps the most difficult decision in configuring our value SOHO machine was what chipset to go with. We knew that an integrated chipset is a must but deciding what integrated solution to choose was was bit harder. Initially we suspected that the SiS 740 chipset would provide a good mix of speed and price but we were disappointed to find that there are only a few SiS 740 based motherboards out on the market. We did not feel comfortable recommending the limited number of SiS 740 solutions we encountered on the web so we were forced to look elsewhere.
We knew that a DDR setup would be a huge plus for the value SOHO market since it would increase application speed a noticeable amount. For this reason we had to rule out the previous chipset selection, the SiS 730. The only other option available to us was the NVDIA nForce chipset and the more we looked at it, the more we liked it.
nForce motherboard prices have been falling rapidly since its release and at the $70 price point it makes perfect sense for a value system solution. First off, we were able to go with a brand we can trust, ASUS, as opposed to turning to a manufacturer of lesser reputation. This was important, especially in the SOHO market where stability is a must. Secondly, the nForce integrates a good number of features into its chipset. Not only does the nForce integrate GeForce2 MX graphics, it also offers integrated LAN and integrated audio. Finally, the performance of the nForce should not disappoint.
We chose to go with an nForce 220-D solution because, as our NVIDIA nForce 420/220 review showed, the additional memory bandwidth provided by the TwinBank 128-bit memory controller made little to no difference in 2D applications. The speed of the nForce 420 does increase over the nForce 420 while in gaming situations using the integrated GeForce2 MX video solution (because of the shared memory solution) so if you are looking to game on your value SOHO system the extra $15 that the 420 will cost you may be worth it. Just make sure your boss isn't watching.
Read more about the nForce chipset in our NVIDIA nForce 420/220 review.
Memory - 256MB Mushkin BASIC PC2100 SDRAM - $61
Again, we find this buyer's guide stick with the same recommendation made seven weeks ago. We did find that memory prices increased slightly since last time we configured a value SOHO system, adding one more dollar to the total price of the system. Our recommendation of 256MB also remains the same, being that modern operating systems love as much memory as they can get. If you plan on doing some serious multitasking or know that the programs you will be using are very memory hungry, it may be worth the extra money to go with 512MB of total system memory. If you are primarily working in Word and Excel, however, 256MB should be more than enough.
When it comes to memory selection, we have said it once and we will say it again: it is much better to spend a few extra dollars and go with a name you can trust than save a few bucks and get no-name memory that may or may not work properly.
Video Card - Integrated GeForce2 MX Video - "free"
Same motherboard, same integrated video card. Not much more we can say here that we didn't say the first time around:
The integrated GeForce2 MX video processor in the NVIDIA nForce platform is unquestionably the most powerful integrated graphics solution on the market. Not only is the graphics core able to provide good quality 2D output and DVD playback, it is also to do much more gaming than, say, the integrated SiS solutions. The ASUS A7N266-VM also includes an external AGP 4X slot making a video upgrade down the road very simple.
For more information, see our NVIDIA nForce 420/220 review.
Monitor - Samsung 955DF - $200
A
19" monitor should be fairly standard in office setups where increased
desktop space can mean increased productivity. We still find ourselves recommending
the Samsung 955DF as the ideal 19" monitor for our value systems. Our time
with the 955DF proved that the monitor performs well and provides quite the
bang for the buck. It performed superbly in our tests and even fell $15 in price
since last time around. At the $200 price point this is one sweet monitor.
Truthfully, you are fairly safe with any name-brand 19" monitor, be it from Samsung, MAG, Sony, ect. We chose to go with the 955DF simply because we have had personal experience with it.
Sadly, LCD monitors are not reasonable enough in price yet to make them a good recommendation for value systems, although these monitors are most at home in the SOHO environment.
Be sure to check out our Samsung 955DF 19" Monitor review for more information.
Case - Antec SX630 - $75
Although different than the Antec KS388 case we recommended in our last value SOHO buyer's guide, the SX630 is the case we recommended in both our value gaming and value processional 3D systems.
The SX630 is fairly similar to the KS388 but offers superior cooling and a slightly lower price ($5 less). The SX630 is a mini tower system that includes 8 drive bays (five 3.5" bays and three 5.25" bays), seven expansion slots, a swing-out side panel, and an 80mm rear case fan standard. The SX630 can also accept two front mounted 80mm case fans. The SX630 also comes with an AMD approved 300 watt power supply; more than enough to power our Athlon XP 1600+ processor.
Sound card - Integrated nForce APU - "free"
Again, same motherboard, same integrated sound solution. Here is what we had to say about the nForce APU seven weeks ago:
nForce motherboards come with the most powerful integrated audio solution to date. Powered by an integrated version of Parthus' MediaStream DSP, the Audio Processing Unit (APU) in the nForce's Media and Communications Processor (MCP), the integrated audio in the nForce will not disappoint. As an added bonus, the chipset version in our ASUS A7N266-VM motherboard is the 220-D meaning that it also includes support for real time Dolby Digital Encoding.
Check our our NVIDIA nForce 420/220 review for more information on the nForce's integrated audio solution.
Speakers - Generic - $20
Speaker choice is really not very important in a SOHO system, especially a value one. All that we are really looking for here is a set of speakers that can play Windows sounds and the occasional song. Your best bet for such a speaker system is closer than you may think. Our advice is to go to your local computer store and pick up a set of stereo speakers with volume control for $20 or less. Odds are that it wont sound great, but it will do.
If music while you work is a top priority, opt instead with a name-brand stereo speaker system in the $50-$100 price range. There are some fairly nice 2.1 speaker setups out there at reasonable prices, like the Monsoon MH-502s. Or just go with a set of good headphones.
Ethernet - Integrated nForce - "free"
The integrated ethernet present in the nForce chipset should prove to be plenty good for our value SOHO system. Not only does the integrated network card save a PCI slot, it also saves about $20 from the price of the system.
Hard Drive - Western Digital WD400BB 40GB - $70
Western Digital hard drives are among the fastest out there now. The WD400BB drive selected for our value SOHO machine is fast and priced fairly reasonably. The drive did go up $5 this week to $70 but for your money you will be getting the best 7200RPM hard drive for the price. The WDx00JB drives we recommended for our high-end systems may be faster with their 8MB buffers but they are also about $20 more. If you are somewhat flexible on budget it may be worth it to go with the WD400JB for the extra performance that it offers. If not, don't sweat it, the WD400BB is fairly fast anyway.
For those wanting more space, the 60GB WD600BB runs about $85 and the 80GB WD800BB is selling at $95.
CD-R/CD-RW - Name brand 24x10x40 Drive - $50
Recordable CD drives have fallen enough in price to justify their place in our value SOHO machine. One can get a CD recorder that reads almost as fast as dedicated CD drives but also offers the ability to backup and transfer data. There are a few companies out there that offer CD-R drives with these specs at this price. In particular, we looked at the BTC BCE2410IM CDRW drive but other brands like ASUS, AOpen, and Lite On offer drives with similar specifications at competitive prices. In fact, $10 more can get you a 40x burner in some cases.
OS - Microsoft Windows XP Professional - $275
If you want to get work done and are in an office environment of some sort, Windows XP Professional is the way to go. The OS offers great stability, competitive performance, and the best software compatibility out there. Office systems will benefit from the Professional version's advanced networking features and tools.
Bottom Line: $599 (without software)
Summary
Value SOHO |
Component
|
Price
|
CPU
|
AMD
Athlon XP 1600+
|
$53
|
Motherboard
|
ASUS
A7N266-VM
|
$70
|
Memory
|
256MB
Mushkin BASIC PC2100 SDRAM
|
$61
|
Video
Card
|
Integrated
GeForce2 MX Video
|
$0
|
Monitor
|
Samsung
955DF
|
$200
|
Case
|
Antec
SX630
|
$75
|
Sound
Card
|
Integrated
nForce APU
|
$0
|
Speakers
|
Generic
|
$20
|
Ethernet
|
Integrated
nForce
|
$0
|
Hard
Drive
|
Western
Digital WD400BB 40GB
|
$70
|
Hard
Drive Controller
|
Integrated
nForce
|
$0
|
CD-ROM
|
None
|
$0
|
CD-RW
|
Name
brand 24x10x40
|
$50
|
Bottom
line
|
|
$599
|