Budget Buyer's Guide - October 2006
by Jarred Walton on October 25, 2006 8:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
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!
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!
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yyrkoon - Thursday, October 26, 2006 - link
OpenOffice also has a Windows port . . .JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
A quick look at Newegg shows the 65W models are about $5-$15 more ($10 on the 3800+). Definitely worth a look, although the X2 EE 3800+ is out of stock at a lot of places right now. As for OpenOffice, it was more an implication that you can get decent free software if you want. You can get OOo for XP and many other platforms as well. I'd rate it as very close to the same quality as MS Works, but the full MS Word is definitely better than OOo's word processor.Sunrise089 - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I appreciate AT's new commitment to pumping out buyer's guides, which I continue to state are one of the most useful parts of the site for myself. Although my own PC won't be in the budget category, it's always great to have a system configuration to look at when a friend or family member asks for computer advice. I hope you guys keep up the present quick rate of releasing these.Since I think Midrange is up next again, if Jarred reads this I hope he considers adding a discrete fan/heatsink option to the configurations for the next guide. With all the (welcome) info on OC'ing, it seems a shame to run the stock HSF.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
The guides are a complete package, and we mentioned aftermarket HSFs in the High-End guide. :D But yes, I can put a great emphasis on that with the next midrange guide (which will move to the new "separated" format).bgold2005 - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
been awhile since i built my last system. Not sure why mpc7488 emphasizes 'you even get Windows' when that's included in both (his) comparisons. Couple points/questions:1. I have read tomorrow (10/26) MS supposed to offer Express Coupon program to include upgrades to Vista, and that MCE with a 'SKU' will allow a free upgrade. So smart pricing and consideration might include MCE pricing, and whether an OEM MCE from Dell would include an eligible SKU or not. (yes budget systems but budget also means future-aware).
2. I have long been intrigued by dell's online option to provide an OS disc for $ 10.
Does anyone (eg the dell-experienced mpc7488 ) KNOW what's on this disc? eg, the retail OS
(I doubt), an OEM OS (only) or more like a Compaq-style 'recovery disc' where you may have to reinstall ALL the original bloated sw junk, cant install cmdcons (if no access to /i386), cant slipstream etc.
I'm not super up to date, just wanna know.
Thanx!
mpc7488 - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I emphasized Windows for the non-monitor box since at the $400 price point the O/S is about 1/4 of the price. Knocking off the cost of the O/S, you're getting a lot of hardware for the money. (Also, many people building budget systems might not be inclined to buy a copy of Windows *cough* pirate *cough*, but this route allows their conscience to be clear.)All of the recent Dell PCs have the recovery option already loaded on the hard drive. The $10 you pony up extra is for the O/S disk, which is OEM I believe (not positive about that).
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I'm not sure on the $10 XP CD either. I think it's supposed to be a full OEM copy of XP, but it might be a Dell branded version, meaning it could fail to work on non-Dell PCs if you want to move to a new computer in the future. The Dell recovery option is very conventient I think, with the only issue being the restoration of all the crap software. I think it took about an hour for me to remove all the stuff I didn't want on the XPS 410 system I got for review. (No XP CD was included on that one.)Sunrise089 - Thursday, October 26, 2006 - link
I can tell you you do get a full version (OEM) on XP at least in my case. I bought a second hand dell from a business that had been bought out by another company (new company used Macs). The Dell came with a OS CD. I upgraded the PC's memory and added a DVD-RW, and eventually swapped motherboards - reinstalled just fine, no Dell splash screen or anything. Eventually I parked that PC and built my present Opteron machine - same CD works fine.JarredWalton - Thursday, October 26, 2006 - link
Business Dell PCs might come with different accessories than home Dell PCs. I know I worked at a company that used Dell Optiplex GX150 and later GX620 systems, and every one came with an OS CD. Sort of funny, as my understanding is the corporation had a site license anyway.yyrkoon - Thursday, October 26, 2006 - link
I'm pretty sure this is the case Jarred, a friend of mine let me check out his XP CD that came with his Dell system, on a non Dell system when XP first came out, and the error I got was 'this is not a Dell Computer . . '. However, this was a few years ago, so things could have changed, but somehow, I doubt it.