Buyer's Guide - March 2000

Case – Supermicro SC750-A Full Tower ATX - $150
We need a case that can handle anything we can throw at it, but at a reasonable price level.  That case is the Supermicro SC750-A full tower and is available for about $150 with an Athlon approved 300W Sparkle power supply.  A total of ten drive bays and the ability to accept an extended ATX motherboard insures that this system will always have room for upgrades. 

For more information, read our Supermicro SC750-A Review.

Sound card – Sound Blaster Live! Value OEM - $50
The choice here is simple – SBLive!, since Creative is the only manufacturer offering complete driver support under Windows 2000.  If you want to save a bit more money, go with any name brand card supported under Windows 2000.

Ethernet – Linksys EtherFast 10/100 - $20
We use Linksys products here in the AnandTech lab all the time and have never been disappointed.  Besides, at just $20 for a card with full support directly from the manufacturer under the major OS’s, including Linux and Windows 2000, the EtherFast 10/100 is a deal that’s impossible to pass up. 

Hard drive – Maxtor Diamond Max 40 Plus 15GB - $160
We still maintain that hard drive speed is one of the biggest bottlenecks in a system, so we won’t skimp in this category.  As such, we’ve simply chosen a smaller version of the drive in our high-end system, the 15GB Maxtor Diamond Max 40 Plus.  It provides the same speed as the 40GB model, but with less storage space.

If you simply need more space, you can either drop down to a 5400rpm drive or pay a bit more for a larger 7200rpm model.

CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM - Name brand 40X – 50X CD-ROM - $40
While many will suggest going with the cheapest CD-ROM you can find, we highly recommend that you pick a name brand, not just the cheapest generic.  Our experience with the no-names is that many of them do not perform as advertised and even have trouble reading less than perfect discs.  Acer, Creative Labs, Toshiba, and Teac all do an excellent job.

OS – Windows 2000 Professional - $250
The choice here is clear – Windows 2000 Professional is the latest and greatest OS from Microsoft that provides all the functionality of NT 4.0, but enhanced hardware support.  If you want to stick with a more tried and true solution, go with NT 4.0 Workstation.