Anxious freshmen entering Pittsburgh-area colleges have some good news as they await orientation: Dorm rooms here are the least expensive to outfit, according to a survey by a price-search Web site.

PriceRunner.com, operated by Westlake, Calif.-based ValueClick Inc. (NASDAQ:VCLK), examined the prices of "dorm essentials" in nine categories, including laptops, video-game consoles, TVs, PDAs, microwaves and MP3 players in 10 major college cities, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

Pittsburgh was the most cost-effective at about $2,727, ValueClick's Haydee Rodin said. The average cost to outfit a dorm room is $2,751.79. New York and Seattle were found to be the most expensive. Boston was the second-cheapest, Rodin said.

She said "pricerunners" went to area stores on Aug. 9, and evaluated price variations between the cities with over 800 price listings collected.

The Pittsburgh "pricerunner," went to Wal-Mart, Costco and Staples area stores, among others, Rodin said.

Three prices were collected for each product and the mean average was used. Internet prices were collected from different Internet retailers to ensure accurate representation of typical prices, but included shipping and local taxes.

While the average total cost to purchase all the products was minor among cities, prices on specific products between 10 cities varied substantially, Rodin said.

Out of the 30 products compared, Boston had the lowest price for nine of them. For example, a Sony Vaio VGN-FS660/W laptop computer in Boston was priced at $1,461.94, compared to $1,550.67 in New York City.

Pittsburgh had the lowest average price for eight of the 30 products. A student in Pittsburgh can get an HP iPAQ RX3115 PDA for an average price of $243.49, compared to the $267.44 a student in New York City will have to pay, Rodin said.

According to a study released this week by the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers will spend more than $34 billion on college-related items this year.

ValueClick is an online advertising and marketing agency.