I've had my new system for almost a month now, and I can honestly say it destroys my previous Pentium D 805 system in every aspect. I decided to go ahead and spend a little extra on this system, and in the end I am quite happy with what I got.
AMD Athlon X2 Brisbane 4400 $85
Biostar TF7025-M2 $70
2 gb of Patriot High Performance DDR2 800 memory $60 after rebate
Athenatech Micro-atx case with 270 watt Sparkle power supply $65
Samsung DVD-RW $30
All in all, I spent around $300 for everything. Not too shabby. I used the Samsung 200gb SATA hard drive and wireless card from my old system. I didn't have to worry about a graphics card because the Biostar TF7025-M2 has integrated Geforce 7025 graphics, which surprisngly weren't all that bad.
In stock configuration for being a budget PC, the system simply rocks. It scores a 2463 in Geekbench under Windows XP. With a slight overclock, the system is able to score a 2714.
In SuperPi, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane core caculates pi to a million digits in 40 seconds. Of course, the program doesn't take advantage of the two cores.
In Windows Vista, the system scores very high in CPU, memory, and hard drive. The onboard graphics hold the system back, but not as bad as one may think. It scores a 3.3 base score. The onboard graphics (Geforce 7025) actually score the same as a Geforce 7300 GS PCI Express card, so guess I'm stuck with a 3.3 in Vista's rating system.
More about the system, including component reviews later...
AMD Athlon X2 Brisbane 4400 $85
Biostar TF7025-M2 $70
2 gb of Patriot High Performance DDR2 800 memory $60 after rebate
Athenatech Micro-atx case with 270 watt Sparkle power supply $65
Samsung DVD-RW $30
All in all, I spent around $300 for everything. Not too shabby. I used the Samsung 200gb SATA hard drive and wireless card from my old system. I didn't have to worry about a graphics card because the Biostar TF7025-M2 has integrated Geforce 7025 graphics, which surprisngly weren't all that bad.
In stock configuration for being a budget PC, the system simply rocks. It scores a 2463 in Geekbench under Windows XP. With a slight overclock, the system is able to score a 2714.
In SuperPi, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane core caculates pi to a million digits in 40 seconds. Of course, the program doesn't take advantage of the two cores.
In Windows Vista, the system scores very high in CPU, memory, and hard drive. The onboard graphics hold the system back, but not as bad as one may think. It scores a 3.3 base score. The onboard graphics (Geforce 7025) actually score the same as a Geforce 7300 GS PCI Express card, so guess I'm stuck with a 3.3 in Vista's rating system.
More about the system, including component reviews later...