Horses For Courses

The Age

Thursday March 6, 2008

Charles Wright

Charles Wright goes shopping for parts to assemble this quarter's workhorse PC.

BLEEDING Edge's quarterly excursions into the components for what we call a workhorse PC are a constant reminder of the frequent opportunities the computer industry presents us of buying older technology, sometimes for more than the newer, more powerful version.

As we wrote this column, for instance, the online catalogue of one of the most popular computer retail chains was offering the following Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs: the E6550 ($204), the E6750 ($228), and the E6850 ($325).

What it didn't mention was that in January Intel had released a new generation of these mainstream CPUs with the model numbers E8200, E8400 and E8500.

The retailer had run out of these so-called Wolfdale CPUs, which offer significant advantages over the advertised chips, and simply omitted them from the catalogue, which a lot of people use as a guide when assembling PCs. Who knows how many people bought them thinking that they had the latest release?

The E8000 series has a 6 MB L2 cache, which is 50% more than the E6000 series, and a new instruction set called SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions) to accelerate the creation and processing of digital content, including images, video and audio - an increasingly common task for the modern PC.

While many users probably wouldn't have been able to detect the average 6% performance improvement at each level, the improved power management and cooler operating temperatures might have saved on operating costs and made for a quieter PC.

We're going to specify the slowest of the trio - the 2.66 GHz E8200, which we sourced at Computer Parts Land for $239 - for this quarter's workhorse PC, although at $255, the 3 GHz E6840 is tempting.

We're sticking with our recent preference for Gigabyte motherboards with the P35DS3 getting our vote at $135, although the DS3P model offers additional features that could be worth the additional $30.

We recommend a 2 GB kit of RAM, and you can pick up a branded version from Kingston for $65.

Another area where technology advertisements skip important details is hard drives. Retailers tend to neglect to mention model numbers and the size of the cache, which can boost performance.

Although they're mostly regarded as a commodity item, a little more research could give many users the benefits of recent advances in storage technology.

We've been recommending Western Digital drives because we've found them robust and innovative, and because the local distributor, Westan, provides good service and a good deal of information through its website, westan.com.au.

The Green Power technology in Western Digital's enterprise-level RE2 drives, which reduces power consumption by about 40%, has recently been extended to some of its desktop models, which carry the GP designation rather than the KS (16 MB cache) and JS (8 MB) versions of the SATA (Serial ATA) models that high-volume retailers tend to stock.

Its AV drives are designed to withstand the higher temperatures generated by always-on streaming digital audio/video environments such as media centres, PVRs (Personal Video Recorders) and DVRs (Digital Video Recorders).

If you're looking for a combination of Green Power with an AV drive in a 16 MB cache/500 GB configuration, you need to specify the model number WD5000AVCS. Precision is essential because the WD5000AVJS, for example, doesn't have Green Power and has only an 8 MB cache.

We'll stick with a 320 GB Western Digital SATA drive (16 MB cache) at $95, but depending on your usage, you might choose a different version.

We've been a little more generous than usual with the graphics card this time with our choice of the 512 MB version of the NVIDIA 8600GT card from Gigabyte, which uses Silent Pipe cooling technology, for $119.

You can pay a lot more to get better video performance for gaming but the PC is rapidly losing its appeal as a gaming platform so you might be better off putting the extra into a good console.

An Asus SATA DVD-RW drive for $39, Logitech mouse/keyboard for $75 and a 20-inch Philips 200WS8FB LCD screen for $249 completes the package, with the exception of case and power supply.

This quarter we've also decided to specify a more rugged power supply in the Cooler Master Extreme ($69), with the same company's case at $109, which brings the total to $942.

bleedingedge.com.au

Specifications

? CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E8200, $239

? Motherboard Gb EP35-DS3, $135

? RAM 2GB Kingston, $65

? HDD Western Digital 320Gb (16MB) SATAII, $95

? VGA 512Mb 8600GT Gigabyte, $116

? Optical ASUS 2014 20x SATA DVD-RW, $39

? Mouse/keyboard Logitech $75

? Case Cooler Master CM690, $109

? PSU Cooler Master Extreme 500w, $69

© 2008 The Age

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