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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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.