Introduction

In the recent past, we have put out buyers guides covering the midrange and high-end markets. Those are definitely easier to put together, as right now is a great time to purchase a midrange or faster computer - or at least, it's as good of the time as you're likely to see, what with the continuous release of newer products as time rolls on. One subject that we haven't looked at in several months is the budget sector, and quite a few of you have asked for advice on what to purchase. Many others have also pointed out the rising costs of memory, making it even more difficult to put together a reasonably priced computer. We hope to be able to shed some light on the topic in this buyer's guide, although the best we can do is to grit our teeth and simply recommend spending a bit more money than you would like.

Our buyer's guides are focused on putting together a complete system that fits the target market segment. We've already covered midrange ($1000-$1500) and high-end ($2000+) configurations, but unfortunately for many of us the pocketbook is going to have a far greater impact on our component choices than we would like. Today, we will tackle the budget sector, with the goal of keeping prices to around $1000 on the upgraded configurations, and getting as close as possible to $500 on the base systems. Needless to say, without making some serious compromises it is currently impossible to build a new complete computer system for $500, and we are not willing to make those compromises. Our maximum upgrade will also span the upper-budget and lower-midrange price segment, but individualization is the key: get the upgraded parts that you find useful, and don't bother with those you don't feel you need.

Especially at the budget end of the spectrum, it becomes reasonable to consider prebuilt solutions available at your local computer stores or from the larger OEMs. A quick look at Dell for instance shows that desktop systems starting at a mere $330 are available, which is quite a bit cheaper than what we will recommend today. If that seems too good to be true, sadly it is. The bare minimum system doesn't include a monitor, and it cuts down virtually every component choice possible. 512MB of RAM, a CD-RW optical drive, 80GB hard drive, integrated graphics, and the cheapest processors available (Sempron or Celeron in this case) allow them to reach their bargain basement price. By the time you make some reasonable upgrades like adding a monitor, 2x512MB of RAM, a faster CPU, and a DVD burner suddenly the price is right up there with the system configurations we will put together.

A few final points about OEM systems. You still get a lower price on the software, although that also means you get a bunch of software that you might not want. You also get a single warranty and support contact for the first year. Overclocking typically won't be an optionm though the need for it at this price point is debatable. The slightly upgraded budget OEM configurations really are worth a look, as they can save over $100 all told. Does that mean you should or shouldn't purchase an OEM system? As usual, there is no one answer that will fit every person and many will be more than satisfied with your typical budget OEM configurations. We feel that our buyer's guides offer better expandability, performance, customization, and features at roughly the same price, with the only potential drawback being that you have to know how to put together the system yourself.

We changed the format of our buyer's guides last time to focus on the overall system packages rather than going through each individual component. This allows us to be a bit more concise and avoid repeating the same things every other week - after all, how much can you really say about a hard drive? We will continue that trend with this guide as well, looking at the basic platform choices first and then moving on to accessories like the case, power supply, input devices, and display. For the most part, you should be able to mix and match components as you see fit, and certainly we will not be able to cover every single possibility. GPUs and motherboards that use the same chipsets will typically perform the same, with price, features, and overclocking potential being the differentiating factors. Overclocking is certainly a possibility within the budget price segment, although you will usually get much better results if you upgrade some of the parts, particularly the motherboard and RAM. We won't focus too heavily on overclocking in this guide, other than to mention typical estimates of what can be achieved.

With that out of the way, we will start with the base AMD recommendations, followed by the base Intel recommendations. We will then move on to the upgraded configurations before wrapping up with coverage of the accessories.



Baseline AMD Budget Platform

It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that we had to go with a single core processor and integrated graphics in order to come anywhere near our $500 price target. We still overshot the budget by $150, but we certainly haven't eliminated every potential downgrade. Here's the basic AMD configuration that we are actually comfortable recommending.

Budget AMD Athlon 64 AM2 System
Hardware	Component	Price
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 (AM2) 3000+ - 1.8GHz 512KB	$74
Motherboard	ASUS M2NPV-VM - NVIDIA GeForce 6150 AM2	$84
Memory	A-DATA Vitesta 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2-667 5-5-5-15	$120
Hard Drive	Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA3.0Gbs 160GB 8MB 7200RPM	$61
Optical Drive	LiteOn SHW160P6S05 16X DVD+/-RW	$29
System Total		$368
Complete Package		$654 - $926

Our processor choice goes to the AMD Athlon 64 3000+, which is currently priced at $74. The Athlon 64 3000+ has been a favorite of overclockers ever since it first came onto the scene just over two years ago. In terms of performance, not much has really changed with the move from socket 939 to socket AM2. It still comes with a 1.8GHz clock speed and 512K of cache, and with the right overclocking equipment you should be able to reach at least 2.6GHz and often more. Both platforms are at a mature state, even though socket AM2 is only a few months old. AM2 should also support quite a few future processor upgrades if that's important to you, and it will typically perform slightly better than an equivalent socket 939 configuration. If you already have a socket 939 system, there really isn't any need to upgrade to socket AM2 right now, but we definitely wouldn't recommend purchasing a new socket 939 system unless you can get it for less money than the equivalent AM2 setup.

We could have chosen to downgrade the CPU to a Sempron model, although it's important to keep in mind the fact that model numbers do not represent identical clock speeds between the Athlon and Sempron families. The Athlon 64 3000+ has a 1.8GHz clock speed, while the Sempron 3400+ has the same clock speed and half the L2 cache. The Sempron 3400+ is about $10 cheaper, but our experience is that it usually won't overclock as far as the Athlon 64 and the L2 cache is important enough that we felt the extra $10 was warranted. If you are really interested in saving money, the best bet would be to downgrade to the Sempron 2800+, which comes with a 1.6GHz clock speed and 128K of cache. If all you are looking for is a system capable of surfing the web and doing office work, such a computer would still be sufficient and you could even get down to the $500 price point with a bit of work. On the other hand, multiple processing cores are the talk of the town these days, so if you'd like more performance than the single core Athlon 64 offers, take a look at our upgraded configurations.

Moving to the motherboard, there are definitely cheaper alternatives available, but we have had far better luck with ATI and NVIDIA integrated graphics than the solutions offered from VIA or SiS. The nForce 6100 chipset supports the full DirectX 9 feature set, although performance will still be less than just about any DX9 discrete graphics adapter. The nForce 6150 sports higher clock speeds that help to improve performance slightly, but that's not the reason we went with the upgrade. The primary factor in our choice of the ASUS 6150 motherboard over something like the Biostar TForce 6100 is ASUS' inclusion of a DVI output. As we have stated many times in the past, we're done recommending CRTs, and if we're going to recommend an LCD it is going to include a DVI port. That's one less digital to analog conversion that has to take place, resulting in a slightly better image. The ASUS M2NPV-VM offers limited overclocking support, and while it should be enough to get you a ~10% overclock, that's certainly not the focus of the board. With true budget platforms, overclocking isn't high on our list of priorities either. If you're willing to spend a bit more money for overclocking capabilities, the Abit NF-M2 is very similar in features (including the DVI port) and costs about $10 more, but in general overclockers will be better served by fullsize ATX boards with discrete graphics.

ATI Xpress 1100 might have been a reasonable alternative, but we were unable to find any motherboards using that chipset that included a DVI port. If you don't care at all about overclocking, DVI, or integrated graphics performance, you should be able to get just about any of the current AM2 motherboards using an ATI or NVIDIA chipset. You should also be able to shave up to $30 off the price of the motherboard. However, motherboards are such a critical component that we have to strongly caution against trying to cut costs too much, as often that will result in a somewhat flaky system and/or component incompatibilities.

The one area of our base configuration that is likely to cause the most debate is our choice of memory. DDR2 memory is anything but cheap these days - and DDR memory is no better - with prices that have gone up sometimes 100% over the past several months. The current prices are likely to last at least another month or two, although thankfully they are no longer on the rise. The shortage appears to have been caused by the impending holiday season with many of the major OEMs purchasing large quantities of memory in advance. Whatever the cause, however, the end result remains the same: high prices that we are none too happy with. If you're trying to keep costs down, it might be tempting to consider purchasing only 512MB of memory, and it is definitely an option. Depending on how you intend to use your computer, 512MB of memory may be sufficient. For most of us, it has quickly become the bare minimum we are willing to install on a new system, and looking towards the future it is going to be woefully inadequate for anyone planning on running Windows Vista next year. You can save about $60 by going with a single 512MB DIMM, but we're not going to recommend it.

Instead, we will grudgingly recommend spending more money on a 2x512MB configuration. We have selected the A-DATA Vitesta DDR2-667 memory, which we have found to be highly compatible in our testing, and it is also capable of overclocking a fair amount. Overclocking headroom isn't nearly as important on AM2, as the way memory speeds are derived from the CPU core speed means you can use "ratios" without degrading performance much. As with most DDR2-667 memory, increasing voltage up to around 2.1V should allow you to reach the maximum timings and bandwidth the modules are capable of. Given the various bottlenecks that are likely to exist elsewhere within our base AMD configuration, it's probably best not to worry about it too much and just stick with the default or slightly tweaked performance.

One final memory option worth considering is getting a single 1GB DIMM instead of 2x512MB. Single channel performance might be up to 5% or even 10% slower depending on what task you're doing (typically it's around 2-3% slower), but going with a single 1GB DIMM allows you to add more memory in the future if/when it becomes necessary. This particular ASUS motherboards still has four DIMM slots, so it's not as big of a concern, but if you get one of the other motherboards that only includes two DIMM slots we would strongly recommend going with 1GB memory modules.

We will take a closer look at the remaining components on the budget Intel platform.



Baseline Intel Budget Platform

Budget Intel Pentium D System
Hardware	Component	Price
Processor	Intel Pentium D 805 - 2.66GHz 533FSB 2x1MB	$95
Motherboard	ASUS P5L-MX - Intel 945G 775	$82
Memory	A-DATA Vitesta 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2-667 5-5-5-15	$120
Hard Drive	Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA3.0Gbs 160GB 8MB 7200RPM	$61
Optical Drive	LiteOn SHW160P6S05 16X DVD+/-RW	$29
System Total		$387
Complete Package		$673 - $945

Putting together a true budget Intel-based system is difficult right now. Sure, it's possible, but as much as we like Core 2 Duo it simply can't fit into a budget price range. As there are no cheaper single-core Core 2 processors available yet, we wind up back in a familiar place: NetBurst. There are three options available for NetBurst configurations, none of which are particularly attractive. At the bottom of the price range, we have the Celeron D processors. These can compete with AMD in terms of price, but when it comes to performance the Celeron chips are absolutely outclassed by the single core Athlon 64 and Sempron offerings. Pentium 4 isn't much better, as the performance improves but the price quickly reaches Core 2 levels. The Pentium 4 531 (3.0GHz 1MB cache) and 541 (3.2GHz 1MB cache) can now be had for just under $100, and they are the most reasonable options in the Pentium 4 line. If you want to cut prices as much as possible, Celeron D 346 (3.06GHz 256K cache) costs $63 or you could drop to the Celeron D 331 (2.66GHz 256K cache) for just under $50. The final option and our choice is the Pentium D line.

Pentium D offers all of the benefits of dual core processing: better multitasking, improved performance in multithreaded applications, and overall snappier responsiveness from your system. The big problem with Pentium D is something that has existed since its inception: the Achilles' heel of NetBurst, heat output and power consumption. Given that it's now coming on winter in the northern hemisphere, some people might not mind the extra heat, but even the lowest end Pentium D will use 30W to 100W (idle versus load) more power than an equivalently configured Athlon 64 system. Depending on how frequently your computer is running, the extra power requirements could amount to $25-$90 per year. (Those figures are for 24/7 operation and a cost of $0.10 per kWHr.) You are much better off just saving up for a few more weeks (or months if that's how long it takes to save $100) and purchasing a Core 2 Duo E6300 if you can. Nevertheless, as the cheapest dual core processor currently available, the Pentium D 805 (2.66GHz 533FSB 2x1MB cache) still offers a reasonable amount of performance. If you plan on using it as a space heater, you can even overclock it 35% or more.

Other than our concerns with the processor selection, all of the components in our baseline Intel budget system are reasonable choices. We have once again gone with integrated graphics, but in order to keep costs down we have selected a motherboard that uses the 945G chipset instead of the newer G965. G965 is definitely superior in overall performance and features, but unfortunately it adds quite a bit to the cost. In fact, it would be cheaper to get a motherboard without integrated graphics and then add a discrete GPU like the GeForce 6200TC or Radeon X1300HM. Neither of those are graphics powerhouses, but both are faster than any integrated graphics solution currently available. If you don't need a lot of graphics performance, however, the GMA950 chipset in the 945G is still sufficient, and if it ever becomes too slow you can always add a discrete graphics card. The motherboard still supports Core 2 Duo, and you should even be able to do a moderate amount of overclocking (more with Pentium D and less with Core 2 Duo).

Unlike the AM2 solution, we could not find any integrated graphics solutions for socket 775 Core 2 with a DVI port. The ASUS P5L-MX also only has two memory slots, so you should seriously consider purchasing a single 1GB DIMM as that will enable you to upgrade to 2GB in the future. The price of DDR2 memory is just as painful with Intel systems as it is with AMD configurations, although with Core 2 you could even consider going for DDR2-800 memory. We're not going to go that far for the base configuration, but it is at least something to keep in mind. The A-DATA memory will still work very well with this system but if you can find something with similar specs for less money, don't hesitate to switch. Most DDR2-667 memory performs about the same, and especially for people who aren't interested in overclocking memory in a budget system should focus on price first and bandwidth and timings second. If you want improved performance on a budget system, there are far better ways to spend money than on faster memory.

For the storage subsystem, we have a standard SATA hard drive and a DVD+/-RW drive. Starting with the latter, similar to the choice of memory, picking out an optical drive these days is usually more a matter of finding the cheapest deal available rather than worrying about minor differences in performance or media compatibility. We have selected a LiteOn burner with DVD-RAM support this time, and it should work well for just about everyone. If you have a favorite DVD brand or can find a similar model from another manufacturer for a lower price, go for it. Choosing a hard drive isn't much different, only this time the primary factor is price as well as price/GB. You also have to take into account whether or not the particular model is using last year's technology, which could mean lower platter densities and slightly lower performance. Without spending too much money, the Hitachi 160GB hard drive strikes a good balance between performance, features, and capacity. It is based off the newest 160GB platters and supports SATA 3.0Gbps and Native Command Queuing.

You can get a better price/GB by moving up to a slightly larger hard drive, but 160GB of storage is already more than many people will ever use during the life of the computer. If you are more interested in saving money, you could drop down to an 80GB Western Digital hard drive. You will get a hard drive with last year's technology, but that's still good enough for a budget system. Unfortunately, you only save $12, so whether or not that it's worthwhile is up to you. Most of the manufacturers - Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate, Samsung, and Western Digital - offer similar performance and features, and if you are concerned with performance you would be better off spending more money elsewhere rather than worrying about a fractionally faster hard drive.



Upgraded AMD Budget Platform

Moving on to our upgraded AMD budget system, our preferences are reversed. Whereas we give AMD the advantage in the true budget sector, if you are willing to spend a bit more money in order to upgrade performance the advantage moves over to Intel. The upgraded budget systems can cost quite a bit more, although you can certainly choose a few the upgrades and stick with other baseline recommendations. You can also refer to our last Midrange Buyer's Guide for additional component alternatives. We have upgraded every core component, and the end result is definitely closer to midrange rather than budget. As we said in the beginning, current memory prices as well as the added performance available make it difficult for us to recommend a true budget configuration right now.

Upgraded Budget AMD Athlon X2 AM2 System
Hardware	Component	Price
Processor	AMD Athlon X2 (AM2) 3800+ - 2.0GHz 2x512KB	$160
Motherboard	DFI Infinity ULTRAII-M2 - nForce4 Ultra AM2	$96
Memory	PQI POWER Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-533 4-4-4-12	$195
Video Card	XFX PVT73GUGF3 - GeForce 7600GT 256MB	$146
Hard Drive	Samsung SpinPoint P 250GB SATA3.0Gbps 250GB 8MB 7200RPM	$76
Optical Drive	LG GSA-H10N 16X DVD+/-RW (12X DVD-RAM)	$36
System Total		$709
Complete Package		$995 - $1267

Starting with the processor, the logical choice once again falls to one of the cheapest Athlon X2 CPUs. We could have gone for the X2 3600+ (2.0GHz 2x256K cache), but we don't feel the reduction in L2 cache per core to 256K is worth the $12 saved. (Feel free to disagree, however, as it isn't a terrible choice either.) About the only advantage that AMD currently holds over Intel is price, both for their CPUs as well as their motherboards. The net difference amounts to roughly $30, and for that price we would definitely encourage you to purchase a Core 2 Duo system instead. If you're averse to purchasing Intel hardware for whatever reason, you'll still get great performance from an Athlon X2 setup. Depending on what you plan on doing, you might not ever see the faster performance Core 2 offers anyway; many tasks are going to be bottlenecked by something other than the CPU, in which case saving the money is a fine alternative. Having higher performance potential is nice, but if you never use it than it really doesn't matter.

For the upgraded AM2 motherboard, we decided to choose something that was still inexpensive but that would offer a lot of overclocking potential. The DFI Infinity ULTRAII-M2 uses the older nForce4 Ultra chipset, which still works with socket AM2. DFI also offers pseudo-SLI support, with the second PCI-E X16 slot running at X2 bandwidth. We aren't too concerned with SLI support, but we aren't going to complain about getting a second X16 PEG slot either. Despite using an older chipset, this DFI motherboard offers one of the most stable, painless overclocking experiences that we have encountered in recent history, and a 50% or higher overclock (depending on CPU) is not at all difficult to achieve.

On the memory front, once again we had a debate on our hands. Getting 1GB of memory into the baseline recommendation was already difficult, but for the upgraded systems did we want to stick with that or did we want to move up to 2GB of RAM? If you plan on running Windows Vista during the life of your computer, having more memory is definitely going to be useful. Many of us also already run into memory constraints even without the added bloat of Vista, and while the price is high we really feel the upgrade to 2GB of RAM is worthwhile. Modern dual core systems allow you to run more programs concurrently than ever before without experiencing a slowdown, but only if you have enough memory. A bunch of web browser windows/tabs, several office applications, various chat programs, perhaps a firewall and antivirus software, maybe a BitTorrent client, and if you're like me speech recognition software... throw all that together (something many of us at AnandTech do on a daily basis) and 2GB isn't just recommended, it's required. The PQI Power memory kit has a lower rated bandwidth than the 512MB DIMMs we listed earlier (DDR2-533), but it also comes with better timings (4-4-4-12). It should still be good for moderate overclocking as well, provided you give it a bit more voltage and relax the timings. Memory like this used to cost closer to $140, and prices are slowly beginning to come down again. There's currently a $25 mail-in rebate available on this PQI memory, although even without the rebate the price is still better than most competing offerings.

If you can find similar quality memory from one of the major manufacturers (A-DATA, Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin, OCZ, Patriot, etc.) for less money, that was our primary criteria in finding reasonable memory. You can also look at upgrading to DDR2-667 or even DDR2-800 memory, although you will definitely pay more for the latter right now. DDR2-800 memory will guarantee you that level of memory performance (assuming the RAM is compatible with your motherboard, which is thankfully becoming less of the concern now), and overclocking enthusiasts will definitely want to give serious consideration toward spending a bit more money on memory, especially for the Core 2 Duo platform.

Just about any upper-budget or midrange system is going to do away with integrated graphics, and this is no exception. We were faced with several options for discrete graphics, ranging from the low-end X1300 and 7300 up through more expensive solutions like the X1900 GT. While the latter definitely sounds like it has no place in a budget guide, we do have to point out that there are very few graphics cards in the $120 price range that currently include HDCP support. Moving up to the $200 price range, you begin to find quite a few more HDCP solutions. If you care about gaming performance or you want HDCP, a Radeon X1900 or GeForce 7900 series card isn't a bad idea (the GeCube GC-H1900GTD-VID3 is one such option). If you don't care much about gaming or HDCP, but you want a better motherboard than our base recommendation (i.e., for overclocking), just about any discrete graphics card will be acceptable.

We eventually settled on the GeForce 7600 GT as our upgrade pick, but even then there were several considerations we still had to make. Many vendors are offering factory overclocked cards, although the minor differences in clock speed usually aren't worth losing sleep over. We also saw some short-term sales, for example a BFG 7600 GT was going for $120 earlier this week, but once the sale is over we are back to looking at prices and features. You can still find a cheaper 7600 GT card, or you could downgrade to the 7600 GS. We chose to go with the XFX 7600 GT at a slightly higher price, not because of the factory overclock (which it has), but rather because it includes two DVI ports instead of a VGA port and a DVI port. We prefer LCDs these days, and we prefer to use LCDs with a DVI connection. DVI ports can also be useful for connecting your computer to many HDTVs. For these reasons, we were willing to spend an extra $15. If you disagree with us, EVGA, BFG, and many others offer competing graphics cards that may or may not be cheaper.



Upgraded Intel Budget Platform

Upgraded Budget Intel Core 2 Duo System
Hardware	Component	Price
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 - 1.86GHz 1066FSB 2MB	$183
Motherboard	Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H - Intel P965 775	$106
Memory	PQI POWER Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-533 4-4-4-12	$195
Video Card	XFX PVT73GUGF3 - GeForce 7600GT 256MB	$146
Hard Drive	Samsung SpinPoint P 250GB SATA3.0Gbps 250GB 8MB 7200RPM	$76
Optical Drive	LG GSA-H10N 16X DVD+/-RW (12X DVD-RAM)	$36
System Total		$742
Complete Package		$1028 - $1300

At the top of the performance tower in this budget guide, Core 2 Duo once again reigns supreme. And once again, it does so at a slightly higher cost. We are more than willing to pay the price premium, and the amount of overclocking you can get out of these chips is almost criminal. Sadly, reaching the highest overclocks often requires memory that is exorbitantly expensive, but even with DDR2-800 memory you should be able to reach performance levels that are out of reach of the fastest current AMD processors. If someone were to ask any of us right now what the best overall value is in the CPU world, it would undoubtedly fall to the Core 2 Duo E6300.

As with the AMD upgraded configuration, we chose the cheapest Core 2 Duo processor. The E6300 comes with a default clock speed of 1.86GHz along with a 7X multiplier. At stock speeds, it will be moderately faster than the X2 3800+, while even moderate overclocking quickly catapults it up the performance ladder. Of course, that's provided you are doing tasks that benefit from additional CPU speed, rather than something that is already bottlenecked by another component. Do you want better gaming performance? A faster graphics card will do far more than an overclocked CPU right now. We still like dual core CPUs for the reasons we mentioned on the previous page, and more and more applications are becoming optimized for multiple processors support. Given that the future appears to be moving towards even more processing cores rather than faster individual cores, such optimizations can't come soon enough.

Having settled on the Core 2 Duo E6300, we still need an appropriate motherboard. We recently published our first roundup of P965 motherboards, which focused primarily on midrange offerings. While we haven't formally reviewed the Foxconn P965 motherboard we've selected yet, the choice was made with the input of our motherboard reviewers. Foxconn has been working on improving their image in the enthusiast community, and their top-end AMD AM2 nForce 590 SLI motherboard really impressed us. Their P965 motherboard isn't quite at that level, but it still offers good performance and should overclock to 400FSB. That is definitely lower than what can be achieved on many other P965 motherboards, but as you will need better memory anyway to get beyond 400FSB, the price and features of the Foxconn make for a great upper-budget recommendation.

Our storage choices haven't changed much, other than adding a larger hard drive and a minor upgrade to the DVD+/-RW. The LG GSA-H10N offers slightly better performance and media compatibility, along with faster DVD-RAM support (12X DVD-RAM versus 5X on most other DVDRs). For the hard drive, 250GB-320GB tends to be the best value in terms of price/GB, and with this being a budget guide we stayed on the low end of the capacity range. The Samsung SpinPoint 250GB costs $0.31/GB versus $0.38/GB on the Hitachi 160GB model. Samsung also makes what are currently the quietest hard drives we have tested, although most hard drives are now at the point where system fan noise is far more audible.



Display, Case and Peripherals

With all the core components covered, all we need now is a box to hold everything, power to make it go, and a display, speakers, keyboard, and mouse so you can actually use the computer. We have several options listed, all of which should work with any of the previously covered system platforms. Given that this is a budget buyer's guide, we definitely will not be spending a lot of money getting an aftermarket power supply (with one exception). Our experience with midrange systems and below is that they tend to work fine with the cheap case + PSU combinations that you can buy. If you want to get a better power supply, you can always do that after the fact, and as usual we would put Enermax, Fotron Source, OCZ, SeaSonic, and Silverstone at the top in terms of overall quality. One good reason to upgrade your power supply - other than providing more stable power and perhaps saving on electricity costs - is to reduce system noise. Many cheap power supplies can be obnoxiously loud, whereas all five of the manufacturers we just listed tend to be much quieter. SeaSonic S12 would probably be the best of those five, and PC Power and Cooling is another company known for their high-quality power supplies. Most of the really good power supplies from any of these companies are going to be difficult to get into a budget price range, unfortunately.

Budget Case and Accessories
Display	Sceptre 19" X9WG-NagaV 8ms 1440x900	$194
Case and Power	Rosewill R804BK Black Steel ATX with 300W 24-pin PSU	$39
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft CA9-00001 Black with Optical Mouse	$21
Speakers	Logitech X-230 2.1 Speakers	$32
Operating System	Linux Distro + OpenOffice.org	$0
Total		$286

Windows XP Budget Case and Accessories
Display	Sceptre 19" X9WG-NagaV 8ms 1440x900	$194
Case and Power	Rosewill R804BK Black Steel ATX with 300W 24-pin PSU	$39
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft CA9-00001 Black with Optical Mouse	$21
Speakers	Logitech X-230 2.1 Speakers	$32
Operating System	Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2B - OEM	$95
Total		$381

If you are looking to keep prices down at all costs, even a few $10 upgrades can quickly add up. We still have several of those upgrades in place, but for the basic build we have trimmed things down about as far as we're willing to go. We selected a 19" widescreen monitor from Sceptre, a brand known for targeting the budget sector. 17" LCDs might be slightly cheaper, but we would rather spend the extra $12 in this instance. That gives you a widescreen 1440x900 resolution as opposed to 1280x1024, and the size of the screen is also larger. Discerning viewers might have issues with the overall quality, but if you were to put even the cheapest 19" LCD next to your typical CRT, the vast majority of people are going to think the LCD looks better. It may not perform better, but it's hard to compete with thin and sexy when you're fat and large. (Ed: No offense intended towards any fat or large people out there - and hey, I'm working on my gut!)

The case and power supply come from Rosewill, another brand known for targeting the budget sector. You will likely find some sharp edges within the case, and the generic 300W power supply shouldn't be used if you plan on installing multiple hard drives, higher-end graphics cards, or doing serious overclocking. If you just plan on putting the system together and running it at stock settings, however, you shouldn't have any problems. The mouse, keyboard, and speakers are also budget choices that will still work well, though if you prefer something else get what you like instead.

For the operating system, we have two options. The first is to go the free route and install Linux, OpenOffice.org, etc. The obvious benefit is the price, but you also need to know your way around Linux and you may not be able to run every piece of software you would like (even using a Windows emulator like WINE). On the other hand, this would allow you to join the elite group of people that like to make fun of Microsoft and Windows. For basic computer tasks, Linux is more than capable of doing everything you need. Advanced users will even prefer the high level of customization available.

If you don't have any idea how to use a makefile, you're probably best off sending some money to Microsoft in order to use their operating system. You might not learn as much about computers that way, but it can also help you avoid arguments with other household members. After all, there's a reason Microsoft operating systems currently dominate the market. For single computer users, Windows XP Home is about the same as Windows XP Professional, but if you have a home network you might want to consider upgrading to MCE 2005 or XP Pro. As you can tell, the almighty dollar had its hand in our recommendation of XP Home.

HTPC Case and Accessories
Display	Existing HDTV (or other display)	$0
Case	Silverstone SST-LC17-B Black Aluminum HTPC Case	$141
Power Supply	SeaSonic S12-380 380W PSU	$65
Keyboard and Mouse	Logitech Keyboard and Mouse - Wireless + Rechargeable	$56
Speakers	Existing Home Theater	$0
TV Tuner	Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500 MCE Dual Tuner + FM	$140
Operating System	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2B (OEM)	$115
Total		$517

One of the great uses for a budget computer, if you're the type of person that has several computers around the house (Ed: or a computer in every room like some of us...), is as an HTPC (Home Theater PC). Why buy a TiVo or other subscription service if you can get all of their features for a simple one-time payment? You may not be able to record every single channel you get using an HTPC, but overall it offers far greater versatility. Recompress the videos you record into an MPEG-4 format, share all of your videos throughout your home network, download and/or watch movies from the Internet, burn your recordings to DVDs... you can do all of that plus other multimedia tasks with an HTPC. If you already have a really nice home theater setup, adding a computer may be the next logical step. You don't need a display or speakers most likely, so we left those out, but you probably also want something that's quiet and will fit in better with your other stereo components.

We took the money we saved from skipping the LCD and speaker purchases and put that towards getting a nice HTPC case and a quiet power supply. We also added in a wireless keyboard and mouse and a dual TV tuner. The Silverstone case is one of the larger HTPC cases out there and it is capable of holding a full-size ATX motherboard (although it can be a pretty tight fit). It can also use any standard ATX power supply, and in order to keep noise levels down we went with a SeaSonic S12 380W power supply. An alternative power supply configuration you might want to consider is something with modular cables, as the confines of many HTPC cases are very cramped and the ability to omit unnecessary cables can be useful.

Our HTPC configuration naturally chose to go with an HTPC operating system, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. MCE 2005 is a lot like XP Pro, only with video timeshifting and recording features and a 10 foot UI. Finally, our preferred TV tuner comes from Hauppauge, the WinTV PVR-500 MCE Dual Tuner + FM. While we haven't specifically reviewed any Hauppauge products in a while, they are still among the best quality analog TV tuners available. (They are also fully compatible with Linux - at least, the non-MCE versions are - so if you want to build an HTPC using MythTV you could also go that route.) The total cost of our HTPC accessories ends up being quite a bit more than any of the other configurations, considering it doesn't include an LCD or speakers. However, going with a really cheap HTPC case often brings undesirable results. We wouldn't necessarily consider this a budget selection, but depending on the other components used it could qualify as a "budget HTPC".

If you're looking for an HTPC case that is more "budget" than what we have listed here, one reader points out the Antec Solution Series NSK2400 as a good option. This case will require the use of a micro ATX motherboard, so you might lose some features, but you can save over $100 relative to the Silverstone + PSU that we've selected. Whether or not you prefer the appearance of the Silverstone or the Antec will probably play a part in your final decision as well. (Truth be told, I was trying to find a case like this Antec NSK2400 for the article and apparently it never turned up in my searches. It is definitely a better budget choice! Thanks for the comment, "autoboy".)

Upgraded Case and Accessories
Display	BenQ 20.1" FP202W 8ms 1680x1050	$270
Case and Power	Cooler Master Centurion RC-534-SKR5 Silver Aluminum with 430W 24-pin PSU	$77
Keyboard and Mouse	Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 with Optical Mouse	$28
Speakers	Logitech X-530 5.1 Speakers	$68
Operating System	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2B (OEM)	$115
Total		$558

The upgraded configuration of course includes more expensive - and better - components. Starting with the LCD, we upgraded from a 19" widescreen to a 20" widescreen model. While the screen isn't a lot larger, the 20" model does come with a higher 1680x1050 native resolution. We still consider BenQ more of a budget LCD brand, but we would rate them quite a bit higher than Sceptre. The case and power supply we selected are from Cooler Master, a well-known and generally respected brand. The included power supply still isn't a super high quality model, but with a 430W rating it is definitely more than enough to drive any of the budget systems we put together in this guide. We stuck with MCE 2005 as the operating system choice, even though this isn't an HTPC build (although it could be with the addition of the TV tuner). The keyboard and mouse have a few more buttons but are otherwise about the same as our basic setup - get whatever keyboard and mouse you are most comfortable with if you don't like our choice. Finally, we bumped up a notch on the speakers from 2.1 to 5.1 audio. The Logitech budget speakers all perform well for the price, so there's usually not much point in getting some other brand.



Conclusion

Unlike our last high-end guide, we have chosen not to bother with a large list of alternatives this time. There are always choices to be made, and there are compromises in any budget computer. In many cases, this year's budget configurations are just last year's midrange offerings, with a few minor tweaks. Out of the four configurations we put together, the baseline builds had an eye more towards cutting costs whereas the upgraded configurations looked to add more performance and features. As the price nears $500, the differences between one component and another similar component often become small. Should you get brand A or brand B memory? Who makes the best motherboard? Which hard drive is better? There are definitely still differences, but we would mostly concern ourselves with the features you may or may not be getting as "best" becomes more of a marketing term in the budget sector than anything concrete. Given that the performance of most budget systems is going to be a lot like last year's midrange models, an alternative to building a new budget system is to instead look for a good price on a used midrange system from a year or two ago. You may not get the latest socket, memory, GPU, hard drive, etc., but you might also get better overall performance for less money. There are, after all, many different ways to part with $600.

As is often the case, two of the builds today stand out as being better overall choices than the others. If you are looking to cut costs and stick closer to $500, we would currently give that market to the AMD configurations. True, you don't get a dual core processor, but that will add at least $50 to the total system cost, and a lot of people simply don't use their computers in such a way that dual cores are necessary. Athlon 64 processors are still very fast, and the single core chips are a great bargain compared to what the cost last year. In fact, Athlon 64 chips are so cheap now that we see little reason to consider getting a Sempron processor. On the other end of the spectrum, if you're looking to upgrade performance slightly, the most sensible decision is to go with a budget Core 2 Duo configuration. This is especially useful if you do use a lot of applications that will benefit from multiple processor cores, as Core 2 Duo is currently the fastest dual core architecture available.

Finally, let us reiterate once again that it is virtually impossible to cover every reasonable component choice at a given price range with a single buyer's guide. That's why we have all of our individual review sections, with these guides being more a look at what sort of system we would put together at the given price points. There are plenty of possibilities that we didn't even touch in this guide. For example, you might want to go with a cheaper processor and other components in order to max out your GPU, with the aim of getting maximum gaming performance. How do you balance that so that your CPU is still fast enough to keep your GPU fed? Feel free to ask questions in the comments section, and we will do our best to respond - or you can always use email if you prefer. And if you think that prices are currently too high, there's no harm in waiting as something better is almost always right around the corner, and other than a few periodic spikes like we've seen with memory, component costs will trend downwards over time. Thanks for reading, and suggestions are always welcome!