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.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
Yup - corrected.autoboy - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I just want to mention that the Antec NSK2400 is a good, cheaper alternative to the Silverstone lc-17 and seaconic combo you introduced in your HTPC section. The budget boards you mentioned are all mATX (non upgraded) so they would fit in the NSK2400. It comes with a high quality, quiet 380W power supply and 2 120mm fans. It makes a good budget HTPC. The Silverston lc-17 is a great case but belongs in the Midrange buyers guide.All you need for a budget HTPC is a good quiet case/psu (nsk2400), a single core AMD cpu (Sempron 2600+ if you are really cheap, otherwise a A64 3000+ or 3200+), and a 6150 motherboard. (plus ram, DVD and harddrive of course)
For the upgraded configuration you can add a X2 3800+ so you can transcode, and a 7600GS for a little game action and a few more check marks on the purevideo features list. If you don't like to game on your TV, a 7300GS has the same purevideo features as the 7600GS but costs a little less.
Lets keep the midrange guide seperate from the budget crowd.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
Comment added - definitely a good choice, and I'm not sure why that never showed up in my searches at Newegg and other places. I know I was trying to keep the price closer to $100 for an HTPC case, but I kept getting nMEDIA as the only really inexpensive options.HGC - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I always enjoy these guides and get good ideas from them.One change that's worked for me is to spring for a better case and powersupply even in a budget system, so that they will be usable for the next upgrade in 2-3 years. For example, I bought an Antec case for $60-70 a few years ago and did not want to change it when I recently upgraded. I don't think too many build-it-yourselfers would be happy with a generic case and cheap power supply year after year, even if they held up.
Suggestion: add silent PC to the the rotation.
Thanks guys. I look forward to the next guide.
rdh - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
"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"Wrong. Fry's has been selling boxed C2D 6300 and an ECS MB for $179 since the end of September. I know because I have one. Moved over my disks, AGP graphics, and DDR SDRAM and the system runs quite nicely. Basically, they throw in a MB for free. So if you already have a good AGP adapter (the board does have onboard video) with DDR SDRAM (the ECS MB also takes DDR2), your budget upgrade is $180. You can complete your move to a new MB, PCIe and DDR2 at your leisure.
vailr - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I agree on the idea of re-using existing DDR memory and AGP video card. The Fry's combo ECS board & E6300 deal is pretty good. Or, an ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board & E6300 CPU might be a little better quality. Unfortunately, there aren't any "good overclocking" boards for the E6300 CPU, that also allow re-using DDR memory and AGP video cards.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
As I've said in other posts, upgrading is a completely different subject from buying a complete system. If you want to get the Fry's combo, it's not bad, but then you're stuck without a PCIe X16 slot for the future. As I don't expect ATI or NVIDIA to bother with AGP cards anymore, it's a fine board for a base Core 2 Duo platform but it won't overclock much (if at all). You'd almost be better off buying the combo just to get the CPU for $15 less.Also, we don't bother quoting prices from short-term bargains, as they come and go while the guides stick around for a few months. If you can find a much better deal than the prices we quote, go for it, but if it's a 1-day-only affair it won't make it into the buyer's guide. That's what the comments section is for, of course. :)
For those that are interested, here's the http://www.netaffilia.com/ad/electronics/frys/i/20...">Fry's ECS C2D combo information. When it expires, Fry's may or may not renew the offer or come out with something similar. Cheers!
MiroTheHero - Thursday, October 26, 2006 - link
Fry's has the deal for $169. I bought the combo and put it together a week ago /it was 179 then/ using my old parts - AGP card, memory, etc. Works perfect, stable at clock speed , no any problem. It has SATA , RAID, USB 2.0 , Ethernet. The mobo has pretty good layout too.bzo - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I unfortunately bought this board a few months ago and have regretted it. Overclocking support is almost non-existant because there is no option to change the HTT multiplier. You'll be lucky to overclock 5%. Memory voltage only goes to 1.9V, so most DDR2-800 memory will not work. In addition, with the current BIOS, the board is very picky about memory regardless of the speed.The best MATX AM2 board right now seems to be the Abit NF-M2. Has all the features of the M2NPV-VM plus has all the BIOS tweaks of a full ATX board.
autoboy - Wednesday, October 25, 2006 - link
I second that. I have heard nothing but problems with this line of boards from asus. Poor overclocking and very poor memory support. I don't personally have this board but I have the 939 version and it sits in my closet. It never worked right with any of my memory from any of my 5 computuers, the usb never worked right, and overclocking was non existant due to the memory voltage limit. There are better options.