Buyer's Guide: Value SOHO - September 2002

Although different than the Antec KS388 case we recommended in our last value SOHO buyer's guide, the SX630 is the case we recommended in both our value gaming and value processional 3D systems.

The SX630 is fairly similar to the KS388 but offers superior cooling and a slightly lower price ($5 less). The SX630 is a mini tower system that includes 8 drive bays (five 3.5" bays and three 5.25" bays), seven expansion slots, a swing-out side panel, and an 80mm rear case fan standard. The SX630 can also accept two front mounted 80mm case fans. The SX630 also comes with an AMD approved 300 watt power supply; more than enough to power our Athlon XP 1600+ processor.

Sound card - Integrated nForce APU - "free"

Again, same motherboard, same integrated sound solution. Here is what we had to say about the nForce APU seven weeks ago:

nForce motherboards come with the most powerful integrated audio solution to date. Powered by an integrated version of Parthus' MediaStream DSP, the Audio Processing Unit (APU) in the nForce's Media and Communications Processor (MCP), the integrated audio in the nForce will not disappoint. As an added bonus, the chipset version in our ASUS A7N266-VM motherboard is the 220-D meaning that it also includes support for real time Dolby Digital Encoding.

Check our our NVIDIA nForce 420/220 review for more information on the nForce's integrated audio solution.

Speakers - Generic - $20

Speaker choice is really not very important in a SOHO system, especially a value one. All that we are really looking for here is a set of speakers that can play Windows sounds and the occasional song. Your best bet for such a speaker system is closer than you may think. Our advice is to go to your local computer store and pick up a set of stereo speakers with volume control for $20 or less. Odds are that it wont sound great, but it will do.

If music while you work is a top priority, opt instead with a name-brand stereo speaker system in the $50-$100 price range. There are some fairly nice 2.1 speaker setups out there at reasonable prices, like the Monsoon MH-502s. Or just go with a set of good headphones.

Ethernet - Integrated nForce - "free"

The integrated ethernet present in the nForce chipset should prove to be plenty good for our value SOHO system. Not only does the integrated network card save a PCI slot, it also saves about $20 from the price of the system.

Hard Drive - Western Digital WD400BB 40GB - $70

Western Digital hard drives are among the fastest out there now. The WD400BB drive selected for our value SOHO machine is fast and priced fairly reasonably. The drive did go up $5 this week to $70 but for your money you will be getting the best 7200RPM hard drive for the price. The WDx00JB drives we recommended for our high-end systems may be faster with their 8MB buffers but they are also about $20 more. If you are somewhat flexible on budget it may be worth it to go with the WD400JB for the extra performance that it offers. If not, don't sweat it, the WD400BB is fairly fast anyway.

For those wanting more space, the 60GB WD600BB runs about $85 and the 80GB WD800BB is selling at $95.

CD-R/CD-RW - Name brand 24x10x40 Drive - $50

Recordable CD drives have fallen enough in price to justify their place in our value SOHO machine. One can get a CD recorder that reads almost as fast as dedicated CD drives but also offers the ability to backup and transfer data. There are a few companies out there that offer CD-R drives with these specs at this price. In particular, we looked at the BTC BCE2410IM CDRW drive but other brands like ASUS, AOpen, and Lite On offer drives with similar specifications at competitive prices. In fact, $10 more can get you a 40x burner in some cases.

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Professional - $275

If you want to get work done and are in an office environment of some sort, Windows XP Professional is the way to go. The OS offers great stability, competitive performance, and the best software compatibility out there. Office systems will benefit from the Professional version's advanced networking features and tools.

Bottom Line: $599 (without software)