Anandtech's Entry Level Buyer's Guide, October 2005

[davidhammock200]

The case and power supply choices are certain to draw plenty of comments, as they did with the last budget guide. We actually picked up the MGE CAG-M1-BK with the 400W PSU that we listed to run it through some tests. The quick summary is that the case is flimsy and cheap, the front panel connectors feature individual connections for the USB and Firewire ports rather than a nice molded block, and as a whole, the case is underwhelming. For $65 shipped, though, it gets the job done. It's been running almost 24/7 for a couple of months without any problems, even when overclocking a Sempron to 2.60 GHz. Will the power supply fail at some point? Probably. With the overclocked Sempron and an X800 Pro, though, peak power draw is only hitting 190W or so. For a budget system, you really don't need to go out and buy a $75 PSU in order to run stable. Something else to consider is that since shipping costs about $15 for many cases when ordered online, you might just run down to your local computer shops to see what's available.

The Foxconn cases and power supplies that we chose for this month's gaming selections are of higher quality than the MGE, but they're still not high-end. The "office" selection is a bit cheaper and only includes a 300W PSU (which should be fine for the integrated graphics and other components). For the gaming case, the PSU has a 24-pin power connector (really, this time!), and it's also ATX2.0 compliant. Both have a relatively conservative look, and we like the more expensive model a bit more. It has spring-loaded optical drive doors on the top two 5.25" bays. The cases also include a 120mm fan mounted at the back and a CPU duct, which should easily handle our budget builds.
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2563&p=6

As most of you known, I'm usually a big fan of Anandtech, however this time I couldn't disagree more!

A "cheap/no name/ POS" PSU is an open inventation to every problem possible!

Very good PSU's can be had for under $30!

Cheap, but Good PSU's! http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027898523&postcount=7

 

[_Korruption_]

At least they know they picked out junk PSUs. Antec PSU + case combos aren't that expensive... and I try not to go any lower than that in any of my computer builds. How about you post something in the comment section?

 

[davidhammock200]

At least they know they picked out junk PSUs. Antec PSU + case combos aren't that expensive... and I try not to go any lower than that in any of my computer builds. How about you post something in the comment section?

I did, but I had to create a new user account as I couldn't login as me!