Mid-range system - March 2007
Mid-range system
The best choice in hardware when looking for a mid range configurationn
Configuration
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Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 | Processors |
| The introduction of the Core 2 Duo processor caused a big upset in the PC market, the new generation is not only faster than the competition, the power consumption is lower. Intel has kept the prices low and although AMD has lowered all prices aggressively they can not beat Intel in price/performance ratios. For our midrange system we opted for the Core 2 Duo E6400, running at 2.13 GHz and sporting 2MB L2 cache. | ||
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Scythe Mine | CPU coolers |
| In our recent CPU cooler test we did for Hardware.Info Magazine the Scythe Mine came out as one of the best performing coolers at a very decent price. The Scythe Mine is also very quiet and taking these three points in account this is the best cooler for our mid range system. | ||
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Memory modules | |
| As the P965 chipset on our motherboard supports DDR2 800 modules in dual channel these are the modules we choose. Recent price drops enable us to include 2 GB of memory in the mid-range system, which will definitely raise the performance in Windows Vista. When purchasing modules make sure you get some of an A-brand manufacturer. | ||
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MSI P965 Platinum | Mainboards |
| Intel released the 965 chipset especially for the Core 2 Duo. It is the successor to the 945 range and aimed at mid range and low end computers. It supports DDR2 -800 and sports the new ICH8 south bridge. All known motherboard manufacturers have released boards based on this chipset and we have chosen the MSI P965 Platinum, a very good board with all the features that the new chipset offers. As the MSI board is cheaper than those of the competition this is a good choice for our system. | ||
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Gigabyte Radeon X1950 Pro | Graphics cards |
| The new X1950 Pro is the ultimate card for a mid-range system. You can pick up a X1950 Pro for around £ 140, similar to the price of a 7900 GS card. The ATI card however performs a lot better than the nVidia ones and has support for simultaneous HDR and FSAA and HDCP. When you wish to upgrade in future the board and card support CrossFire for an easy speed boost. | ||
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| Now that Windows Vista is here there is no more need for a floppy drive in the system. We do advise a card reader as a alternative, as this makes it easy to use all kinds of memory cards like the ones used in digital cameras. | ||
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Western Digital Caviar SE16 320 GB | Hard disks/SSD's |
| Over the last months hard drives have been growing bigger and cheaper, at thi sppoint in time a 320GB hard disk can be found for around £ 60. In our product database you can see that the Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB has the best overall performance of drives in this range. | ||
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Samsung SH-D162A 16x DVD-ROM SATA | Optical drives |
| The Samsung SH-D162 is a decent DVD-ROM drive with good speeds and very low noise levels. Its biggest advantage is the SATA connection, and for our system we choose the version with black bezel to fit the case. | ||
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Samsung SH-S183A Black OEM | Optical drives |
| The Samsung SH-S183A is one of the first DVD writers that can write at 18x speeds, and in our test the average speed of this drive was 13x. Both quality and writing speed was excellent on all media we tested, and we think this drive has the best price/performance ratio at the moment. The writer uses the modern SATA interface and we think has a very good price/perfomance ratio. | ||
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Creative Inspire T6100 5.1 speaker set | Speaker sets |
| For less than £ 50 Creative offers the T6100 6 channel speaker set. The sound it produces is excellent and makes your movies and games come to life. | ||
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Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110 | Keyboard and Mouse |
| The Cordless EX110 might be cheap, and it is a high quality set as we are used to from Logitech. | ||
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Samsung SyncMaster 205BW | Monitors |
| The bigger monitors are becoming more and more affordable, so this month we can choose a 20 inch model with our mid range system. The Samsung 205BW is an excellent widescreen monitor with a 1680 x 1050 resolution and in our tests we found out that the response times and contrast ratios are one of the best out there at the moment. | ||
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Procase Zirco | Cases |
| The Procase Zirco combines design with practicality and space. Its price is not what you would expect and we recommend this case for our mid range system | ||
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Antec SmartPower 2.0 400W | Power supplies |
| The Antec Smartpower 2.0 400 Watt came out as one of the best value PSU's in our recent test, and is a good addition to our mid range system. | ||
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Click here for the detailpage of this product. |
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3D chips
All-in-ones
Barebones
Case fans
Cases
CPU coolers
External hard disks
Game controllers
Graphics cards
Hard disks/SSD's
Headsets
Keyboards
Mainboards
Memory cards
Memory modules
Mice
Monitors
Mouse pads
NAS devices
Notebooks
Optical drives
Power supplies
Powerline adapters
Printers
Processors
Routers
Servers
Sound cards
Speaker sets
Storage controllers
Systems
Televisions
USB flash drives
Video card coolers
Webcams
