Budget System Builder’s Guide February 2011

Budget System Builder’s Guide February 2011

Ed: We'd like to bid a warm welcome to Zach Throckmorton for this edition of our Buyers' Guide. As a long-time member of our forums, some of you are probably already familiar with his recommendations. Jarred edited this article, so if you have some issues with some of the text, you can blame him. However, the component choices (outside of the keyboard/mouse and LCD additions) are all from Zach. We'll look at having Zach update our midrange and high-end guides in the near future, once the dust has settled from Intel's chipset bug.

In the wake of Intel’s Cougar Point platform debacle, and with the impending release of AMD’s new Bulldozer platform, the high-end remains dominated by Intel’s LGA 1366 and, to a lesser extent, 1156 platforms. There's enough confusion going on at the high-end right now that we're going to bypass all that with this guide and focus instead on the budget sector. While there haven't been any massive changes since our last Budget Guide, there are plenty of upgrades and faster components we can now include.

The budget system price range ($500-750) continues to be dominated by AMD platforms closer to the $500 end of the spectrum and Intel at the more expensive end. One particular novelty has emerged in the last few months, however: the advent of increasingly affordable SSDs, which are now within the reach of more frugal system builders. Also, thanks to healthy competition between AMD and NVIDIA (as well as the graphics stagnation of games due largely to console porting), gamers on a budget can afford to buy a graphics card that will play even the most demanding titles on at least medium settings. If you're willing to spend a bit more money, AMD’s Thuban hex-core CPUs are now available for less than $200, giving number crunchers, video encoders, and others with computationally intensive goals incredible power at affordable prices.

This guide details specific components that can be used to assemble a basic, general-use computer based on AMD and Intel processors. Recommended upgrades are then given for both AMD and Intel CPUs, followed by upgrades for both platforms based on specific needs. While each system includes $100 for a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), it’s worth considering that free OSes such as Ubuntu Linux are viable options for many intermediate to advanced computer users.

Keep in mind that component prices fluctuate wildly and often. Retailers often offer very limited time sales. Paying attention for a few days or even weeks can help ensure you get your gear at the lowest prices possible. That said, it’s best to purchase parts in a short period of time. This is mostly so you have the opportunity to return or exchange DOA parts or components that fail shortly after assembly for a quick exchange or refund instead of having to go through the longer manufacturer’s RMA process that will likely lead to getting a refurbished part back. And with that out of the way, let's start with the basic system builds.

Basic System Builds

There's plenty of overlap between our AMD and Intel recommendations these days; the only major differences are in the choice of CPU and motherboard. As such, we're going to start there and then discuss all the common components below.

Base AMD System

AMD Budget System
Component Type	Make & Model	Price	Rebate
CPU	AMD Athlon II X2 250	$61
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-880GM-D2H	$80	($10)
RAM	Patriot 4GB 2x2GB PSD34G1333K	$40	($5)
Hard Drive	Seagate 500GB ST3500418AS	$40
Optical Drive	LG GH24NS50	$17
Power Supply	Antec Earthwatts EA-380D	$40
Case	Antec Three Hundred	$43
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit	$100
Total Base System Cost		$421	($15)
Input	Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse	$15
Display	ASUS VW193DR Black 19" (1440x900)	$110
Complete System Cost		$546	($15)

AMD’s Athlon II X2 line of processors offers exceptional value for budget builders. The 250 model operates at an even 3GHz, and priced at just $61 it's typically a dollar or two more than the 245 model. In terms of real-world performance, the two CPUs are essentially identical, but 3GHz is a tempting psychological mark to acquire. Micro-ATX motherboards featuring the 880G chipset can offer VGA, DVI, and HDMI outputs from the integrated Radeon 4250 onboard graphics. This onboard GPU is more than capable of running Windows 7’s Aero UI and can easily handle 1080p video. It’s also able to run older and lightweight games like World of Warcraft, albeit only at lowered settings. At $70 (with rebate), Gigabyte’s GA-880GM-D2H is an excellent choice for the motherboard. Biostar’s A880G+ is a slightly less expensive alternative. Both offer very similar features and choosing between them is largely a matter of personal preference. For a combined price of $131, the AMD CPU and motherboard offer a lot of bang for the buck.

Base Intel System

Intel Budget System
Component Type	Make & Model	Price	Rebate
CPU	Intel Pentium G6950	$95
Motherboard	MSI H55M-E21	$70	($10)
RAM	Patriot 4GB 2x2GB PSD34G1333K	$40	($5)
Hard Drive	Seagate 500GB ST3500418AS	$40
Optical Drive	LG GH24NS50	$17
Power Supply	Antec Earthwatts EA-380D	$40
Case	Antec Three Hundred	$43
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit	$100
Total Base System Cost		$445	($15)
Input	Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse	$15
Display	ASUS VW193DR Black 19" (1440x900)	$110
Complete System Cost		$570	($15)

The least expensive CPU available for Intel’s LGA 1156 socket is the Pentium G6950 at $95. The MSI H55M-E21 and Biostar TH55B HD motherboards offer nearly identical features, and both are solid choices for a basic Intel build. Intel’s integrated graphics on the G6950 are far superior to Intel’s older motherboard-based integrated graphics, and are competitive with the Radeon 4250 (but note that the G6950 IGP is clocked at a slower 533MHz compared to some of the faster Arrandale chips, so the HD 4250 holds a clear lead unless you go with something like the i5-661).

Here's where we pay the Intel tax: the combined motherboard and CPU cost for our budget Intel platform checks in at $155, $25 more than the AMD system. [Ed: Prices can fluctuate wildly, and earlier in the week the difference in pricing was $50; the review was written from the perspective of a $50 difference, and while we updated the tables we have left most of the text in place. Just be aware that a swing of $25 or more over the course of a week is not unusual.] You could put that money towards a faster CPU, a discrete GPU, a larger/faster HDD/SSD, etc. The other side of the story is that the Intel platform will generally consume 10W less at idle, and the gap can be as large as 40-50W under load; if you leave your system on 24/7, you'll make up the difference in cost with power savings over the course of five years (give or take)—or as little as 1-2 years if you happen to run Folding@Home constantly. Considering what most of us pay for cell phones and broadband Internet, though, there are probably better ways to save money if you need it.

Common Components

As mentioned above, the remaining components are common to both builds. Starting with the memory, DDR3 is as cheap as it’s ever been, with $10/GB without rebate options common. With rebates, it’s possible to pay less than $10/GB – Patriot’s 2x2GB (4GB total) PSD34G1333K is currently $40 shipped with a $5 rebate, for example. With prices that low, there's really no need to consider anything less than 2x2GB RAM; likewise, there's little point in upgrading a budget system to more than 4GB unless you happen to use some applications that will actually benefit.

Hard drives with one platter at 500GB capacity can routinely be found for $40 shipped or less, and the performance differences between the major manufacturer’s mainstream (i.e. non-green, non-high performance) drives are typically only apparent in synthetic benchmarks. Currently, Seagate’s ST3500418AS is only $38 shipped. Optical drives also have very little product differentiation at the budget end, with $20 or less shipped for a DVD burner now commonplace. Patience can yield a dual layer and/or LightScribe DVD burner for less than $20, e.g. LG’s GH24NS50 is available for $17 shipped right now.

Cases are highly subjective, as different aesthetics appeal to different people. Antec’s Three Hundred is regularly available for $60 or less shipped, and right now it’s offered for $43. It features a tri-cool 120mm rear exhaust fan and a tri-cool 140mm top exhaust fan. It also has placements for two front 120mm intake fans. These fans, as well as a good cable management system, make it great for keeping a system running cool. Its downsides are that it has little to no noise dampening and it’s made of steel, so it’s heavy. For a budget build, there's no need for extra fans and the overall quality of the Three Hundred is very good.

Many builders choose the power supply as an area to cut down on total system cost, but don’t buy a cheap PSU! Besides the lower quality and potential problems down the road, efficiency is also worse so you end up paying for cheap PSUs in the long run. Antec offers its 380W Earthwatts model for $50 or less shipped, but it’s often on sale for $40 shipped, and sometimes less with a rebate. It’s 80 Plus certified and as high quality as can be commonly be found for under $50. Corsair’s new Builder Series CX430 is usually a bit cheaper, but does not receive the excellent reviews its predecessors did and is generally regarded as slightly inferior to the Antec Earthwatts 380W, but is nevertheless a viable alternative.

Including the $100 cost of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (OEM version), the basic AMD build checks out at $421 out of pocket with $15 in mail in rebates, and the basic Intel build costs $445 with $15 in mail in rebates. If you already have a keyboard, mouse, and LCD that's all you'll need; otherwise plan on spending around $20 for a keyboard and mouse (we generally prefer the basic Logitech and Microsoft designs, but get whatever you like), and entry-level 19" LCDs start at around $110 shipped (e.g. the ASUS VW193DR). That brings the cost for a complete budget system up to $531 for the AMD build or $555 for the Intel system (after rebates).

Base System Performance Summary

For performance comparisons, we'll turn to AnandTech’s Bench; while the individual components aren't identical to our budget system builds, in most cases the difference is small enough to not matter. Bench doesn't have the AMD Athlon II X2 250, so we've used the 255 for this comparison (the 3.3% clock speed difference is negligible). Here's how the two CPUs compare, again using standardized components—in most cases faster components than what we're using in our budget builds, but we'll discuss some upgrades in a moment.

The two chip makers’ products perform similarly, with the Pentium edging out the Athlon II in more benchmarks than the Athlon II edges the Pentium. However, in terms of real-world general usage, the two systems are similar. The AMD system is about $50 less expensive, and is therefore the recommended build. That said, we can always use the $50 for an upgraded CPU, like the Athlon II X4 640; that results in a system that handily bests the G6950. (Note that Bench doesn’t have the 640, so the 645 is used instead—another marginal 3.3% clock speed difference.) Thus, at just under $500, the quad-core AMD system is strongly recommended. Intel still edges out AMD in power consumption, but $10 or so per year for 24/7 use is hardly worth mentioning—the Intel setup might "pay for itself" in power savings eventually, but you'll probably want to upgrade again before you reach that point.

CPU Upgrades

AMD offers five compelling CPU upgrades to the Athlon II X2 250. The Athlon II X3 435 is only $11 more expensive; for that $11 you gain an extra core, though each core is very slightly slower at 2.9GHz instead of 3GHz. Unless your budget is seriously constrained, or you’re concerned about the slightly greater amount of heat produced (it’s a 95W TDP chip while the X2 250 is a 65W chip), the X3 is an excellent upgrade. As mentioned above, the Athlon II X4 640 is a quad-core processor and $39 more expensive than the X2 250.

Moving into the higher cost/performance realm, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition appeals to overclockers and performs better than the Athlon II X4 640, and is about $80 more than the base system’s X2 250. The least expensive, lowest clocked Black Edition CPU will typically overclock as well as the more expensive options, so there’s no real reason to go above the 955 BE. Finally, AMD offers hex-core CPUs starting at $180 ($120 more than the X2 250). The Phenom II X6 1055T is not unlocked like the Black Edition 1090T, but if you’re not overclocking there’s no reason to spend the extra $20; at stock speeds, they’ll perform very similarly. Thuban CPUs definitely aren't budget parts, so unless you're interested in some serious number crunching (or video encoding, 3D rendering, etc.) we'd draw the line at the 955 BE. Anyway, you can check Bench to see whether any of the above upgrades are worth the extra cost given your needs.

Intel offers only a few CPU upgrades that even remotely qualify for the budget range. At the very bottom is the i3-550 for $130, or there's the slightly faster i3-560 for $150; that's $30 and $50 more than the G6950, respectively. While we don't have either of those i3 models in Bench, you can see that the older i3-540 offers substantially better performance than the G6950. The i3-550 is clocked 4.5% faster than the 540 and the i3-560 is clocked 9% higher, so the gap would be slightly larger than what the Bench link shows. For a 30-50% higher cost the performance gain is nowhere near as large; on the other hand, the 10-20% increase goes well with a 5-10% increase in total system cost.

The other Intel CPU alternative is the i5-760, priced at around $210. That's $110 more expensive than the G6950, but it offers incredible computational power while sipping power relative to the higher-performing AMD CPUs. Of course, you'll also need to add in the cost of a discrete GPU, so you're looking at around $250 minimum for this upgrade. While some of these CPU upgrades are interesting, if you're looking at anything more than a budget Intel setup you're probably better off waiting for the Sandy Bridge chipset bug to get sorted out (which would also remove the need for a discrete GPU).

If you go with the most expensive AMD processor (Phenom II X6 1090T) and the same for Intel (i5-760), you're looking at a total cost of $570 for AMD compared to $581 for Intel. The two processors are pretty evenly matched, with the Intel chip pulling ahead in single core tasks and the 1090T defeating the i5-760 in tasks that can use multiple cores. Note that the i5-760 uses much less juice, so unless you are an incredibly intensive multi-tasker or use mostly multi-threaded applications, the i5-760 would be the better buy (or as mentioned, wait for Sandy Bridge to come back).

GPU Upgrades

Our basic builds use integrated graphics, but if you actually want to play games you'll want something more. In the budget range, there are four excellent offerings, three from AMD (formerly ATI) and one from NVIDIA. For performance data, we'll once more refer to Bench, this time using our GPU 2010 and GPU 2011 suites. The CPUs in GPU Bench are much faster than what we're recommending, but once you start increasing detail levels and resolution you'll usually become GPU limited.

The XFX HD-567X-ZNF3 Radeon HD 5670 1GB is an excellent video card that does not require an additional 6-pin PCIe power connector. It’ll set you back $95, but currently has a $30 mail in rebate. This card is capable of playing all available titles, though newer games will have to be set to lower resolutions and settings. The reigning budget gamers' choice is the Radeon HD 5770, which can play just about every title at high resolution with at least some settings set to high. The HIS H577FK1GD is $130 (plus a $30 rebate), which is an exceptional value. It also runs very cool, especially at idle.

The NVIDIA GTX 460 outperforms the Radeon HD 5770 by a bit, but unfortunately pulls substantially more juice. MSI’s N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC is available for $150 (minus a $20 rebate) and is a compelling product at this price point. Finally, the Radeon HD 5850 represents the top of the budget-conscious builder’s choices. The Diamond 5850PE51G will set you back $185, plus there's a $20 rebate. It's generally faster than the GTX 460, with similar power requirements.

PSU Upgrades

It should be noted that all of the above video cards are compatible with the AMD and Intel platforms, though pairing the 5770, 460GTX, or 5850 with a quad- or hex-core CPU will likely require a beefier power supply than the Earthwatts 380W. The Antec Earthwatts 500W is $50 after rebate (and sometimes less) and is our recommended step up from the Earthwatts 380W. Note that we're linking the old Earthwatts and not the newer EA-500D; you drop from 80 Plus Bronze to just plain 80 Plus, but you also save $25 and it's still a good PSU.

SSD Upgrades

SSDs offer multiple advantages over mechanical hard drives. First and most noticeably, they’re much faster. Everything from load times of both operating systems and applications, to application installations/patches, to level load times in games, to system power consumption is better with an SSD. Unfortunately, they remain expensive and have relatively small capacities. Generally, pairing an SSD with a high capacity storage mechanical disk provides the best of both worlds, though this is not always necessary.

Multiple manufacturers offer appealing SSDs; the two top controllers of late are from SandForce and Intel, though the Crucial C300, Indilinx, and even Toshiba controllers also have merit. The next year will bring us Intel’s third generation SSDs, and second generation parts from SandForce, Crucial, and Indilinx. For now, the Intel G2 drives are widely considered more reliable than non-Intel offerings—though this might simply be due to the tendency of tinkerers and tweakers to go with non-Intel SSDs!

For the budget conscious, the 40GB Intel SSD is a bit less than $100, while the Intel 80GB SSD checks in around $170. Note the 80GB version has substantially higher write speeds, but writes are not nearly as important as reads for an OS/app drive. OCZ’s Vertex 2 line includes SSDs of numerous capacities, with the 60GB model going for $105 after $15 rebate, and the 120GB drive coming in at just $177 (after $30 rebate). Corsair’s Force line also earns praise from users, and like OCZ, their SSDs are available at many capacities under $200, but are typically slightly more expensive than the OCZ drives. The good news is that even the "slow" SSDs are still substantially faster than even the fastest desktop HDDs (outside of the sequential write metric).

Other Storage Upgrades

While 500GB mechanical drives are cheap at $40 (or less), higher capacity drives are available for not much more. Samsung’s Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200RPM can sometimes be found for $60 or less, and is a forum favorite at AnandTech because of its performance. Another option is Hitachi’s 1TB 7200RPM, currently available for a mere $55. The advent of very high density platters for mechanical hard drives has allowed manufacturers to start marketing "green drives", mechanical hard drives that spin at less than the established mainstream 7200RPM but don’t suffer a crippling performance loss. These green drives run cooler and use less electricity than 7200RPM drives and make for great, cheap mass storage solutions. 1TB green drives usually hover around $60 (and can be found on sale for less), with 2TB green drives often available at $80. Whether you go with Seagate, Samsung, or Western Digital is really a matter of personal preference and price. Finally, if you're looking for Blu-ray support, you can swap out the DVDRW and get a BRD combo drive starting at $60—only $40 more than our stock DVDRW.

Upgraded Budget System

While our base system builds check in at under $500 (or $530 to $575 with keyboard, mouse, and LCD), adding in various upgrades can push the final price quite a bit higher. We wouldn't recommend going too high on the Intel side just now (i.e. wait for Sandy Bridge to come back), but you can put together a well-rounded AMD setup for just  $650 (or under $800 with peripherals). If you want a snappy "do everything" system—something that can multitask, play games, and store hundreds of gigabytes of music, movies, and pictures—the following system should have you covered.

AMD Upgraded Budget System
Component Type	Make & Model	Price	Rebate
CPU	AMD Athlon II X4 640	$100
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-880GM-D2H	$80	($10)
GPU	HIS H577FK1GD 5770	$130	($30)
RAM	Patriot 4GB 2x2GB PSD34G1333K	$40	($5)
SSD	Intel 40GB SSD	$95
Hard Drive	Hitachi 1TB 7200RPM	$50
Optical Drive	LG GH24NS50	$17
Power Supply	Antec Earthwatts EA-380D	$40
Case	Antec Three Hundred	$43
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit	$100
Total Base System Cost		$695	($45)
Input	Microsoft Keyboard and Mouse	$15
Display	ASUS VW193DR Black 19" (1440x900)	$110
Complete System Cost		$820	($45)

We've gone with a 40GB SSD for the OS and applications and a 1TB HDD for mass storage. Add to that AMD's quad-core Athlon II X4 640 and a Radeon HD 5770 and you have a setup that can handle just about anything. It won't best the latest and greatest CPUs and GPUs, but it should easily last through several years of college, if that's what you're after—or let grandma and grandpa see all your pictures and videos online. We stayed with the same 380W PSU, but if you're looking at future upgrades and you don't mind paying an extra $10, moving up to the 500W Earthwatts might be a good idea.

Wrap-Up

With DDR3 at about the cheapest it’s ever been, the high end refresh from both Intel and AMD months away, advances on the SSD and HDD fronts, and fierce competition between AMD and NVIDIA, the computer power available to budget users is astonishing right now. Remember to shop around both online and locally. And of course, don’t forget AnandTech’s forums, where you can ask for help and advice with all of your computing needs!