February PC Fabrication!

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By Vito Cassisi
Feb 11, 2009 | 11 Comments
Tags: PC | system | building

Budget Box: <$1000

For those with a small budget, and a hunger for modern performance.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz - $290

RAM: 4GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM - $62

HDD: Western Digital 640GB - $105

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L - $164

GPU: MSI 512MB HD4850 - $237

Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-216BK 20x - $30

Case/PSU: Antec NSK6580 - $82

Total: $970

This system integrates one of the best CPUs of last generation with cheap yet grunty performance components such as a MSI 4850 and 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM. The GPU is capable of playing most modern games at comfortable frames per second (FPS), even on high settings. Storage capacity and speed is great, sporting one of the best value drives on the market - the WD 640GB. These drives have a high platter density which equates to faster seek time, and overall improved transfer performance. The motherboard utilises the popular Intel P45 chipset. This motherboard, when combined with the E8500, is capable of being overclocked to speeds in excess of 4GHz with a decent air cooler. At those clocks, it gives the Core i7 CPUs a run for their money on single threaded applications. Not too shabby for such a low cost solution.

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11 Comments

Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.

nizmow Feb 11, 2009 1:39 PM	I love roundups like this. Perhaps you should make it a monthly thing? Maybe even quarterly would be frequent enough.
orcone Feb 11, 2009 1:42 PM	This will come in handy. Allow me to enter whoever wrote this plz.
kikz Feb 11, 2009 1:56 PM	nice. except the prices is misleading. sure, I understand not everyone runs windows, but most do...
Argotha Feb 11, 2009 5:18 PM	I'll second Nizmow
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Feb 11, 2009 7:13 PM	Thanks for the feedback. :) kikz, I considered adding in the OS but decided not to. As you said, some people use Linux, others Vista, XP or even the Windows 7 beta (to name a few). It's personal preference much like peripherals. A couple of those systems are a fair amount under their given price limit, so the extra money can go towards the OS; i.e. the <$2000 and <$3000 builds. Since the prices were an average of the top ten StaticICE search results, there's no reason why you couldn't get the systems even cheaper. I hope that clarifies things. :)
pb111 Feb 11, 2009 8:17 PM	Just thought i'd suggest, maybe in the 3000 and up systems, could also put it say, some decent water cooling systems / parts, as im sure people with that kinda system would use that kind of cooling, or even add in the Coolermaster V10 into the last bit! Overall, great work!!
c0nc0n Feb 11, 2009 8:26 PM	All systems above 1500 are missing aftermarket cooling :(
.:Cyb3rGlitch:. Feb 11, 2009 9:04 PM	The extra cooling is on the last page c0nc0n. The selected cases should cope well with stock clock speeds.
azn_warez Feb 12, 2009 1:56 PM	You know what's funny. The latest edition of atomic had really low prices as compared to market value... wonder if that's because it was written a while back? I think they had a 2 x 2gb team-xtreem dark ram DDR2 1066 listed at $60+
Loops Feb 17, 2009 12:38 PM	On the 'budget beast' if you went for a SonataIII you get the earthwatts 500W supply included and save enough to buy a good cpu cooler.
Rory K Apr 22, 2009 2:43 PM	Pfft. I can make a better system than the $7000 one. By using, for example, 2000MHz CL8 RAM.

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Atomic Magazine

Issue: 111 | April, 2010

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