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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7Enigma - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
I think you're splitting hairs. Both of their Budget systems are fine for gaming if you add in a discrete graphics card. And in both system descriptions they mention adding a graphics card. Reading between the lines means add a graphics card and you have a gaming rig.Pretty simple.
frozentundra123456 - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
With prices so low, I would say to include a mid-range graphics card such as the HD4670 with any system. The 4670 uses very little power and will improve video and allow decent basic gaming for less than 100.00 additional cost. It seems it is worth this even for the lowest end system which would still cost about 500.00 with monitor and OS and no graphics card.Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
You can get a 640GB Hard Drive from Seagate with 32MB of cache, a 7200rpm speed and SATA connection for $60. So, 500GB or 640GB for $60? Hm, tough choice... sarcasm.MrSpadge - Saturday, March 21, 2009 - link
I agree, the systems should have faster HDDs! I'd choose the WD 640 GB 7200 rpm over the Seagate for speed. The WD green power has amazingly tuned firmware and it's faster than many elder 7200 rpm dirves, but it's not a magician and is held back by its 5400 rpm.Just think for a moment what limits the performance of a PC under "normal" use. What happens when you get to an elder machine, even with a healthy windows? Well, if you tell it to do anything you'll be greated by a constant "crrrrrrrr" from the HDD. Not the CPU or GPU is limiting, it's the HDD! That's why going with a 5400 rpm drive is almost silly.. you give up 15 - 20% speed and gain ~3W in power consumption. For the HTPC it's alright though, as it doesn't keep you from working if you have to wait for the HDD.
Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
sorry, my bad, that drive is $70 now; it was $60 dollars like week ago though.AntiM - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
I would say that 85% or more people could get by just fine with these machines. They are perfect for simple office machines. You could probably go even cheaper on the AMD system with an Athlon 64 X2 5600+ and 2 GB or RAM and still have plenty of horsepower for an office machine.Wesley Fink - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
You can definitely go lower on the AMD CPU, but do you really think anyone would want to pay $67 for a 5600+ or 5600 Brisbane, when they can get a 7750 Kuma Black Edition for $7 LESS at $60. Pricing in entry space can be very strange.I also think dropping RAM from 4GB to 2GB is not very cost effective when you save just $17 by halving the RAM. If every penny counts I guess that that $17 could be important.
AgeOfPanic - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
With the decoding capabilities of the current IGP chipsets why choose a Phenom processor with higher TDP over a Athlon X2 5050E?Penti - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
A lot of people use homebrew (unlicensed) codecs for warez and their video watching. Those are usually software only or have a limited support for DXVA. Like many alternative media-portal/center software. If you don't want that flexibility there are other devices that even play warez that might fit your bill. But it's only commercial codecs that has decent hardware acceleration. You might also need the power for recording and encoding.7Enigma - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
I think the answer is, "because we can". Honestly for a true HTPC the last article was fine, and nothing has really changed since then IMO. Yes you can for the same money get a more powerful system or even slightly cheaper, but the HTPC's job is not to be more and more powerful for the same/less money, it's to be cool and quiet while allowing for 1080p and all the resolutions below.Where the latest HTPC systems are beneficial is if you are using the HTPC box to rip or encode to different compressed formats while simultaneously watching something else, and/or recording multiple signals. Then it will be beneficial to have the Phenom II 3-core over a lowly X2.