System Buyers' Guide: PCs for Under $1000
by Sean Hollister on February 12, 2010 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... it was a fantastic time to build a new PC. Last spring, with DDR2 memory prices in the toilet and budget Micro-ATX motherboards around every corner, we showed you how to piece together a quality dual-core PC for under $550—peripherals, monitor and operating system included. Then, we took the next logical step, and for the first time in Buyers' Guide history, we told you how to build a rig with no compromises—a fast chip, an overclockable motherboard, a 1080p LCD screen and even a gaming-quality graphics card—for just $300 more.
Needless to say, much has changed in the nine months since our last budget Buyers' Guide. Memory prices have risen drastically: the same exact 4GB of DDR2-800 we purchased for $27 last May would cost you $85 today. Intel has launched a series of exciting new 32nm processors—the Core i3 series in particular poised to offer serious value for mainstream computing—but at $125, they're too pricy for our budget box (though you'll find one in our mainstream config—see page 4). Windows 7 has completely supplanted Vista as the OS of choice for new PC builders and appears in all our suggested configurations, but even it comes at a $5 premium. And a number of the bang-for-the-buck parts we chose last year have been discontinued without a ready successor.
In short, it seems clear that you'll need to shell out a few more dollars if you want a new computer to match the high standards we set last year. But not all has changed for the worse. Even as DDR2 costs rise, quality DDR3 modules are close to finding price parity with their slower brethren. Motherboard and monitor features that once fetched a premium are also coming within reach of regular buyers. And if you shop around these days, you can often find free shipping on many if not all components. So if you do have the extra money to spare, we assure you that this edition of the System Buyers' Guide will afford you and yours more PC per penny than you've ever gotten before.
This guide continues the tradition of cordoning off the common components you may already own in a separate section of our pricing chart, allowing you to quickly and easily find the cost of a basic box without optional speakers, I/O, display or operating system, in addition to the total for a complete system with all required peripherals included. But now, by popular demand, we've separated mail-in rebates and added estimated shipping costs within the continental United States as well. With this measure in place, discerning buyers can find the true out-of-pocket cost of any of our suggested builds without having to consult a virtual shopping cart (except for taxes—you're on your own there).
If you're looking for an inexpensive yet dependable machine for a friend, relative, significant other or even yourself, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than our AMD Entry-level PC on page 2. Shipped to your doorstep for $717 before tax, it is filled with tried-and-true components centered around a tri-core Athlon II processor, 4GB of quality DDR3 memory and a motherboard equipped with the favored AMD 785G/SB710 chipset. If you'd prefer to go the Intel route, you'll find a similarly priced LGA 775 system on page 3; but be warned that that our Intel box doesn't offer quite the value of its AMD counterpart.
No, true Intel aficionados would do far better to check out our Intel Mainstream PC on page 4. Equipped with a new Intel Core i3 processor and the best H55 motherboard we've yet gotten our hands on, it comes with a bang-for-the-buck 1080p LCD monitor and a graphics card capable of driving both it and most any game you'd want to display for under $950 before tax. Of course, at that price point, AMD offers some stiff competition. On page 5, you'll find a similarly equipped AMD Mainstream PC sporting the Phenom II X3 720 Heka Black Edition, a 2.8GHz tri-core chip with an unlocked multiplier and, if you're lucky, an unlockable fourth core as well.
We realize that value comes at a price and that you often get what you pay for when it comes to computer components—but having shopped around, we also believe that any PC user would be happy with the value they receive from our suggested budget and mainstream configurations. That said, we don't want to make you think that these PCs are "one size fits all." They can each be upgraded and customized to match your tastes and computing style, and on page 6 we'll look at some of the inexpensive ways you can personalize your PC buying experience.
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jstall - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link
While I have no problems with Dell LCD monitors (some great buys and I own 2) I would never again purchase a Dell system. Poor build quality, poor components and limited life. I would rather take the extra time and effort to build a system knowing the parts were carefully chosen/thought out and well put together.
Just because it's a budget system doesn't mean you can't think and act like it's a high end system when you put it together. After all, this may be someone else's high end system when it's built.
StormyParis - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Thanks for yet another very nice write up. I use them regularly when recommending or buying PCs.A few suggestions:
1- the perfomance graphs are very nice. Could you possibly
1a- generalize them, so that we can see how much the extra money spent going from "entry" to "mainstream" buys us, performance-wise ?
1b- indeed, include your past recommended configs, so that we can judge if upgrading is worth it.
1c- format the graphs as indexes, I got a headache mentally flipping half of the bars.
1d- to make up for all that extra work, methinks you could get rid of a handful of benches, and just keep 1 each of: boot+launch apps, DX9 game, DX10 game, video encode, office work.
2- You seem in love with Asus MBs. I've given up on them after a couple of dead MBs, and very bad service. My retailer told me that the issue was frequent, on top of that. I do like Asus's screens a lot though, much better build than most others.
3- It would be nice to have upgrade suggestions, as in "how to best spend an extra 10%"
4- Maybe you could list the peripherals (screen, kb+mouse, printer...) separately ?
Anywyay, those are minor remarks. Thanks and congrats on a job well done.
Olivier
JarredWalton - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Thanks for the feedback.Are you referring to ASUS or ASRock? We've got one ASUS, two ASRock (a split off from ASUS back in the day, but I'm sure we can all agree that they're not the same sort of company, given the sometimes quirky nature of ASRock board layouts), and one Gigabyte. So one of four is hardly too many ASUS boards.
All manufacturers have some poor products, and most of these recommendations are made with input from our other editors. The ASRock H55 board for example is the best current bang-for-the-buck that Raja has tested. General statements about ASUS quality (or any other brand) being good or bad don't help unless you've had actual experience with the recommended board.
For upgrades, we've got page six... though I suppose we didn't specifically address the 10% extra? Separating out peripherals is something we will likely do in future guides.
GeorgeH - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Overall the article was well done, but there’s a lot of room for improvement in its organization.The RAM, HDD, Case, PSU, KB/Mouse, and OS are common to all builds, so it would have been good to do a first page breaking out and detailing all of those items, and to only list them once. The following page could then have been dedicated solely to unique Entry-Level components, and the one following that to unique Mainstream components (although if there were room, both Entry-Level and Mainstream on the same page would be even better.) Also slightly better highlighting (perhaps a different color or slightly larger font) of the most important totals would help immensely.
As it stands right now, it’s very difficult to get a sense of the differences between the builds without lots of clicking back and forth and/or the opening of multiple windows, meaning a lot of the (very good) information you have to offer here just gets lost in the work of trying to sift it out.
BelardA - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Yep... the now discontinued X2 550 (and X3 720BE) is defaulted at 3.1ghz. With air and no voltage changes... it runs like a champ with all 4 cores running and 3.4ghz. Some are hitting 3.6~3.8 without raising the voltage on the x2 550.X2 555 = 3.2ghz default clock. About $10~15 more in price.
These CPUs are usually faster for day to day operations over the X3... getting the other 2 cores up and running is a big plus.
Gigabyte boards have the BIOS setting for this... takes seconds to do.
AznBoi36 - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
For a HTPC case, check out the Moneual Labs MonCaso 312 HTPC case.http://moneual.cafe24.com/english/sub02/sub6.htm">http://moneual.cafe24.com/english/sub02/sub6.htm
It's a beauty.
jstall - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Nicely done and welcome, I think we often forget that some of the systems we build are not mainstream. I may even put together the budget AMD system in the next month or two.
Thanks for a well thought out article.
JarredWalton - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Congrats to Sean on his pilot article for AnandTech!Just FYI, if you try to send him an email, you'll notice that it goes to me instead. I'll forward the email messages on to him short term, because we don't want to overwhelm Sean's real email with hundreds of spam messages.(After heavy filtering, I still get at least 10-15 spam messages per day... and when we switched filtering a few years back and didn't have anything for a day or two, there were 2000+ messages in just one day. Ouch!) Update: We're going to see how Gmail does at filtering spam now, per Sean's request. So now you can flame him without me filtering anything. ;-)Anyway, long story short, you can either email Sean through me, or you can leave him a comment down here and we all get to see it. So welcome aboard, Sean, and good job with your first article.
coolhardware - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
Very nice article Sean!I always enjoy seeing Anandtech put their expertise to use in creating some nice builds :-).
I was a bit worried that the entry level AMD system I put together a couple of weeks ago, http://bit.ly/b6GF9W">http://bit.ly/b6GF9W was already going to be obsolete ;-). It looks like it is holding its own though. That system was inspired by Anand's Phenom II X2 unlocking article. Any tweak/tips from other readers are greatly appreciated.
Please keep up the great work guys!
Rampage1 - Friday, February 12, 2010 - link
I'm not sure why most hardware sites segregate their reviews for processors
AMD processors
Intel processors
why not just processors?
and specify price/performance etc