An all-around-capable, kick-ass rig doesn't
need to cost a fortune
There's no such thing as a no-compromises
$600 build. There just isn't. But by balancing things where you can and making
judicious cuts where necessary, you can at least build a modern gaming PC—with
an upgrade path to the future. That means a full quad-core CPU. DirectX 11 GPU,
and a fast hard drive. To paraphrase Han Solo, she may not look like much, but
she's got it where it counts.
CPU
AMD
Phenom LI X4 965 Black Edition
The Phenom II ain't the newest or fastest
CPU on the block, not by a long shot. But it's a cheap, overclockable quad-core
with plenty of bang for the buck. We got it for $100. www.amd.com
Motherboard
Gigabyte
GA-970A-UD3 ATX
It’s not the fanciest or the flashiest, but
it has USB 3.0 and 6Gb/s SATA and supports not just our Phenom II but also FX
CPUs, if we want to upgrade later. It only has one x16 PCIe 2.0 slot, but
that's what you get for $99. www.gigabyte.us
Memory
Patriot
Gamer 2 Series 4 (2x 2GB) DDR3/1600
4GB is really the minimum, and we wish we
could have gone for more, but every penny counts. Two 2GB sticks allow us to
run in dual-channel mode at DDR3/1600 for just $32. www.patriotmemory.com
Case And Power Supply
Rosewill
R218 W/450W PSU
OK, this is definitely a compromise. If we
had our druthers, we'd go for a separate case and PSU, but we don’t have our
druthers. We have about $43. At least it comes with a warranty. We've used this
case/PSU combo before, and nothing bad happened. www.rosewill.com
Graphics
Gigabyte
Radeon HD 6850 1GB
It's slightly more expensive and draws more
power than the modern-gen Radeon HD 7770, but it's also faster. Last
generation's where the deals are. It’s still DX11, and it’s only $138.
www.qiqabyte.us
Hard Drive
Seagate
Barracuda 1TB 7.200RPM
In a $600 budget build, you only get one
hard drive and no SSD. It needs to be fast and capacious. This Barracuda is
both, and it's only $85. www.seaqate.com
Optical Drive
LITE-ON
IHAS124-04 DVD/CD WRITER
It's a DVD burner. It’s $18. If you’re on a
budget, you can’t go without an optical drive, www.lite-on.com
OS
Microsoft
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit)
We could have cheaped out and recommended
Windows 8 Consumer Preview for free, but that's a bit like cheating. $100,
www.microsoft.com
Total Price: $615
At this price point, we’re going without
many of the things we love best about custom PCs—no SSD, no aftermarket cooler,
no cool case—but what we have is a desktop PC that will handle modern games and
programs, will accept upgrades with ease, and doesn’t break the bank. It’s far
slower than our zero-point, but that machine is built on a six-core Sandy
Bridge-E CPU with a $1,000 GPU and is designed to compete with $3,000 rigs.
Even with a Radeon HD 6850, our Cheapskate PC puts out nearly playable frame
rates in Ark ham City at 2560x1600 with all settings maxed. It’s more than
enough to run on high settings on a smaller screen. As for the CPU-bound
encoding tests, the Cheapskate’s Phenom II doesn’t keep up, but for a gaming
machine it’s fine.
There's plenty of room to upgrade, too. The
AM3+ motherboard will take a Bulldozer CPU like the FX-8150 and the upcoming
"Vishera" FX chips, when they appear. You can easily put another 8GB
(or more) of RAM alongside the existing 4GB. The motherboard's second physical
x 16 PCIe slot runs at 4x, so CrossFire builds will be compromised, but you
could update to a newer single-GPU setup down the line. An SSD would speed up
boot and load times, and a more powerful PSU will allow more drives and a more
power-hungry CPU and GPU.
