Buyer's Guide - May 2000

Case
Supermicro SC750-A Full Tower ATX - $150
Fong Kai FK-320ATX Mid Tower ATX - $120
We need a case that can handle anything we can throw at it, but at a reasonable price level.  That case is the Supermicro SC750-A full tower and is available for about $150 with an Athlon approved 300W Sparkle power supply.  A total of ten drive bays and the ability to accept an extended ATX motherboard insures that this system will always have room for upgrades. 

If you want something a little smaller than the monstrous SC750-A for your home, consider the Fong Kai FK-320ATX. It offers plenty of room to work inside, is well built, provides excellent cooling, and even includes an Athlon 1 GHz approved Enhance 730-ATX power supply.

For more information, read our Supermicro SC750-A and Fong Kai FK-320ATX Reviews.

Sound card – Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer - $100
Choosing between the Aureal SQ2500 and the SBLive! was one of the more difficult decisions in this guide.  With the dream system, we needed an SMP compatible card, and the Live! was the one that fit the bill, but we don’t have that requirement here.  We’ve decided to stick with the Sound Blaster Live! anyway for its ability to connect digitally to a four point surround system.  Throw in proper support for Windows 2000 and the SBLive! is hard to pass by.  We chose the X-Gamer model for its digital speaker interface, although you can save about $50 by going with an OEM model.

If you don’t plan on using the digital speaker interface, the Aureal SQ2500 is a better choice since it supports both EAX and A3D in the latest driver release.  Basic audio support is included with Windows 2000 and a beta of the feature complete Aureal drivers have finally been released officially. An OEM version of the SQ2500 is also available for around $50 with a bit of searching. It looks like Aureal has pulled through their near death experience of a month ago and should be around to support the cards.

Speakers – Cambridge SoundWorks Desktop Theater DTT2500 - $200
We obviously need some speakers with 4-channel surround support to properly render the 3D positional audio output of our SBLive!  As mentioned previously, we also wanted something that could interface with the digital out on the Live!  Well, the Desktop Theater DTT2500 looked to fit the bill.  But the real key is its top-notch sound quality and built-in Dolby Digital decoder.

For more information, read our Cambridge SoundWorks Desktop Theater DTT2500 Review.

Ethernet – Linksys EtherFast 10/100 - $20
We use Linksys products here in the AnandTech lab all the time and have never been disappointed.  Besides, at just $20 for a card with full support directly from the manufacturer under the major OS’s, including Linux and Windows 2000, the EtherFast 10/100 is a deal that’s impossible to pass up. 

Hard drive – 2 x Maxtor Diamond Max 40 Plus 20GB - $150 x 2
We finally got a Maxtor Diamond Max 40 Plus in the lab for testing and turned out to clearly be the fastest Ultra ATA 66 hard drive for now.  “For now” being the operative words, however, as the hard drive industry is moving faster than ever before.  For now, our high-end professional machine will use the 40GB model from the Diamond Max 40 Plus family.  This month, we're going for two 20GB models to run off our RAID controller on the high end systems.

If you’re work is disk intensive, considering going with a 10,000 RPM drive and an Ultra 160 controller.  The Atlas 10K II is widely available and is well known to be one of the fastest drives available.

RAID Controller - Promise FastTrak66 - $100
Promise has long been in the add-on IDE controller market so they are the most logical choice for an IDE RAID controller. If you want to save almost 75% off the cost of the FastTrak66, there's information floating out there on the web that shows you how to convert the much less expensive Promise Ultra66 into the FastTrak66 model. The conversion requires soldering skills, will void the card's warranty, and could possibly destroy the card - not a conversion for the faint of heart.

CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM
Pioneer DVD-104S 10X Slot DVD - $120
Plextor PlexWriter 8/4/32 - $200
What high-end system is complete today without a DVD-ROM?  We decided to go with the Pioneer DVD-104S, a 10X DVD-ROM drive with a slot-loading interface that is just too slick.  Of course, it also reads CDs as well at a swift 40X max clip. 

If you don’t need DVD support, the Kenwood TrueX 72X will provide you with the fastest CD-ROM speed on earth for about the same price.

Plextor is back again, this time with the fastest IDE CD-R on the market right now.  The PlexWriter 8/4/32 is their first entry into the IDE market, and it has been selling like hot cakes since its release. 

OS – Windows 2000 / Windows 98SE Dual Boot - $400 for both
Even though Windows 2000 supports DirectX 7, immature drivers and the general overhead of the OS prevent it from performing on par with Windows 98 when it comes to games.  Of course, Windows 2000 is the future, and its just so much more stable.  Our solution: work in Windows 2000 and boot back to Windows 98SE if you need maximum performance for games.  Of course, if you just need a quick break from work, you can still frag in Win2K. 

Bottom Line: $3140 (without software)