Cost Analysis

04:15 - Monday 19 February 2007 by Patrick Schmid
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: the, 300, pc, uk

Cost Analysis

Ad

We put together all components in the following table:

  AMD Intel
Processor Sempron 3400+ (£50 / €70) Celeron D 352 (£40 / €55)
Motherboard WinFast K8M890M2MA, integrated graphics (£40 / €55) Asus P5LD2-VM (£70 / €100), integrated graphics
Memory 2x 512 MB DDR2-667 (£40 / €70) 2x 512 MB DDR2-667 (£40 / €70)
Hard Drive Western Digital WD1600JS, 160 GB, SATA/300 (£35 / €60) Western Digital WD1600JS, 160 GB, SATA/300 (£35 / €60)
Optical Drive Samsung SH-S182D (£20 / €40) Samsung SH-S182D (£20 / €40)
Case Any (£20 / €30) Any (£20 / €30)
Power Supply Coolmax ATX Black 400 W (£20 / €30) Coolmax ATX Black 400 W (£20 / €30)
Total Cost £225 / €355 £245 / €385

The cost for both systems exceeded our £200 / €350 (narrowly in Euro) budget, but there is still room to save money; we didn't pick the cheapest products, but reasonably priced ones. If you really go for the lowest-end, you can get in under that post.

Of course you can go for this lowest-end setup, but you should not expect anything at all from these systems. I clearly recommend making a reasonable minimum investment, which is also why I advise against going for an even cheaper power supply and memory. You can save some more money, but I doubt you'll be happy with the results if you decide to opt for the lowest of the low-cost components available.

Test Setup

System Hardware
Processor I AMD Sempron 3400+
(Manila core, 90 nm, 1.8 GHz, 256 kB L2 Cache)
Processor II Intel Celeron D 352 (FSB533)
(Cedar Mill core, 65 nm, 3.2 GHz, 512 kB L2 Cache)
Motherboard I Asus P5LD2-VM
Chipset: Intel 945G, BIOS: 1102
Motherboard II Foxconn Winfast K8M890M2MA-RS2H
Chipset: VIA K8M890, BIOS: 641W1P24
Common Hardware
RAM 2x 512 MB DDR2-667
Corsair ValueSelect VS1GBKIT667D2
Graphics Card I Intel GMA950
Graphics Card II VIA Chrome9 IGP
Hard Drive I (read) 1x 160 GB 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/300
Western Digital WD1600AAJS
Hard Drive II (write) 1x 150 GB 10,000 RPM, 8 MB Cache, SATA/300
Western Digital WD1500ADFD
Used for video benchmarks
DVD-ROM Gigabyte GO-D1600C (16x)
Software
Intel Graphics Version: 14.25.50
Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 8.1.1.1010
VIA Graphics Version: 15.13.15.05
VIA Chipset Hyperion Pro 5.11A
DirectX Version: 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
OS Windows XP Professional, Build 2600 SP2

Benchmarks And Settings

Benchmarks and Settings
Video
TMPEG 3.0 Express Version: 3.0.4.24 (no audio)
182 MB VOB MPEG2 source (704x576), 16:9
DivX 6.5 Version: 6.5
High Definition Profile
Multipass, 3000 kb/s
Encoding mode: Insane Quality
XviD 1.1.2 Version: 1.1.2
Encoding type: Two-pass / single-pass
Profile @ Level: DXN HT PAL
Target size (kbytes): 570000
MainConcept H.264 Encoder v2 Version: 2.1
2:19 min MPEG2 source 1920x1080 to H.264
Profile: High
Audio: AAC
Stream: Program
Audio
Lame MP3 Version 3.97 Beta 2 (11-29-2005)
Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 74 min
wav to mp3
160 kb/s
OGG Vorbis Version 1.1.2 (Intel P4 MOD)
Version 1.1.2 (Intel AMD MOD)
Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 74 min
wave to ogg Vorbis
Quality: 5
Applications
WinRAR Version 3.7 Beta 3 (multi core optimized)
(303 MB, 47 Files, 2 Folders)
Best compression
Dictionary = 4096 kB
Adobe Photoshop CS 2 Version: 9.0.1
VT-Runtime Script
Rendering 5 Pictures (66 MB, 7 Filters)
Cinebench Version 9.5
64 Bit
nCPU, 1 CPU
Synthetic
PCMark05 Pro Version: 1.2.0
CPU and Memory Tests
Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646
Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980
SiSoftware Sandra 2007 Version 2007.5.11.17
CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Multimedia
Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark
Memory Latency Test = ns

Talkback
Be the first to comment on this review!

Note You are going to post a comment as anonymous.



  •
Submit my comment
Google Ads