Intel Budget
While Intel offerings have tended to be more expensive than configurations from AMD, our Intel budget and AMD budget PCs are all but the same price. With prices all but the same you can choose your budget system based on other features that are important to you.
| Intel Budget PC | ||
| Hardware | Component | Price |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale (2.93GHzx2 3MB Cache 1066 FSB) |
$145 |
| Cooling | CPU Retail HSF | $- |
| Video | On-Board | $- |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H nVidia GeForce 9400 | $120 |
| Memory | OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 4GB DDR2-1066 OCZ2F10664GK ($28 after rebate) | $43 |
| Hard Drive | WD Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500GB | $59 |
| Optical Drive | Samsung 22X DVDRW/DL SH-S202G | $25 |
| Audio | On-Board | $- |
| Case | Cooler Master Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Mid Tower | $40 |
| Power Supply | BFG Tech LS Series LS-550 550W SLI Certified, CrossFire Ready, 80 PLUS Certified ($20 Rebate) | $60 |
| Base System Total | $492 | |
| Display | ViewSonic VX2233wm Black 21.5" 5ms Widescreen 16:9 LCD (1920x1080) | $170 |
| Speakers | Logitech R-20 12 Watts RMS 2.1 Multimedia Speaker | $18 |
| Input | Microsoft CA9-00001 Black PS/2 Standard Keyboard and Optical USB/PS2 Mouse - OEM | $16 |
| Operating System | Microsoft Vista Home Premium OEM | $99 |
| Complete System Bottom Line | $795 | |
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The E7500 ups the bus to 1066 from the 800FSB of our entry-level Intel system. A dual-core 2.93GHz with 3MB of cache won't be a slouch in any department in your budget system. Yes the new i7 is faster, but it is also much more expensive. The question for a budget system is how good the performance is for the money spent. The E7500 SYSmark 2007 score is about 72% of the very top Core i7 965 Extreme. That is fantastic performance for a CPU that costs just $145. The E7500 is also a candidate for overclocking if you are inclined to move the performance a bit closer toward the 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo E8600, which reaches 88% of the i7 965 SYSmark performance.
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The Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H is one of the most reasonable nVidia 9300/9400 chipset boards and features the GF9400 chipset at a price that matches most of the GF9300 equipped boards. With the 9400 integrated graphics performance is good enough to play most games at 1280x1024 on medium quality settings. This is leaps and bounds ahead of Intel's G45 series in this department. However, the HTPC feature set impresses us most. The only thing we are lacking is the ability to bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA (both of which no chipset currently supports). This chipset offers flawless HDMI/HDCP repeater compatibility, fully functional hardware acceleration, 8-channel LPCM output, and of course, stutter-free 24p playback.
Gigabyte loaded the GA-E7AUM-DS2H with four DDR2 DIMM slots featuring 16GB memory support, Realtek ALC889A HD audio with Dolby Home Theater, Realtek 8211CL Gigabit LAN, and five SATA 3Gb/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 capabilities. Also included is eSATA 3Gb/s support, two IEEE 1394a ports, 12 USB 2.0 ports, one PCIe x16 slot, one PCIe x1 slot, two PCI slots, IDE connector, and video output including D-Sub, DVI-D, and HDMI ports. The BIOS is user friendly and features numerous overclock options for those wanting to get more out the E7500 processor along with decent temperature and fan speed monitoring options.
By this time, you may be wondering why we chose not to include an aftermarket CPU heatsink to go along with our CPU choices. For this budget, a $50 solution from Thermalright or Scythe was simply not an option, but with the stock AMD and Intel heatsinks incorporating heatpipe technology, we figured we'd still be good for a decent if not spectacular overclock.
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The rest of the components are the same as those found in the AMD budget system. Again, for gaming purposes you can look to an upgraded GPU like the Radeon HD 4850 or 4870. Sound cards at this budget are simply an unnecessary luxury, and the onboard offerings continue to improve with each new motherboard generation. You can be reasonably happy with the onboard sound until you figure out if you want to go further with sound.
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v12v12 - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
I agree most of these posts are the nerds-nit-pick special! I'm sorry but if you're whining about $15 here and $20, get a clue and get a REAL JOB or start saving/studying for certs/school and make some real money.This shoe-string budget crap, for a so-called "gamer" box is plain stupidity. If you're hurting over $600-800 MAX limit, sounds like you have your financial PRIORITIES out of whack! Nobody is "gaming" for long with a $600 box. It's a fool's investment and will have you stuck with a sub-par performing machine, rapidly. Oh and don't even think about resale, you're stuck with the low-end junk.
While mirroring the car market: UPSCALE cars/PC builds lose a small percentage of value as soon as you buy them, BUT they hold top value over the coming months Vs this low-mid-level junk that immediately loses an chance of resale value. Have you seen how many stupid people are on Ebay that overbid even for those relic 8800s?!
Who's going to buy your used, non-warranted (many manu's do require proof of purchase these days) 2nd rate card for ~$30 less than RETAIL? Pawning that off to ebay noobs is your only hope to recoupe your losses. Be smart people.
If you're maxing out around $600 = STOP and rethink your finances... $800? Might as well save and get an Icore. Geesh, oh and don't forget about TAXES + initial cost of hardware lol. Not to mention if something goes wrong and you have to RMA = how you gonna afford S/H if you can barely afford a paltry $600-800?
Flame time...
nubie - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
I did get an e5200, for $59.But the motherboard I chose was not using single channel ram, or onboard video. I got an 8600GTS (the GTS is important, it has much more memory bandwidth - 2000mhz DDR3) for $43.
I would like to note that new systems with any sort of budget should be built with a quad-core (unless you need that 4.0ghz clocked Wolfdale for gaming of course.) The Q6600 is only $160 on ebay, and it is a really solid performer.
Kudos to showing how to build a system for people new to the task (and it is infinitely better than letting the newbs pick their own stuff, like 3GB of ram and a 9800pro for example.)
I guess ultimate hard-core system building isn't your cup of tea, maybe we need a "Reader's Rigs" section where we can duke it out with budget builds to see what can really be done. (I would cheat, there are P6N OEM boards for $40 on ebay, and MSI should RMA them for functionality with 45nm processors, it already took a Celeron 440 to 3.33ghz without even a voltage bump!! Ironically Speedstep now starts at the 2.0ghz rating of the chip, so it cycles up less than before.)
Knowname - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
The only future proof quad cores right now are the i7's, even the Phenom 2's will choke under a very taxing 4-core+ program. The proof is in the cache, where even the Phenom's 6mb (shared) is just too little for a fully multicore aware program. It is for this reason that the Core2Quad's 2mb or 4mb cache per core is just TERRIBLE future proofing.Then again, you have to ask yourself... just how much future proofing do I need? When we are in an era of replacing ENTIRE computers every 9 months.
Knowname - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
well my point was it may actually be better for somebody looking to future proof at these prices to buy a e8xxx rather than a q6xxx... JMO.nubie - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Well, for these prices I would recommend that somebody wait for i7.If they are really on a budget there are 650i OEM motherboards for $40 on ebay, and look for a good deal on a Wolfdale ~$60-70, or overclock the heck out of a Celeron 430/440 (my last two were fine at 3 and 3.33ghz respectively.)
My definition of budget is being out of steady work for ~3 years, so the value for money needs to be very high, and the e5200 and Core2 Celeron are very good in that regard, with 70% overclocks the norm.
My budget systems come in around the $300-350 mark, not the $500+ segment, and yet I would say that they offer the same functionality for gaming and general use (and as I said, I would go Q6600 if I could, probably will when everyone moves to i7 and the prices drop below $100)
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
Great deal I saw on Fatwallet the other day if you are a student (or know someone whom is). This would drop another $35 bucks which would allow for some much needed flexibility especially on the entry-level systems where that difference is ~7% of the build price.Oh to be a student again.....
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv...">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv...
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
Wanted to mention that page also includes Office Ultimate 2007 for $60 if you are an active student. Not bad for someone who needs Office (I personally use OpenOffice).*Seems like the Vista Ultimate might be an upgrade version and not the full version. It's difficult to confirm as the main page that is linked doesn't mention which version but if you click on it it shows upgrade with sp1. Someone less of a hot deal if it's the upgrade only.
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
Anand see if your weight in the tech industry will allow you to aquire for testing one of these puppies:http://www.dailytech.com/Fusionio+Claims+Worlds+Fa...">http://www.dailytech.com/Fusionio+Claim...lds+Fast...
I'd love to see it put through its paces, even though it is in a completely different class ($5000 for lowest model).
scwtlover - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
For the entry-level AMD system, you recommend G.Skill 800-DDR2 RAM at $37. It's timings are 5-5-5-15 and 1.8V, but it does not come with a heat-spreader. Should we infer that a heat-spreader is unnecessary?mushkin 1.8V memory, with 5-4-4-12 timings and a heat-spreader is available, after rebate, for only $3 more.
And, how significant is 1.8V? At 800-DDR2 Newegg sells OCZ with a heat-spreader and 5-4-4-15 timings, but 2.1V. It's $24 after rebate. Corsair's offering, after rebate, is only $20. It has heat-spreaders, and is 1.9V. The timings are 5-5-5-18? How significant is 12 v. 15 v. 18?
If we look at 1066 DDR2 RAM, the OCZ sticks you recommend cost $28, after rebate. You advise: "Just be sure to look for RAM with better timings if you can afford it." The OCZ is CAS 7, with 7-7-7-20 at 2.0V. For $30, after rebate, Newegg sells OCZ2P10664GK. It's CAS 5, with 5-5-5-18 timings at 2.2V. For $8 more than that, you can get the same RAM plus a bundled XTC memory cooler. How important is voltage versus timings? For $34, that is, $6 more than the OCZ, Newegg sells OCZ Reaper with 5-5-5-18 timings at 2.1V
Wesley Fink - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
Traditional "Plate stuck on each side" heatspreaders do almost nothing to cool the ram. in fact sometimes they hold in heat and are actually worse than no heatspreader at all. Some more exotic HS designs used in more expensive RAM that is run at higher voltages sometimes do help cool the RAM.The OCZ is DDR2-1066 with slower timings and the 5-5-5 and faster is DDR2-800. The same 7-7-7 1066 memory often runds fine at 5-5-5 at DDR2-800. Higher speed usually means slower timings. If you can find faster RAM like DDR2-1066 at CAS 5 at a similar price then buy it.
As I said in the article quality RAM at the same speed can be selected from any of the major memory providers. Comparing two at the same price look at highest speed combined with reasonable timings. If the two memories are the same price and the same speed then timings (and warranty support) should be your main considerations.
We try to select reasonable choices we have personal experience in using at AT. But there are many rebates in memory right now - and they change daily. You need to be flexible if you are looking for memory that is the best value.