Mid-range system - May 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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Team Xtreem Dark 2 GB DDR2-800 kit | Memory modules |
| Xtreem Dark is a new series from the brand "Team", high quality modules for a very acceptable price. The DDr2-800 modules we chose for this month's system proved to be able to overclock to 1100MHz when we tested them on a P965 chipset. There can be no other choice for our mid-range system. | ||
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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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MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC | Graphics cards |
| The arrival of the GeForce 8600 series means that you do not have to bend over backwards to be able to afford a DirectX 10 card. The GTS version is fast enough for anybody par the true die hard gamers. The 8600GTS is not only sufficient for all current games, it also enables 1080p playback without to much stress on the processor. We opted for MSI's NX8600GTS-T2D256E-HD-OC, similarly priced to all other brands, but this verson comes factory overclocked and bundled with the game Company of Heroes. | ||
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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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Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320 GB | Hard disks (internal) |
| Over the last months hard drives have been growing bigger and cheaper, at this point 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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Lite-On LH-20A1S | Optical drives |
| Lite-On LH-20AH1 is the best writer out there at the moment. It could handel all media we threw at t and managed to burn at the fastest speeds we've seen up to date. The 20x speed means that most media will be done in about 5 minutes, and this drive is one of the cheapest as well. We chose the Serial ATA version of the drive. | ||
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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
Game controllers
Graphics cards
Hard disks (external)
Hard disks (internal)
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
USB flash drives
Video card coolers
Webcams
