Weekly Buyer's Guide: Mid-Range System - March 2004
by Evan Lieb on March 24, 2004 2:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
CPU and Motherboard Alternatives
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8C 800MHz FSB (512K L2 cache) NorthwoodMotherboard: ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (865PE chipset)
Price: CPU - $178 shipped (retail heatsink and fan). Motherboard - $121 shipped
Ever since the introduction of 800MHz FSB and HT (Hyper Threading) processors, Intel has been trouncing AMD with their mid-range and high end CPU offerings in terms of performance. While you might initially think the Athlon XP 2800+ (512K L2 cache) is just as fast as a Pentium 4 2.8C (512K L2 cache), the fact is that they're not the performance equivalents of each other. While the 2.8C isn't quite as fast as AMD's Athlon 64 offerings in most applications, they are certainly faster than AMD's Athlon XP offerings. In games, content creation, and encoding, there's about a 20%-30% or so performance gain in going from an Athlon XP 2800+ (512K L2 cache) to a Pentium 4 2.8C (512K L2 cache) processor. Most of that performance is quite noticeable too, though at the same time, some of it will not be noticeable at all in the real world. In office programs, you're not going to notice much difference between the 2.8C and 2800+, if any difference at all.
Anyway, after some debate, we finally concluded that while the 2.8C offers tremendous performance, the $58 premium for a 2.8C over a 2800+ was a just bit too hefty for our liking. However, if the extra performance that a 2.8C provides over a 2800+ in the programs mentioned above is worth the $58 extra price tag to you, then by all means, purchase a 2.8C. If not, save yourself $58 and use it to upgrade a more important part of your system.
This pick was a tough one, as ABIT, Gigabyte, DFI, MSI and other motherboard manufacturers offer excellent mid-range 865PE offerings. In the end, ASUS had just enough features and performance with their P4P800 Deluxe to edge out the other contenders, not to mention the fact that we've personally tested and approved this motherboard for reliability. The P4P800 Deluxe is one of the best currently available Intel motherboards that you can pair with an 800MHz FSB processor, and therefore a 2.8C processor is perfect. The P4P800-D has an excellent balance of great features (SATA and IDE RAID, Gigabit LAN, IEEE1394 FireWire, etc.), 865PE performance, and a very good "mid-range" price at $121 shipped. Most online vendors sell this board for more like $125-$130, but as you can see, you will be able to find it for less at a few reputable online vendors. If you were so inclined to, the P4P800 Deluxe is also an excellent motherboard for FSB overclocking if you want to enter into more experienced user territory. Otherwise, we suggest you stick to stock, and not overclocked speeds, if you are a beginning builder.
For a more in-depth look at the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, we suggest you take a look at our Intel motherboard roundup from last year.
Listed below is part of our RealTime pricing engine, which lists the lowest prices available on the Intel CPUs and motherboards from many different reputable vendors:
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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reep - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
i would save ~50$ by going for the 2500+ instead of the 2800+ - the difference in performance is hardly worth it. instead, that money could be brought to much better use by spending it on 2x512mb of ram.NeoGodless - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I agree with #10... this is really the mid range buyers guide. In addition, the dual channel motherboards I've had experience with simply need at least memory slots filled to enable dual channel, and adding additional memory does not disable it.magratton - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I think many of you are missing the point here. If you want to do the AXPM 2500 and overclock it then that is the "Overclockers" Guide. This guide is for folks who don't know much (a little more than the average joe per se) and want a good system for their needs. To that end these recommendations are pretty decent to me and will certainly make the average gamer around town looking to save a few bucks plenty happy for a while. Either way, people will be much happier with the cost and effectiveness of this system in the long run than the stuff they can pick up at their local (and online) mass-market dealer.As to the TogdorJW's comments on RAM, yes, 512MB is really the MINIMUM nowadays, and some note should be given that if you are using this for gaming spending a few more dollars to get to 1GB RAM should be looked into.
Myrandex - Thursday, March 25, 2004 - link
I would get the <$145 Radein 9800se 256bit 128MB from newegg and softmod it to a full blown 9800, and ditto with previous posts about the 2500+ CPUs instead of the 2800, and on the alternative choice I would put the new Athlon64 2800+ instead of that P4.Jason
mlsaxx - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Oh, one other thing. I know this is the mid-range, and an extra $100 on RAM is a lot of money. However, it really has to be recommended for anyone that does a lot of gaming, especially on the Athlon XP system. Since you lose dual-channel if you occupy all three memory slots, the 512 MB configurations you recommend are going to be lower performing if they are later upgraded. (I would love for you to do some benchmarks on this, incidentally!) This isn't a real problem for the P4 alternative, since you can upgrade to 4x256 for 1 GB of RAM when it suits you.Anyway, for gamers looking at spending the extra money on the Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, they really need to be aware of how many games are starting to break the 512 MB threshhold. I have 1 GB of RAM and a Ti4200 graphics card, and Battlefield: Vietnam and UT2K4 both run perfectly fine for me at 1024x768 and moderate detail. Others running faster graphics cards (9800 Pro) with 512 MB of RAM are posting a lot of complaints in the BF:V and UT2K4 forums. It might bump the price up another $100, but spending $90 on 2x256 MB of RAM for an Athlon XP and then ditching that to go up to 2x512 in a few months would not be cool.
TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Sounds like the new Athlon 64 2800+ will probably become the alternative CPU/mobo next time the mid-range system comes around. Not sure about the longevity of that solution, but then, nothing lasts forever. Highly mature and stable PCI/AGP is probably better than version 1.0 PCIe and DDR2 for the next 18 months.For the rest, this is the mid-range system *without* overclocking. In that segment, the 2800+ is a pretty good choice, although the 2600+ is also an option. Can't complain too much about the choices, although I'm certainly itching to see what sort of overclocks can be achieved with the new A64 2800+. :)
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
You could pay more for an XP3000+, or spend just $80 on an XP2500+ and overclock it a bit but thats not what I'd get.I'd spend $95 on an XP-M 2500+ (still saving over twenty dollars compared to the recommended XP2800+), set the voltage to the normal 1.65V of an XP2500+ (non-mobile), set the FSB to 200MHz and the multiplier to 11, and bingo -- you've got an XP3200+ :)
gofor55 - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Unless you have RAID 0 test results on the ITE based GigaRAID onboard controller, you need to STOP touting this feature. I own a 7N400 Pro 2 and the GigaRAID performance is terrible. It's even a crummy when used as an IDE interface. I had to disable it and add a RocketRAID controller.wassup4u2 - Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - link
Why the AXP 2800+ instead of the 2500+? The 2500 is tons cheaper ($81 retail, shipped on newegg), and is only 250MHz slower. It still offers the 333MHz FSB and 512Kb L2 cache. Plus, it's very easily overclockable to the 2.08GHz that the 2800+ offers, even with the retail cooler. Get a better cooler and, presto, you can have yourself a nice little $81 Athlon XP 3200+.