Introduction

We get regular emails from people looking for advice on what sort of components to use in a new computer. Some people are looking at cheap budget builds for a friend or family member; others are looking at high-end gaming setups capable of smoking the latest consoles. However, by far the most common type of computer is the midrange system, and that's the category we will be covering today.

Depending on whom you're talking to, midrange can start as low as $1000 and extend all the way up to around $2000, which undoubtedly gives a lot of flexibility in terms of choosing components. We're going to split the middle and shoot for about $1500 for each of the systems we configure today, which will include everything that's necessary for the intended market. You can spend more or less than that with a little bit of effort, and certainly those who are looking to reuse a few components from their current system will be able to save some money.

For this guide, we're going to put together four configurations that target different user types. Gaming is something we are asked about frequently, so we will start by putting together two gaming systems - one based on an AMD platform and the other using an Intel platform. We'll follow that with a Home Theater PC (HTPC) and an entry level workstation. As always, many of the choices can be debated, and picking out a single component that is "best" is usually a matter of perspective. This is particularly true for our HTPC and workstation configurations, but we will cover that in more detail momentarily.

Finally, before we get to the actual systems, we would be remiss if we didn't point out all of the upcoming hardware launches. AMD's Phenom processors (dual-core and quad-core) should be launching within the next couple of months, potentially bringing them back into the raw performance competition with Intel (as opposed to right now where they're mostly competing on price/performance). Along with the new processors, we expect to see a lot of new chipset launches for the AMD side from both AMD and NVIDIA. It's been a rough year for AMD, with falling prices and market share. We'll have to wait a bit longer to find out if they can really get back into the thick of the battle, but at the very least AMD aficionados might want to wait a bit longer to see how everything pans out before making their next upgrade.

On the Intel side, most of the midrange updates aren't going to be as dramatic, but we should start seeing 45nm Penryn processors showing up in quantity in the near future. All other things being equal, we would certainly prefer to use a 45nm Intel processor, but whether or not you're willing to wait a bit longer for what amounts to a minor speed bump (generally less than 20%) depends a lot on what sort of system you're currently using. If you need a new computer right now (because of a new job or because your current system broke) then you probably can't wait a few weeks let alone months. If you don't actually need (or really want) to upgrade, then go ahead and wait until you do.



AMD Midrange Gaming

Let's start by pointing out the pink elephant hiding in the corner: there's no doubt that Intel has faster processors than anything AMD is currently shipping. Intel also has CPUs that overclock (percentage wise) a lot better than anything AMD currently offers. So why even bother considering AMD? There are several reasons. Price is the biggest attraction, which extends beyond the price of the CPU to the price of the platform as a whole. The other major consideration is that if you're talking about a gaming system, for the vast majority of systems the graphics card is going to be the most important aspect of gaming performance. The features you can get at a particular price point for an AMD setup are also very good. Now that that's out of the way....

AMD Midrange Gaming System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AM2 Black Edition (2.6GHz 2x512K unlocked) - Retail	$130
Motherboard	ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi (nForce 590 SLI)	$167
Memory	Patriot Extreme Performance 2x1GB PC2-8500 (PDC22G8500ELK)	$139	$25
Video Card	XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB (PVT80GGHF4)	$287	$20
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200RPM 16MB (WD3200AAKS)	$80
Optical Drive	Samsung 20X DVD+R SATA (SH-S203B)	$36
Case	Cooler Master Centurion 534 (RC-534-KKN2-GP)	$66	$10
Power Supply	Corsair CMPSU-520HX	$108	$10
Display	Acer AL2216Wbd 22" 5ms (1680x1050)	$235
Speakers	Logitech X-530 5.1 70W Speakers	$66
Keyboard	Saitek Eclipse USB Wired (PZ30AU)	$40
Mouse	Logitech G5 Wired Adjustable Weight	$52	$15
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit (OEM)	$105
Bottom Line		$1511	$1431

The core of any system is the motherboard and processor, and we've gone with AMD's latest X2 5000+ Black Edition sitting snugly in an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi motherboard. The Black Edition's claim to fame of course is its unlocked multiplier, giving overclockers a little bit more flexibility. We've seen reports online of people hitting 3.4 GHz and beyond with a bit of effort. While just about any midrange Core 2 Duo processor will offer better performance at maximum stable overclock, the X2 5000+ is still relatively inexpensive and offers competitive stock performance. If you don't care about the unlocked multiplier, a regular X2 5000+ costs $10 less.

If you're undecided on what CPU or platform might be best, you might want to take a look at our Midrange CPU Roundup from a couple weeks back. As long as you're willing to take overclocking out of the picture, you can get performance that's relatively competitive with Intel's Core 2 Duo E4400/E4500 with a CPU price that's nearly identical to the E4400 - or about $13 cheaper if you get the standard 5000+. Looking specifically at the gaming results from that article, performance tends to fall between those same two processors, at least at 1024x768 where we aren't GPU limited. If you're like most people and you plan to play at higher resolutions (for example 1680x1050 if you purchase the recommended LCD), performance differences are going to be even smaller.

The ASUS motherboard offers SLI support, which might be something useful in the future, but for a midrange system we're going to stick with single graphics cards for now. The ASUS M2N32 Deluxe WiFi also comes with a bevy of overclocking options, ASUS' proven reputation, and integrated 802.11b/g WiFi support for good measure. If you will make use of all of these features, the final price is very good; if you don't need WiFi or dual x16 PEG slots, you can get basically the same performance and features for around $95 with the DFI Infinity NF570-M2/G.

As mentioned, the graphics card is probably the most important component for this type of system, and we had quite a few choices. We decided to go with a GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, as it offers the most attractive price/performance ratio. Other than minor differences in factory clock speeds, all of the 8800 GTS cards are pretty similar, so the deciding factor was price. XFX ended up getting the nod, but EVGA, Gigabyte, Leadtek, and others are not too far off.

It's important to point out the runner-up cards that we didn't choose as well, as other factors might actually make them a better choice in the long-run. The 8800 GTS 320MB performs identically to the 640MB version, up until the point where you run out of graphics memory. Right now, that usually only happens at extreme resolutions like 2560x1600 or in a few certain games with maximum texture quality (which often doesn't bring a noticeable improvement in visual quality). That's right now, however; next-generation games could very likely push 320MB cards to the limit, particularly when we consider that 512MB cards have been shipping for a couple of years now. We have seen preliminary results on next-gen titles where the 640MB cards hold a pretty substantial performance advantage, so if you can spare the extra money that's probably the safer bet.

The other option is AMD's recently launched HD 2900 Pro, which in theory carries a similar price to the 8800 GTS 320MB. The drawback here is that the cards aren't readily available right now, and while this is an AMD platform we're using an NVIDIA chipset. MSRP is supposed to be around $250, but the few places that even have cards in stock are charging a price premium. Since the cards seem to be downclocked 2900 XT GPUs, you can probably get some pretty good overclocking results, but many people are simply interested in stock performance. You also get a $20 mail-in rebate on the GTS 320MB, and HD 2900 cards tend to really suffer when antialiasing is enabled. Finally, AMD and NVIDIA both have upcoming midrange cards that could very well improve performance while staying under the $250 price point; since these cards are not yet available, however, they will have to wait for a future Buyers' Guide.

We're not going to spend a lot of time dwelling on the rest of the components, as many of them have been discussed in previous Buyers' Guides and/or reviews. We did choose to use some DDR2-1066 memory, which honestly might be overkill considering the price. $114 (after rebate) for 2GB of this type of memory might seem like a steal compared to a year ago, but if you're okay with DDR2-800 you can still pick up 2GB of 4-4-4 memory for a measly $75. In fact, one of the AnandTech editors did exactly that just this last week... twice! If you're thinking about upgrading to a 64-bit operating system, give some serious thought to running a 4GB configuration with DDR2-800 as opposed to 2GB of higher performance DDR2-1066.

The final price comes out to $1511 (not counting rebates). Depending on how you want to configure things, going with an AMD platform will save you somewhere between $15 and $100 compared to a similar Intel configuration. By no means is our AMD platform bad, but if we were to go out and purchase a midrange gaming system right now, it would be using a Core 2 Duo processor. Then again, we're enthusiasts, so overclocking is pretty much a given. If you can hold on a couple more months, we're definitely interested in some of the changes that will occur with AMD's upcoming product launches. The attraction of current AM2 systems is mostly price, and the gap there is really too small these days to make it a real deciding factor.



Intel Midrange Gaming

Intel has been getting most of the attention in the past year with their Core 2 line of products, and with good reason. Even better is that competition with AMD has continued to drive down prices, to the point where we actually see a lot of very good Intel processors that cost less than $200. If we were to put together a system that was configured as close as possible to what we used in the AMD gaming platform on the previous page, we would need to make a few changes. However, trying to come up with identical features makes it difficult to cater to the strengths of a platform, so instead we simply picked the parts that we felt were the best fit for a midrange gaming system.

Intel Midrange Gaming System
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB 4MB Shared) - Retail	$175
Motherboard	DFI Blood Iron P35-T2RL (P35 ICH9R)	$137
Memory	Patriot Extreme Performance 2x1GB PC2-8500 (PDC22G8500ELK)	$139	$25
Video Card	XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB (PVT80GGHF4)	$287	$20
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200RPM 16MB (WD3200AAKS)	$80
Optical Drive	Samsung 20X DVD+R SATA (SH-S203B)	$36
Case	Cooler Master Centurion 534 (RC-534-KKN2-GP)	$66	$10
Power Supply	Corsair CMPSU-520HX	$108	$10
Display	Acer AL2216Wbd 22" 5ms (1680x1050)	$235
Speakers	Logitech X-530 5.1 70W Speakers	$66
Keyboard	Saitek Eclipse USB Wired (PZ30AU)	$40
Mouse	Logitech G5 Wired Adjustable Weight	$52	$15
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit (OEM)	$105
Bottom Line		$1526	$1446

We decided to jump right over the slightly cheaper E4000 series Intel CPUs and move up to their latest 1333 FSB dual-core offering. The E6550 goes for an even $175, but in terms of CPU performance it's practically untouchable by any of the stock Athlon X2 processors. The Athlon X2 6400+ does come pretty close in terms of raw performance, even managing to win in a few benchmarks by a small margin, but for $210 the 6400+ really can't be considered the better buy.

If you're looking for cheaper alternatives, as mentioned on the last page the E4400 and E4500 would offer similar performance to the AMD platform. That would allow you to potentially make a few other upgrades or simply keep the savings. If on the other hand you want more performance, the E6750 costs an additional $20. The next step is a relatively large $85 increase before we get to anything truly noteworthy, and at that price point you get to choose between the 3.0 GHz E6850 or you can move to the quad-core Q6600. Without more graphics processing power, however, neither upgrade is likely to affect gaming performance for the foreseeable future.

For the motherboard, we tossed around quite a few ideas. In the end, dual GPU support didn't make the cut, which we don't view as a particularly major loss on a midrange system. There are motherboards that don't cost too much more that include dual physical x16 slots, but we figure most gamers should either purchase a single fast GPU or spend a lot more money and make the jump straight to dual high-end GPUs. Many people over the years have purchased a single GPU with the thought that they can upgrade to dual graphics cards in the future, only to find that by the time they really need the second GPU there are new single GPU solutions available that are more attractive overall.

The DFI Blood Iron is your typical DFI "mainstream enthusiast" offering, providing a serious amount of tweaking and overclocking options at a price that won't break the bank. While you get great performance and overclocking, other features are unfortunately trimmed. Besides the aforementioned lack of a second x16 slot, FireWire support is also missing. If you would rather skip out on maximum overclocking and tuning options, there are plenty of reasonable alternatives.

The Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L doesn't really add any options, but it does save you $20 making it a good entry level P35 motherboard. If you're looking to shave off even more from the price, the abit IP35-E is selling for $102 shipped, plus a $20 mail-in rebate. The quality of that motherboard is a bit suspect, however, with quite a few users reporting compatibility problems and other quirkiness. We haven't had any serious issues with our own test subject, but you might need to exercise a bit more patience if you go with abit. Finally, at a price that's still lower than the DFI Blood Iron, the MSI P35 Neo2-FR brings CrossFire support back into the picture. All three of these motherboards are reasonable P35 alternatives, and if you want SLI you can always go with EVGA and one of their 680i offerings. 1333 FSB support can be a bit flaky at times with the 680i chipset, but you do get FireWire support.

All of the other components remain the same as the AMD system, so our previous comments regarding GPUs, memory, etc. still apply. Just to briefly cover a few of the remaining components, we wanted to put together a system that would be relatively quiet, and the Cooler Master Centurion case is a good starting point as it includes two 120mm fans. These fans definitely aren't silent, but they also aren't very loud. For the power supply, we selected the Corsair 520HX, which is a rebranded Seasonic power supply. Besides being a high-quality power supply, noise levels are extremely low. For input peripherals, we spent a bit more money than usual in order to get a keyboard and mouse that cater more to gamers. Not everyone cares a lot about what keyboard they are using, but we really like the Logitech G5 mouse and we've now used enough systems that lack PS/2 ports that we figured a USB keyboard would be a safer investment. Storage, speakers, and LCD choices are all pretty much components that we've recommended before. Other than price drops, not enough has changed to make a switch our recommendation to something else.



AMD Midrange HTPC

To be honest, if there's one system in this roundup that is likely to get a lot of comments and criticisms, it's going to be the HTPC configuration. That's not to say that our particular configuration is unreasonable, but getting into the HTPC market we will invariably encounter a lot of differing opinions about what is necessary and what is not. We'll start with the assertion that anyone looking to build an HTPC already has a decent HDTV and sound system, so we get to bypass those expenses and focus on the rest of the components.

AMD Midrange HTPC System
Hardware	Component	Price	No Extras
Processor	Athlon 64 X2 BE-2350 AM2 (2.1GHz 2x512K) - Retail	$99
Motherboard	GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H (690G)	$85
Memory	Transcend AxeRAM 2x1GB PC2-6400 (TX800QLJ-2GK)	$75
Video Card	Integrated X1250 with HDMI	$0
Hard Drive	HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000 750GB 7200RPM 32MB (HDS721075KLA330)	$200
Optical Drive	Pioneer BDC-202BK Blu-ray/DVD+R Combo (SATA) - Optional	$290	-$254
Case and PSU	Antec Veris Fusion (430W PSU)	$175
TV Tuner	AVerMedia AVerTV Combo PCIe MCE (Retail)	$115
TV Tuner	KWORLD ATSC 115 PlusTV HD (PCI) - Optional	$76	-$76
Sound Card	ASUS Xonar D2 7.1 - Optional	$181	-$181
Display	Pre-existing HDTV	$0
Speakers	Pre-existing Home Theater Stereo	$0
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech 920-000526 Keyboard with 1500 Rechargeable Mouse	$61
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit (OEM)	$105
Bottom Line		$1462	$951

Our personal opinion is that an HTPC needs to be quiet above all else, and one of the best ways to achieve that result is to make sure you get a low-power processor. AMD's Athlon X2 BE-2350 meets that requirement, though obviously at a price premium. We're giving up 400 MHz compared to a stock 4800+ but spending the same amount of money. (You can also upgrade to the BE-2400 and give up 300 MHz compared to the 5000+ at the same price.) Our personal take on HTPC's is that raw CPU performance isn't a critical factor, but if you intend to do a lot of video transcoding you might need to upgrade the CPU to something faster. Unfortunately, a faster CPU will very likely mean something that generates more heat and thus requires better cooling. Most people looking at building an HTPC usually already have at least one other computer in the house, however, so having that system do transcoding over the network might help to keep noise levels in the living room down to an absolute minimum.

Also worth mentioning is that we didn't bother with any super expensive memory, instead choosing some decent DDR2-800 memory that can provide 4-4-4 timings. We aren't interested in overclocking this HTPC (though it's technically still possible), and spending additional money on higher performance RAM just doesn't make sense. In fact, as we alluded to earlier, many people might simply want to purchase this cheaper memory on the gaming configurations as well.

Moving on to the motherboard, we come to the primary reason for selecting an AMD platform for our HTPC. While it's possible to find Intel platform motherboards with an HDMI port, you're really talking about some slim pickings right now. As a whole, we simply feel AMD's Radeon X1250 (690G) is a better IGP, especially when looking at the HTPC market. If you're looking for a close second to the Gigabyte board (which is currently our favorite HTPC motherboard after testing), the abit AN-M2HD (which uses an NVIDIA GeForce 7050 chipset) offers similar features and performance at a slightly higher price. It also includes Shader Model 3.0 support for your gaming pleasure, for those who enjoy SM3.0 gaming slideshows. (Ooooooh! Aaaaaaah!)

Because we used an integrated graphics solution, obviously there's no need for a discrete graphics card. Of course, some people might prefer a discrete graphics solution that includes hardware accelerated H.264 decoding, in which case you could skip out on the IGP motherboards and pick up pretty much any other reasonable motherboard. If you're looking to build an HTPC based on an Intel platform, this is definitely the route we would take. GeForce 8600 and Radeon HD 2600 cards should all do a reasonable job at handling any H.264 content, although we were able to decode everything up through 1080i H.264 videos fine using just the CPU. 1080p on the other hand needs a bit more help. If you want to install an HD-DVD and/or Blu-ray drive, we would definitely put more thought into spending an extra hundred dollars or so on a discrete (fanless) GPU.

Any HTPC worth its salt needs to be able to record videos, so we added a TV tuner card. The AVerMedia AVerTV Combo is a dual TV tuner that supports Over-the-Air HDTV signals (ATSC), Clear QAM, as well as analog channels. It integrates with Windows MCE 2005 and Windows Vista, but you'll need to use the separate AVer MediaCenter application (currently a free trial that doesn't expire) in order to view QAM digital channels. Scanning through all the QAM channels to get things configured can be a tedious process, but for QAM support it's pretty much a necessary evil. Heat is also a concern at times, according to online comments.

If you want to be able to record/view additional channels, you can install a second card as well. The retail box includes a Media Center remote and IR blaster, but you only need one of those so if you pick up a second card you can save a bit of money and get the white box version. However, you need a motherboard with two PCIe x1 slots if you want to use two of these cards, so either you'll need to get a different motherboard or you'll need to pick up a PCI card for your second tuner. The "best" current option (and we use that term loosely) seems to be the KWORLD ATSC 115, which has similar features to the AVerMedia card and includes a second remote. Some users have had serious issues while others don't report any problems, but we generally consider this to be an optional extra. AMD also just announced their new TV Wonder lineup with Clear QAM support which should become available shortly. We're certainly interested in seeing how the actual hardware and software turns out, but until the products actually become available we'll have to stick with other alternatives.

Now, there's something else to consider in all of this, and that's the US government mandated February 19, 2009 deadline to end analog broadcasts. Both of the TV tuners that we've listed include analog support, which we still find to be necessary in order to view the largest number of channels. However, some people might prefer to just forget about analog altogether - especially those that live in larger metropolitan areas where the switch to digital TV is already well underway. One final option on the TV tuner side that is pretty unique is the HD Homerun from Silicondust USA. This is a Dual HDTV tuner/recorder that functions over a network and provides ATSC/QAM support. The price of $169 is more than many other options, but this is arguably a more flexible overall solution.

What's the point of having an HTPC if you don't have a lot of storage space? To that end, we selected a Hitachi 750GB hard drive - if you're recording HDTV signals, you will chew through space at a rate of around 8GB per hour, which still gives enough storage for over 90 hours of video. We also have what we can only consider an optional Blu-ray/DVDR combo drive - optional because at $290, most people might be inclined to wait a bit longer. If you don't want to spend that much (or simply feel Blu-ray and HD-DVD are overrated), feel free to stick with our standard SATA DVDR recommendation from the other configurations.

Another optional component is the sound card. Windows Vista has done a lot to level the audio playing field, and honestly most of us are perfectly happy using integrated audio. Still, for audiophiles, the ASUS Xonar D2 provides a noticeably better experience. The integrated HDMI port only provides stereo audio pass-through, so if you're hooking up to a good home theater system, you will almost certainly want to use a separate S/PDIF output. The motherboard we selected does include that feature, but the Xonar adds DTS support. At almost $200, however, this may be a luxury that most users are willing to forgo.

Finally, while it is certainly possible to stuff all of these components into pretty much any ATX/uATX case, a real HTPC needs to blend in with its environment a bit better. The Antec Veris Fusion is a decent looking uATX HTPC case that includes a 430W power supply and a VFD panel. Getting everything installed and wired correctly can take some effort compared to your typical PC chassis, but the end result is a lot more visually appealing. Unfortunately, the case doesn't include any sort of remote control, so you will need to purchase one separately. We wouldn't call this a perfect case by any means, but it still offers a good value and looks attractive, making it a good choice for a midrange HTPC. We also included a wireless keyboard/mouse from Logitech, for those times when the remote control just doesn't cut it.

While we prefer the ease of installation that comes with Windows Vista, all of the TV tuners mentioned above should also work with MythTV. That will almost certainly require a lot more effort, and as with most things Linux you may have better results by using an NVIDIA graphics chip. If you've got more time than money, though, MythTV can be a very powerful alternative that still provides good quality. On the other hand, if digging through forums and recompiling kernels and drivers doesn't sound like your cup of tea, Vista remains the far easier solution.

The final price comes to just under $1500, but as we've already mentioned there are several optional features that many people might choose to bypass. If you cut out the Blu-ray drive (and substitute in a standard DVDR), the extra PCI tuner, and the ASUS soundcard you can get the price to $950. Go with MythTV and you can cut out another $105. Clearly, there's a lot of room for tweaking this particular configuration to fit your own needs.



Intel Midrange Workstation

We'll wrap things up with a nice quad-core "workstation" that might be used for more serious work. We're not talking about a workstation that can compete directly with a high-powered 3D rendering workstations (at least not without spending some additional money), but this is still a computer that packs a lot of punch and would be suitable for software development, video editing, graphics artwork, etc. Again, overclocking isn't going to be a serious consideration; certainly this configuration is capable of some overclocking, but stability is going to be a far bigger concern.

Intel Midrange Workstation
Hardware	Component	Price	Rebates
Processor	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz 1066FSB 2x4MB Shared) - Retail	$278
Motherboard	ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP (P35 ICH9R)	$155
Memory	G.Skill 2x2GB PC2-6400 (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ)	$170
Video Card	Powercolor Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB (26XT512M/D3HDMI)	$142
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 7200RPM 16MB (WD3200AAKS)	$80
Optical Drive	Samsung 20X DVD+R SATA (SH-S203B)	$36
Case	Lian Li PC-7B plus II	$106
Power Supply	Seasonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT	$149
Display	Acer AL2216Wbd 22" 5ms (1680x1050)	$235
Speakers	Logitech X-140 5W 2.0 Speakers	$27
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 (B2L-00047)	$28
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (OEM)	$110
Bottom Line		$1516	$1516

Obviously, the biggest change from the previous configurations is that we are using a quad-core processor. Intel's cheapest Core 2 Quad, the Q6600, now easily allows people to create a quad processor system that can outperform 2P systems from just two years ago, all at a much lower cost. Still, $278 for a "midrange" processor isn't exactly cheap. In order to make room for the added expense, we have trimmed some other areas. Looking at the overall configuration, however, you can see that we didn't have to compromise much.

For the motherboard, we chose the ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, which uses the P35 chipset. This is definitely not an inexpensive motherboard, but if we had to choose one motherboard brand that provides overall better stability than just about anyone else (outside of the server motherboard market), we would choose ASUS. That's not to say that ASUS is perfect - there have been a few problem releases over the years - but by and large they are one of the "safe bets" when it comes to overall quality. Getting WiFi support is simply an added bonus.

For the memory configuration, we have upgraded to 4GB of RAM (in a 2x2GB setup). Naturally, we are also recommending a 64-bit version of Windows Vista. Overall compatibility with the 64-bit operating system has gotten a lot better since Vista's launch, and if you're going to open up a lot of applications at once having more memory really speeds things up. All we need now is to get more native 64-bit applications, but at least we'll be ready when they arrive. In fact, if you really want to take things to the extreme, you can try running a 4x2GB configuration. We haven't had the chance to verify that this works properly yet, but we hope to do so in the near future. In the meantime, we can verify that 2x2GB works fine. In terms of raw performance and overclocking, a 4x1GB configuration is better, but since this is a workstation losing a few percent performance and skipping out on overclocking isn't really a problem. The option to add more memory in the future is far more important.

For the graphics card, we wanted to make sure that we selected something that included a dual-link DVI output. No, we're not going to be able to fit a 30" LCD into our midrange components, but a true workstation environment might want to add one in the future. The Powercolor Radeon HD 2600 XT provides two dual-link outputs, plus an HDMI adapter. The 512MB of memory may not really help much, but Windows Vista is able to do a bit more with graphics card memory so it certainly won't hurt either. For alternatives, the 8600 GT/GTS all support at least a single dual-link DVI connection and cost about the same amount (though with half the amount of RAM). If you want a Linux workstation (or you're planning on dual-booting at least), NVIDIA cards remain the better option, despite AMD's latest efforts.

The remaining component selections are mostly the same, except that we switched to a Lian Li case that we felt was a bit classier looking and more in tune with a workstation design, and we also upgraded to a Seasonic S12 650W power supply. Neither of these upgrades is strictly necessary, but we do feel that they provide a bit better overall package. We also downgraded the keyboard, mouse, and speakers; naturally, some people will prefer some other brand of input device, but we've always felt that the Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 is a good baseline recommendation.

The total comes to almost $1516, and honestly we would really like to have a larger LCD. Trimming costs in a few areas in order to fit a 24" LCD into the picture might be possible, but with 24" LCDs now starting at $400 for basic models we would probably just spend the extra money instead. That's not to say that the quality of a cheap 24" display is the same as what you might get with some of the $600 24" LCDs, but the increased native resolution alone is worth the price of entry.


Conclusion

As usual, even after four midrange systems, we've hardly scratched the surface of what's possible. There are numerous tweaks that could be made in order to save a few dollars or increase performance in a specific area, but for those of you looking for a "State of the Midrange Industry Address" we have hopefully provided you with a good starting point. While there are plenty of new products that are just around the corner, we would also like to warn against paralysis by analysis. No matter when you look at building a new system, there will always be newer/faster parts coming out within the next couple of months. If you're at the point where you need a new system, we recommend taking the plunge and not looking back. After all, no matter what you buy, you'll probably be looking at putting together a new system again in just a couple more years.

10/29/07 Update: As many of you are probably aware, the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT is now available. Given the price and performance, not to mention other benefits such as power requirements and a single slot design, we can see absolutely no reason to even consider the 8800 GTS 320 cards any longer. The 640 cards do come in slightly faster in a few specific situations, but overall we'd take the 512MB 8800 GT. In fact, if you were previously thinking of an 8800 GTX/Ultra, 8800 GT SLI is almost certainly the better option now (barring price cuts). We won't be updating the rest of the article text, but this is an important enough announcement that we wanted to make sure our Midrange Guide doesn't mislead anyone.