Final Words
The problem with "entry-level" systems is that they aren't normally sexy or groundbreaking. PCs under $800 are therefore devoid of any of the glitz and excitement associated with the midrange to high-end market. Many consider low-end PCs to be just the Dell or HP special of the week - hardly worthy of consideration as a "real" PC. That perception is really a shame, because the sub-$800 market is where many computer buyers choose to buy - or they may be forced to buy in this price range with the strains of today's worldwide economic woes. Today, more than ever, you will get a lot for your money in this market segment. With entry choices like Core 2 Duo and Phenom II CPUs, 4GB of DDR2-800 or faster memory, and a starter $59 500GB 7200RPM hard drive there truly is value to be had at these price points.
Our base entry systems with decent integrated graphics are just $300-$320 for either Intel or AMD. Add a 1440x900 LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse, and the Vista OEM OS and the complete system build is still around $500, and decent integrated graphics were just $538 for either Intel or AMD. Even compared to just three months ago these entry PCs are faster and just as cheap. There has never been a time when you received better value for your $500. Indeed, the Intel/AMD wars in the CPU space and the NVIDIA/ATI wars in GPUs have created some truly excellent values. This value has been further enhanced by the AMD introduction of Phenom II and the worldwide recession. It is ironic that the best prices coincide with the scariest economic times, but that is how economics often works. If you are in the market for a PC, you will be very pleased with the values you can find.
If your budget interests extend to gaming, you can start with the AMD or Intel Budget PCs. Both feature a Viewsonic 21.5" 1920x1080 LCD, and you can add the well-regarded ATI HD 4870 512MB video card to bring your new system up to current gaming PC standards for only $155. That means you can build a 4870 gaming rig with a 1080P 1920x1080 HDMI LCD for around $940. That kind of value did not exist until recently, and that is why it is such a good time to buy and build a new PC.
Finally, you can build a powerful AMD or Intel HTPC 4GB of memory, processors and graphics fast enough to provide stutter-free and tear-free Blu-ray playback, 1TB of quiet hard drive storage, a combo 6X Blu-ray player/DVD burner, and HDMI capable onboard graphics in a quality home theater component or mini cube case with a PC Power and Cooling 500W Silencer power supply for a base system price of just over $600. Add a wireless keyboard/ mouse and Vista and you are still around $740. The end result again is tremendous value for the money spent.
As has been pointed out many times since the introduction of Phenom II, AMD and Intel performance is all but equal from low-end to upper midrange systems. That is to say a $120 AMD CPU is today pretty comparable in performance to a $120 Intel CPU. Intel still owns the very top of the CPU curve with Core i7, but those processors and systems are much more expensive in today's market. This CPU price/performance parity is part of the reason so much value is available at such relatively low prices, but it isn't the whole story. You can buy what we consider a top value GPU for around $150, and it will perform as well as or better than yesterday's $500 video card. 500GB is now an "entry" hard drive and 1TB drives offer storage at $0.105 per gigabyte, making 1TB at around $100 a reality. Memory has also reached commodity pricing levels when we can recommend 4GB of high-speed DDR2 for a cost of less than $40.
Put it all together and you can buy an excellent entry, budget, or HTPC computer for well under $800. You can even deck it out with a 1080P monitor and a good video card and still barely top $940. It is a good time to be shopping for a new PC. Value is the rule of the day as competition, a mature market, and a lackluster world economy has created great options in every computer component category - except perhaps the computer operating system, assuming you still plan on running Windows. Fortunately, you do have options available even in the operating system cost. Microsoft has kept the Vista OS "system" or OEM price for Vista Home Premium at $100, and it is even more expensive if you buy a full retail Vista. However, if you are good with computers you can install Linux for little or no cost at all. Even if you're not a computer whiz the Ubuntu flavor of Linux/Unix is still free and relatively painless to install. Drivers for new hardware remain the biggest Linux/Ubuntu issues, but even that has been improving.
When you build a new system for your mother, brother, nephew going to college, or even yourself, you no longer have to feel like the person on the other end got a crippled system with little upgrade potential. The systems in this sub-$800 guide are powerful, upgradeable, and capable of even more powerful performance with a careful selection of upgrades. Your friends and relatives will consider you a hero when you build one of these systems - so much so that it is a shame to consider them entry-level.
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Spivonious - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
What's the point of an HTPC if you're just watching movies on it? Just get a $300 blu-ray player and a $200 Xbox 360 to stream movies from your existing PC.The only reason I would build an HTPC is to do the above PLUS act as a DVR. For that you need a tuner card, even if you're not using the actual tuner on it.
erple2 - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
Interesting. How many tuner cards support CableCARD's? I don't really know of any that you can buy yourself (without the rest of the computer from an OEM, that is). If I want to watch some encrypted stream (like HBO, Comedy Central, etc), there aren't any options.Therefore, the ripping aspect is what I'd wind up using the HTPC for, I'd imagine. That, or the ubiquitous hulu or other ... ahem ... legal means for watching TV shows...
:)
Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
Don't know why you guys didn't include a gaming machine for this price point... so I'll list out some components for you.Part : Price
Antec 300 Mid-Tower computer case : $60
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D 120mm Case Fan : $15
Silverstone ST70F 700W PSU : $125-rebate=100
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R Intel P45 : $115-rebate=100
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz : $165
Kingston HyperX 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 : $48
XFX GS250XYDFC GeForce GTS 250 512MB : $130 w/ free game
Seagate ST3640323AS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache: $70
LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Blk : $24
Grand Total= $752 Total with rebates= $712
Throw in a second hard drive and set up a RAID 0 configuration for 50 percent faster load times and your total is still only $782!!!!
Add SAMSUNG 2233SW Monitor for $200 ($180 after rebate) and Logitech S-220 17 Watts 2.1 speakers for only $23 and your total is still only $915 or $985 with RAID!!!
You can even add a TV Tuner for $50-$80 and make it a media pc as well and ur total is STILL only about $800.
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1250 Hybrid Video Recorder 1196 PCI-Express x1 Interface
Hauppauge WINTVHVR1600 Dual Tuner White Box 1101WB PCI Interface
Knowname - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
I just bought the Tuniq Potency 650w PSU, it's got 2 pcie connectors (one is 8 pin) and is like 88% efficient at the low end. for $45 after $40 rebate it's a pretty darned good deal. Much more bang for your buck than what you got.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
here is another one that is 630w, modular, 80-plus bronze efficient, 2pcie's and only $40 after rebate. I've not tried it but it's got good reviews.
Hrel - Saturday, March 21, 2009 - link
yeah, both of those seem pretty good, but they both have fewer 12V rails, they both have less total Wattage and they both have a shorter warranty or none at all. Not to mention Silverstone is reliable high quality, honestly I don't really know if those are any good, in todays market I assume they're not terrible; but the silverstone one hav tons of wattage plenty of amperage, it's modular, it's 88 percent efficient; and that's a reliable number, and it's quiet. I don't know how stable the voltage is on those psu's and I don't know how loud they are. But 100 bucks for a high quality 700W PSU with 4 12V rails that runs silent and has 4 PCIEx6pin and 1PCIEx8 pin connectors is very fair. The other ones only had two PCIE-connectors, so you won't be SLI'ing any 9800GTX+'s or GTX260's. Don't every skimp on mobo or PSU, EVER!Knowname - Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - link
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
If your really concerned with noise, you should get this case.NZXT HUSH Black SECC Steel/ Aluminum/ Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
it's awesome and priced fairly.
Don't care about noise and want good cooling? Get one of these.
Thermaltake V9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
or
Antec 900
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
You can take another ten bucks off that price if you use this case instead: Thermaltake WingRS 201 VJ60001N2Z Black, it's $50; but it's out of stock right now.Hrel - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
Not really dude: If you want to game, spend an extra 20 bucks and get the Wolfdale CPU, double the cache and a faster FSB AND a higher clock speed. They've got you spending an extra 20 bucks on the motherboard for no reason, there's no reason to their Gigabyte board instead of the one I listed. They have you paying for 1066MHz DDR2 instead of DDR2 800, which doesn't matter if you don't wanna overclock; and I'd rather have Kingston DDR2800 over any other brand of DDR21066 if the prices are about the same.With my system you get an extra 140GB of storage for only 10 bucks and your getting Seagate instead of WD, that doesn't really matter as far as quality, but Seagate generally has a better Warranty. They've got you buying a Samsung DVD drive when for one dollar less you can get an LG drive; so that's a pretty obvious choice, LG beats ALL!
I've never liked Cooler Master cases, every single one I've worked with has felt like is was built using cheap materials. Antec 300 is a much better choice for cooling quality noise and room. The power supply they use costs less, but it's lower wattage which means more noise, and the fan makes more noise. The Silverstone 700W PSU, that anandtech reviewed, is almost always the way to go; unless your building a low end system or stupidly high end system.
I don't know if any of you have tried to deal with Viewsonic when you have to return one of their products or get warranty work done, but they're impossible to work with. We used to use them at the computer store I worked at, but we switched to only Samsung and LG because even though Viewsonic is cheaper, their warranties are worthless because they just won't help you; and the quality is lower. For 5 bucks I'd rather have the speakers I picked, but those are good too. I didn't list a keyboard mouse combo, but Logitech all the way. The one they used for HTPC computers was a good choice at a good price.
7Enigma - Monday, March 16, 2009 - link
The problem is they are building a complete system. $20 here and $20 there, having a monitor, and keyboard/mouse, and suddenly you've increased the price by >10%.I like these builds because it allows me to say, "Well I already have an existing case/mobo/monitor/keyboard/mouse/OS, so I can look at the Budget Build but cut the cost in 1/2".
I think most of us that build systems rarely have a completely new system from scratch to build (unless you are building for someone else). We normally keep the case for a couple builds, monitor for a couple, and personally I use the keyboard/mouse until they die. I only recently upgraded the HD from my 80gig Maxtor to a 250gig WD because of the huge size of Vista and the ever increasing size of games. So while we will probably always argue over the exact components, rarely are we going to be building a complete system like in the guides.