System Buyers' Guide: PCs for Under $1000
by Sean Hollister on February 12, 2010 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Get Your Upgrades
In the preceding pages, we've explained how to build the most PC for the least money while maintaining our high standards for quality in each and every individual component. In places, we've also found ways you could optionally "get less," saving some money in exchange for features most want but you don't necessarily need. But what if you're satisfied with your build and have some extra money left over? Are there any moderate upgrades that are similarly worth every penny you'll spend? That is the question we'll attempt to address here, in our new Upgrades section. Simply scroll down to the heading that best suits your computing style and we'll suggest a part or three that you won't regret adding to your purchase.
The Multitasker
If you're a business user looking to improve your productivity, there are two basic ways to ensure that happens as you build a new PC. First, you can make sure your computer is as responsive and multithread capable as can be; and second, you can optionally get a larger monitor with a higher resolution, so you have plenty of desktop real estate to work with.
When it comes to multithreaded performance, there's little we can do for the Intel Entry-level PC; upgrading to a quad-core LGA 775 processor is currently cost-prohibitive enough that you should just go with the Core i3-530 in our mainstream configuration instead. But you can easily spend an extra $30 for the $102 Athlon II X4 630 if you need an extra core in our AMD Entry-level PC. Also, though it's not terribly cost effective, you can also get better single and multithreaded performance in our AMD Mainstream PC by purchasing the $140 Phenom II X4 940 or better.
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Meanwhile, if you want a responsive computer, we suggest that you look at the $130 Intel X25-V solid state drive. With a capacity of only 40GB and exceedingly slow sequential write times, the X25-V isn't a replacement for your rotational storage. But with superb read and random write times thanks to the same controller used on Intel's critically acclaimed X25-M G2, it will serve as a fabulous boot drive that will cut your Windows load times in half and speed up basic computing. Since sales seem to come and go on this drive, you might want to shop around; currently, you can find one at ZipZoomFly for $110 after rebate.
Finally, if you need a bigger screen at an affordable price point, ASUS continues to have you covered. For an entry-level PC, upgrading from the 19" ASUS VW193TR to the 21.5" 1080p VH226H is a no-brainer; but if you need a couple of extra inches, the ASUS VH236H ($170 after a $20 rebate) provides a highly rated 23" screen for just $20 more. And though we're not certain that it's worth the premium price, if you're looking for the increasingly rare large 16:10 panels, the ASUS VW266H provides a relatively inexpensive 25.5" 1920x1200 screen for $300.
The Gamer
While it's true that some games can be limited greatly by the power of your CPU, hardcore PC gamers know that for the most part, the true heart of a gaming PC is its graphics card. What that means is that, up to a certain point, you can pick a powerful GPU and get greatly increased graphical performance in even an entry-level Pentium Dual-Core system like the one on page 3.
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If you plan to run titles that aren't particularly strenuous or you don't mind running at reduced graphics settings, the same $100 Radeon HD 4850 we recommended for our Mainstream rigs will provide plenty of power to one of our 1440x900 entry-level PCs. If you need even more power, however, a $160 Radeon HD 5770 should be able to provide enough horsepower for 1920x1200 gaming—in addition to Eyefinity and DX11—with minimal bottlenecking. If you're considering an upgrade for one of our Mainstream configs, there's once again the Radeon HD 5770, the Radeon HD 4890 provides excellent 1920x1200 performance for $200, and the Radeon HD 5850 hits the ceiling of reality at $300. We can't really justify the price for cards more expensive than the 5850 due to diminishing returns, just as we can't currently justify buying any gaming cards from NVIDIA unless you need PhysX or 3D Vision. As of today, when it comes to gaming, ATI beats NVIDIA at every price point.
If you're serious about gaming, you might also want to pick up a dedicated gaming mouse as well. While most gamers can get along just fine with a budget keyboard, the precision and response time of a gaming mouse really does make a difference, and these days you can find very good ones for $30 if you wait for a sale. Though the exact mouse you pick will depend on your dominant hand and grip style, right-handers will find it hard to go wrong with the comfortable Logitech MX518 optical wheel mouse for $40.
The Multimedia Enthusiast
If you're a true multimedia enthusiast, you probably already have the expensive screen and sound system on-hand, and you're looking to us for a budget pseudo-HTPC capable of supporting it. Well, if you picked our Intel Mainstream PC or our AMD Entry-level PC, you're already most of the way there; you just need to trade up for an appropriately small case to house the system, wireless peripherals and a Blu-ray drive.
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For roughly the same price of the Centurion 5 case and ModXStream power supply in our standard configurations, you can pick up the $110 Antec New Solution NSK2480 instead, a popular, component-style steel HTPC case built in collaboration with the editor of SilentPCReview.com. Featuring a built-in 380W, 80 Plus-certified power supply, full-height expansion slots and a number of important tweaks for airflow and quiet operation, it's an excellent choice for the money.
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If you need a single drive that can read Blu-ray discs and burn DVDs, your best budget choice is the LG CH08LS10, a combo Blu-ray reader and 16X LightScribe-capable DVDRW for $100. If you only want to watch movies, you can pick up the Lite-On iHOS104-06, an internal SATA drive that reads Blu-ray, DVDs and CDs for a practically unheard of $60.
When it comes to cheap wireless peripherals, quality is always a mixed bag. The Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 100 hits all the important notes with a reasonably shrunk 102-key keyboard in a straightforward arrangement, an acceptable 1000dpi optical mouse with scroll wheel, RF connectivity and the low price of $31—only $10 more than our wired peripheral recommendation—for the pair. (Note that it's currently listed on sale at Target for just $20.)
As one last HTPC consideration, you might want to swap out your storage. For the same price as the WD Caviar Blue, you can get Western Digital's Caviar Green 500GB instead, which sacrifices the dedicated 7200RPM spindle speed of other drives for increased power savings and reduced noise—features that prove valuable in an HTPC hard drive.
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Ananke - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
It is not cheap, since you have to pay at least $100 for the operational system, if you go Windows.However, OEM computers are designed to NOT be able to upgrade. The simplest example is trying to put powerful video a year later - the PSU will not be sufficient. Then, you will need to replace the PSU, but the case is proprietary and you will need new case too. If you pay attention to how many open slots for HDDs you have in Dell/HP, you will also realize serious restriction there. not to mention that Dell's internal design consists of strange and large plastic hoods for the fans, which are often obstructing new video cards. Also, you may just realize that the memory banks are only two on most OEMs, and hence you are going to double expenses if larger memory is needed.
My suggestion: first buy nice and spacious case with 90 degree HDD cage and at least four HDD slots! Example - Cooler Master Elite 310 for $49 (cheap, but the cages are 90 degree on this one).Then get really good PSU - Corsair, PCP&P, Seasonic 750W and above - you need it for all the available connectors and capacity for indefinite future expansion. Then decide on the platform. I had Intel, just recently switched to AMD and I am very happy actually with what I got for the twice less money - Fry's deal on Athlon II X4 630 with free Asus 785G micro-ATX, total $130. Yesterday I replayed Crysis warhead, it runs smooth on Enthusiast 1920*1200, with Radeon 5850.
Buy 2*2 GB DDR3 - there are modules on sale. I prefer Kingston Hyper X for stability. The idea is you want to start with at least two banks by 2GB so you have enough and still room for further expansion. The mobo should have 4 memory banks, not only two.
I got micro ATX, next upgrade I can use the micro ATX for a home server box or HTPC. If you get full ATX now, you cannot use it for HTPC small factor later, because it's big. Of course, if building ultimate machine, the choice of components is different. mine is best bang for the buck for gaming and video editing. Spec:
Asus A785M microATX, Athlon II X4 630, 8GB Kingston Hyper 1600 DDR3, 4*1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 /not the 11th series- it's junk/, XFX Radeon 5850 regular, PCP&P 750W, Windows 7 64-bit Pro This comp gets 7.7 Win performance index. All components have frequent sale. Cut the memory to 4 GB, use HDD by your taste, use cheaper video and voila - you have power under $500. Intel configuration would cost me more. Instead I opt for the Radeon 5850. I transcode with Cyberlink Esspresso 5.5 or Avivo because are GPU accelerated. The last time it transcoded 4.31GB x.264 to PSP for 17 minutes :):). The Radeons are crazy stuff and under load temp is 42 Celsius. My previous G285 was going 81 Celsius under load and the entire motherboard was getting cooked.
brybir - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
I agree about comparing to pre-built. The best bang for the buck in lower end builds is probably not building yourself anymore.For example, Gateway has a new Gateway DX4831-05 Desktop with:
i5-650 @3.2GHz,
8GB DDR3,
1TB HDD,
DVDRW,
HDMI,
eSATA,
FireWire,
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
G310 graphics card
and this all comes in at $799 shipped free and no tax to most states. If you can find one refurbed you can cut another $100 off of that.
So the prebuilt machine comes in at $150 less but is arguably a better machine with a better processor, more ram, bigger hard drive, and a warranty with room to upgrade to a better video card. Even if you tack on $100 for a better vid card, you still save $50 and get much better system specs overall.
I know its not fun to just buy a PC anymore, but if you are not building a overclock hobby machine, it really pays to look around Dell, Gateway, HP etc for prices! (And hell, even gateway sells a $1299 i860 machine with a 5850, so even at the upper end, their are still good deals to be had)
mckirkus - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
It would be nice to see a table with a price to PCMark (or other benchmark) ratio.More categories would be nice to. Instead of grouping by price range, group by category. So for instance:
Grandma PC
Cheap / Fancy
Niether of which would have discreet graphics but maybe a small SSD on the high end.
And also cover, workstation, gaming, HTCP, etc. It feels like in an attempt to give an overview of the whole market you're forgetting about actual uses. Watch this TED video on why there are 50 types of spaghetti sauce to see what I mean... http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spagh...">http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spagh...
rundll - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
This first "entry level" rigg put together here isn't actually entry level. It's way too powerful and expensive for that.At entry level you'd choose Athlon x2 240 which is a very powerful and capable prosessor for those things you are supposed to do at entry level.
2 GB memory is also more than sufficient. I'm not sure how much faster an entry level rigg gets in every day internet and office use if you put there extra 2 GBs? 0%? 2%?
The power source is also both over kill and too expensive.
What comes to MB, The 785G is ok pick up here but once again, the 780G offers almost identical performance. I know that 785G has other advances, so this choice is understandable.
And understandable are all of these choices made here. I could easily do exactly the same line up for me and I would reason my choices exactly the same way. But as a result I'd end up having something else than an entry level PC.
All in all, all I'm saying here is that this now called "Entry level" starting point should actually be called "best-bang-for-the-buck level".
You put to this "entry level" rigg an ATI 5830 graphic card and you end up with a quite capable power house.
JarredWalton - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
The consensus at AnandTech is that we wouldn't touch 2GB machines these days; Windows 7 64-bit can run on 2GB, but we felt it was far more useful to bump it up to 4GB. How much faster it ends up being really depends on how you use your PC, but I know I frequently get a lot of HDD thrashing from swapfile access if I don't have 4GB.As for the power supply, you have essentially two choices: get a cheaper lower efficiency PSU for less money, or get something that's better but costs http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">at least $40. This is another item that has been debated in the past, and the result is that we're all a lot more comfortable spending more money on a higher quality PSU. That will also give you plenty of options for growing the PC down the road, along with overclocking.
As someone else commented, if you're just looking for a standard system and you don't intend to upgrade, take a serious look at Dell/HP/etc. pre-built systems. They won't be faster than these builds, but at $500 for a complete setup you're not going to get equivalent components with a DIY. What you will get are more features and higher quality (with the ability to upgrade any and all components should the need arise). The OEM cases are still vendor lock in, unfortunately.
To whit, I've got a friend's Dell XPS 400 at my house right now with an old Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz) and it's having problems. There's little point in trying to spend money fixing it when we can build a newer, faster system for less than $500. If I could swap out the mobo and CPU, we could have a "new" system in there for less than $200, but because of the proprietary chassis that's not an option.
FlyTexas - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Regarding the Dell XPS 400 system.You are correct that it has a BTX motherboard, and thus can't really be upgraded in that case.
However, even if you could, what are you saving? The motherboard + CPU + memory is what costs all the money in a computer anyway.
A basic case will run you $50 including power supply (not a uber case, but one that works just fine), and while you can move the hard drive from the XPS 400, it is now out of date compared to a modern hard drive.
That computer is now 4+ years old, the most valuable thing there is the Windows XP licence. :) (which you're not supposed to move to a new system, but Microsoft will do it over the phone anyway if you call to activate it on a new box)
Regarding your friend's computer, since he doesn't need a new monitor, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, etc.
All he really needs is the case, motherboard, CPU, RAM (maybe), and he is good to go. That doesn't cost $500.
Just my random thoughts... :)
JarredWalton - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Actually, I could keep the RAM (2x2GB DDR2), GPU (9800 GS), PSU, and case... and really, the XPS 400 series case is quite good, and the PSU is far better than the cheap stuff you get bundled with a case.The HDD seems to be having problems, but again I don't know if it's truly dying or just needs a reinstall. (I was able to boot into Linux to copy off the files, but trying to boot XP gives a BSOD no matter what I try.) So, at $50/hr to work on a computer, it's probably not worth saving.
If it were my own PC, I'd put in the time and fix the HDD, but it's not so the question quickly becomes one of fixing old vs. buying new. Their feeling is, "why spend $250 fixing this old thing [i.e. new HDD plus my time] when we can get a brand new PC for a bit more that's going to be superior?"
FlyTexas - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
True enough about the RAM, assuming it isn't part of the problem. As a completely unrelated note, I've found memory to cause more problems in the past few years than anything else. 10 years ago I never had to RMA memory that I can recall, now I'm doing it maybe once a year. And I sold a LOT of computers 10 years ago.I have a XPS 410 myself, however no need to upgrade it because it came with a Core 2 Duo @ 2.4gHz. That machine is now my son's computer, but it used to be my main rig. Want to buy it as a "cheap repair"? ;)
The second area that is unreliable are hard drives, however this seems less so now than 10 years ago. I generally won't use a consumer hard drive more than 4-5 years, they just weren't designed to be used much longer and I've had too many fail on me after that point. If that XPS 400 has the origional drive in it, you actually should get a speed boost by putting in a new one.
Your comments regarding the cost to repair are spot on. I didn't know that you were charging for that work. In that case, REALLY don't bother, part it out and move on. At $50/hr, few 4 year old desktop computers are worth fixing.
FlyTexas - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
I disagree on the 2GB vs. 4GB comment, at least in my experience. Had the prices not jumped in the past year, I'd agree with 4GB, but right now it costs too much.At home, my gaming machine and my server both have 6GB, the rest of the machines have 2GB. They all run Windows 7 64-bit.
My wife uses a Dell Vostro 410 with an Intel Quad-Core @ 2.4GHz. She actually does use Office (Word, Excel, & Publisher), Quickbooks, Adobe Acrobat (full, not reader), Skype, etc. She has a half dozen things running in the system tray (she has a Zune, a web cam, music player, etc.).
2GB of RAM works just fine for all that. I actually have spare DDR2 sitting on the shelf, I've been meaning to put it in, but haven't made the time. Why? It doesn't need it and wouldn't really benefit the system.
Now I know there are cases where you need more. The server had to live with 2GB for awhile when I had a memory stick fail. I noticed that difference. I don't think my main machine needs the 6GB however, 3GB would have been fine.
Vista was terrible using memory efficiently, Windows 7 seems to be much better about it.
All just my opinion of course... :)
rundll - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Hi there, JW!I couldn't agree more. I think all you said actually doesn't contradict what I said. I don't question the choices made, I just ponder over the phrase "entry level"
Could I make a guess here for you? You wouldn't disagree with me if I said that this entry level rigg is actually pretty decent runner if you put in there a good graphic card? At least that's how I see things. Subsecuently, I can't help finding me smiling internally when we are talking here about entry level.
I guess the reason for this awkward situation is that these days the components are both powerful and cheap. At least that is if you think back more than couple of years.
As for the article as a whole, I think it was a pretty well shaped entré for SH.