5. Scoping Out The Differences

Close examination of the two motherboards shows that they’re nearly identical, except that the T model supports DDR3 and the sans-T model supports DDR2. Thus, the only differences in cost are the motherboard, processors, memory and coolers; all other parts are identical. The base system cost, not including those elements that differ between the two builds, is $745. Table 5 shows the difference in prices for those components that do differ, with totals to match.

Table 5 Pricing Differences
Note: We used stores.tomshardware.com to find the lowest reasonable prices where available, and Google Products where not.

Of course, for real media center use, you’d also need a remote control (the old tried-and-true Microsoft remote with infrared transceiver goes for under $30 these days) and a wireless keyboard and mouse (or a reasonable facsimile thereof, such as the $50 XGene 2.4 GHz wireless keyboard with integrated trackball). Thus, add another $80 or more to each figure for more complete budgets. You can also find cheaper memory for each system that fits better with the motherboards in use, and probably save $300 on the quad-core system and perhaps $50 on the dual-core system. What the remaining difference boils down to, however, may be succinctly stated as: "Do you really need to spend over $1,000 on a quad-core processor?" We’ll dig deeper into that thinking, and suggest some great alternatives in the conclusions to this story.