Budget System
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
Athlon XP 2500+ – Our review
| Coming in well under $100, this processor is by far the best deal running on any processor line. The Athlon XP 2500+ is a Barton core processor running on the 333 MHz front-side bus. Many, many users are showing that these can be easily overclocked to the speed of the Athlon XP 3200+ by simply adjust the FSB from 333 MHz to 400 MHz in the motherboard’s bios. Either way, you are going to get great speed for the little cash you are shelling out for this CPU. |
Asus A7N8X Deluxe-E – Our review
| This latest (and possibly last) Athlon XP motherboard from Asus is probably the best I have seen to date. It adds integrated wireless internet into the already widely successful A7N8X motherboard. Asus has also added Gigabit LAN to the board as well. You get these options for about $25 more than the regular A7N8X, so the additional cost is well worth the benefits. |
Corsair 512MB XMS3200
| This memory is two 256MB modules, tested by Corsair in this pair set, to take full advantage of the dual-channel memory of the NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. This memory runs at very low timings and will also give you some headroom for overclocking if you wish to do so. |
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra – Our review
| Even though this is labeled a “budget” system, it is in fact a “budget gaming” system, and we wouldn’t dare recommend a card that couldn’t handle that task. As we mentioned in our previous system spec, the GFX 5700 Ultra and the Radeon 9600XT perform very similarly, so you can swap either for the other if you wish. |
Western Digital 80GB Caviar
| This nearly the smallest hard drive you can buy today, which may feel some of you feel a little inadequate. 🙂 In any event, this drive still sports the 8MB buffer that allows the WD drives to stay near the top of the performance curve for IDE drives. |
